Apologies for the lack of blog yesterday. However, we have a little more to share today.

Tuesday began by lining the track on the up side of the crossing, it’s been at bit odd for some time and was the perfect excuse to correct it.

We replaced an additional 10 sleepers either side of the crossing, to reduce the total amount needing attention during the crossing works.

However as we still had Wednesday’s (today’s) trains to content with, it had to be trafficable.

The result was a noticeable dip through the crossing, but it was still quite within scope to permit normal train running.

And just to prove it, we were on hand for today’s last movement through the old crossing.

Once the train was clear and we’d received the track back, we began preliminary destruction!

The approaches have been lifted and where possible the old fouled ballast scraped aside, we’ve also reprofiled the surrounds to ensure drainage.

As expected the road bed is good, tidy and rick solid, so we won’t be disturbing that any more than we have to now.

Tomorrow’s road closure starts at 7am, and we’ll be on site around the same time, ready to pull apart the crossing and begin digging to depth. Join us tomorrow to see how it’s done!

We decided to be ambitious today and installed an additional 40 concretes, taking this week’s total up to 160. Which keeps us on par with our usual 80 per day average.

It’s not a massive dint on this straight. However, on top of the already completed length, it’s certainly now a significant amount.

We managed to install the 20 from yesterday, the additional 40, sort, bundle and strap all the timber sleepers, tidy up any left overs, jack and pack the dips as well as pack all the tools away before the rains arrived around 3pm. We’re pretty happy with our efforts.

All being well we’ll be back here in a fortnight, next week we’ll be rebuilding the Woodlocks Lane level crossing.

It turns out that we haven’t lost our touch, we very comfortably installed 100 concrete sleepers today, on the up side of the old tip crossing.

The day didn’t begin well, with the digger throwing a tantrum as a result of it raining, however once we drained the water from the lead going to the effected solenoid, it all went like a charm.

It was noting revolutionary or exciting, however it 100 less that need replacing now.

The top of the hill still seems a fair way off, however it’s certainly seeming like a smaller gap to fill now!

In other good news, we’ve been working with the local council and we’ve managed to lock in 2 level crossing renewals in the immediate future.

Woodlocks Lane will be next Thursday and Friday, details will be posted  next week.

Sawmill Road will be on Thursday 12th and Friday 13th September. This will be a big milestone, marking the end of the re-railing project!

Tomorrow’s crew will be continuing on with sleepers, we’ve still got 20 to install to complete the current job, all going well we might be able to attempt a further 40 sleepers before we begin the task of tidying up the old timber etc… meeting out on site (old tip xing) from 8am.

Tomorrow’s workday will be a little different, with the focus being on moving rails and sleepers around for two imminent level crossing rebuilds.

The gang truck will be leaving Maldon at 8am, otherwise we’ll be meeting at Muckleford from 8.30am.

Friday’s workday was quite successful, with many small but essential jobs ticked off in the resleepering preparations. The plan this week is further preparations / works trains tomorrow, resleepering Thursday and Friday.