As the Walt Disney World Railroad approaches 1,000 days of closure, we wanted to check up on the attraction and take a look at the latest progress. Thankfully, Disney World has been taking advantage of the downtime to perform some work on the railroad track. As you can see in the photos below, Disney has replaced traditional wooden railroad ties with a synthetic tie. This synthetic tie should perform better than traditional wooden ties as Disney World looks towards the next 50 years.

Disney has replaced all of the track around the perimeter of Magic Kingdom with the exception of one area – the TRON Lightcycle Run construction site. As of publish time, work on the railroad is paused as crews continue to work on the TRON Lightcyle Run canopy.

As you can see in the latest concept art below, Disney will build a tunnel for the Walt Disney World Railroad to pass under the TRON Lightcycle Run canopy and guest walkways.

Here’s a look at the latest work for the railroad, which ends at the Fantasyland/Storybook Circus station.

You can see that more ties are staged near the TRON Lightcycle Run construction site, but work is on hold until more progress is made on TRON.

It is very unlikely that the Walt Disney World Railroad will reopen in time for the Walt Disney World 50th Anniversary on October 1. Instead, Disney will likely open the TRON Lightcycle Run and Walt Disney World Railroad in 2022 as part of a subsequent “season” of the 18-month anniversary celebration.

As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!