Work starts on 'minus 2' road
‘Minus 1’ road is the siding nearest to Horsted Keynes Platform 1. This was relaid prior to the Rail 200 exhibition. However, due to shortage of suitable rail at the time, the siding was shorter than required and also had a short panel of Brighton standard 96lb bullhead rail whereas the rest of the siding was the standard 95lb. With more rail available (as discussed below), the 96lb panel was replaced and another added. The result can be seen in the image below although the ballast is still to be applied.
‘Minus 2’ road (obviously the siding adjacent to ‘minus 1’ road) is in need of replacement as the sleepers are in poor condition. The siding is to be relaid using concrete bullhead sleepers recovered a few weeks ago from the Ketches relay and 95lb bullhead recovered from the late 2025 Black Hut relay. Note that the rail from Ketches is old 96lb Brighton bullhead and the wooden sleepers from the Black Hut relay are mostly scrap although better ones have been reserved to provide a stock to replace sleepers on the running line as required.
At the time of writing this, the track in ‘Minus 2’ road is being removed. The image below shows the rail cutter. The powerful hydraulic cutters snip the rails in seconds. The scrap rail needs to be in 15 ft sections for easy transportation. The money recovered from the scrap value of the metalwork will go towards ballast (the mountain of ballast donated by HS2 has already been used up).
 
Left: ‘Minus 1’ road completed except for ballast
Right: The rail cutter. The cutter is only used when scrapping rail, it gives a very rough edge as can be seen on the far rail.
Images: Bruce Healey
