In a slight change of plans, Will’s currently out of action with a touch of the Covid, but the gang managed very successfully without him, achieving the installation of 6 x 55m 94lb rails or 330m. (One of the rails may have only been a 42m rail, but either way it’s still a good effort)

Although things were a little slower, the gang is now well practised in the art of re-railing, so the progress was still impressive.

In this section the concrete sleeper count is well over 1 in 3, so regardless of the timber sleepers not being fastened up straight away, the gauge holding is excellent.

The last 2 rails still need clipping up tomorrow and the gang size tomorrow will determine how many more lengths will be installed.

The 6 rails mark half way along the straight. Its unlikely that’ll be completed tomorrow, but it’s very likely that’ll be completed on Tuesday next week.

Tomorrow’s gang will meet at Maldon from 7.45am or on site from 8.15am.

As predicted, a good sized gang was on hand today and we comfortably installed the last 5 lengths of 94lb rail in the UP leg of the straight. Another 275m of rail.

Between us we all managed to forget to take photos of the actual work, but plenty of the finished product.

Today’s progress is a good indication that we should be able to install all 12 lengths required to complete the Down leg on Thursday and Friday this week. On Thursday we’ll meet at Maldon at 7.45am or on site – Farmers Bridge – from 8.15am, there’s little to no need to meet at Maldon unless you’d like a lift to site.

Today saw excellent progress made with 385m of 94lb rail installed.

The day started off extremely picturesquely, only just above freezing temperature but still very pleasant.

Before long we’d flicked out the 60lb that had been unfastened yesterday and dropped in the 94lb.

Given it was looking like we were in for a very early finish, we decided we could successful achieve another 3 x 55m lengths of 94lb (making a total of 7 lengths over the two days), which given our relatively small crews on both days is an excellent effort.

There’s only 5 more lengths of 94lb to install in the UP leg and we’ll be at the curve, then we’ll jump over to the Down leg and head for the curve again.

If numbers are good on Tuesday, there’s no reason we won’t complete the 5 lengths in the UP leg. Meeting Maldon 8am or out on site from 8.30am.

With a good number of other projects now out of the way, we’re head long back into rerailing.

Given the very systematic nature of the task, we spent the morning preparing as much as we could up to the straight, with our aim being to get this completed over the coming weeks. We began by removing fishplates and lubricating the joints.

We then set about correcting a slight rail joint location anomaly, where all the joints were going to fall on top of a concrete sleeper, a sort length of the existing rail was removed and to keep the digger able to pass over, the holes were drilled first to save time.

We’ve distributed clips and equipment as required along the job to reduce the instances of double handling etc.

After lunch we were ready to begin unfastening the 60lb and getting the 94lb in.

As yet we’ve only bolted up the first 55m length of 94lb and slewed it into position, ready for tomorrow’s crew to clip up while the next lengths are installed.

And just because we could, we decided to back the truck into an old pile of fencing wire so we could spend several moments thoroughly enthralled in a detangling effort! No damage done however.

Tomorrow’s crew will be meeting on site near Farmers Bridge from 8.15am. Where hopefully we’ll get a good few lengths of rail installed.