Last push at Didbrook.

Friday, round and about.

A small team of 4. David set off in the Telehandler for Didbrook, to help contractor Kevin add some of the better ballast to the newly relaid track, to enable further levelling.

 

 

 

Paul, Nigel and Yours Truly tackled what was thought to be a 'quickie', but which took rather longer: lower the two troughs opposite Winchcombe SB, so that the lids don't touch the rails.

You may recall a recently resleepered panel here, when the troughs were already noted as being too high. 

As the cables inside them were thick and stiff, moving the troughs was rather difficult. After some head scratching we appealed to nearby FoWS for some gardening hand tools, and armed with a little rake and a trowel, we scraped ballast and compacted ash from under each trough.

 

Once one trough could be rotated out of its bed, the latter could be scraped out, and an adjacent trough pulled into the lower position. The process was then reversed.

In this way we achieved the asked for 1 inch headroom under the rails. It took us all morning.

During a trip to Toddington we came across the Broadway spoil train, which was just arriving in the yard.

Then it was on to Didbrook to deliver supplies, and check out how Kevin and David were doing. 

Paul and contractor Kevin discuss progress.

A lot of the ballast removed here is still good for bottom ballast, so we have been putting it back, prior to adding expensive new ballast to the top.

Picture by David.

 

 

 

 

Here's a (bit of a slanted) view of the situation at the end of Friday.

The relay is looking pretty straight and level now, although it needs more packing at the southern end.

Next will be a ballast drop, followed by tamping.

Looking back a few years, to the same place:

A wagon loaded with track panels, recently lifted from Quedgley, has been pushed to the end of the line. The first shuttle services from Toddington were terminating at Didbrook, just out of sight.

 Pictures by John Lees, of the PWay gang

The panels were lifted off the wagon by a crawler crane, and laid directly.

Those with sharp eyes will see that these panels are fitted with the wartime economy sleepers, which we have now all replaced, over two seasons.

The date is 18.08.1984.

 

Just a general enquiry now, out of interest.

 

 

 

 

We use a Lister generator on the PWay, and we wondered if anyone could say any more about it?

We have had it for a long time, possibly since the start (1980s). It still works fine. Just use the two decompression levers (on top) and crank the axle (centre right) and off it goes. It's a two cylinder diesel model.

 

 

 

 

This is the works plate. There is no date of manufacture.

Can that be determined from the number?

 

 

 

 

Monday, a ballast train at Didbrook.

Now that the track is back in place and roughly aligned we are able to add fresh ballast, ready for tamping.

 

 

 

Three of us dropped the first load of ballast at Didbrook on Monday.

First, we shunted the mess coach and vans back to Toddington, then went to pick up the ballast train from the Parlour Road. 

The DOGFISH were expertly loaded, another compliment for our contractor Kevin. You couldn't get another stone in. And it was his first time too!

Here we are, coupling up to the wagons. Would they hold the vacuum?

Hmmmm... mostly. There's a leak on a hose somewhere.

Once arrived at Didbrook 2 we discussed the plan. The first job was to walk the track and check for any obstructions. What would the plough blade do to any welds not yet ground down? In fact the blade is fitted with little skid pads underneath, which are designed to ride out any rough patches like that, so no worries.

And there it goes. It's always a magnificent, satisfying sight, that stream of ballast being heaved out of the four foot and into the cess.

There's a video of it here:

  https://youtu.be/s2-pmHAEuwI

 

 

We did 2 wagons, then the other two. In between there was a minute for a snapshot.

 

 

 

 

And this was the result. Doesn't it look good? Almost ready to run on. But first the tamper has to do its job. That's coming later in the week.

 

 

 

After the drop we reversed back to Toddington, giving this view from above. It was bitterly cold, despite the sun. The crew of the shunter taking the clay wagons back from Broadway already mentioned how cold it was as they went along, and now we could feel for ourselves why they said that.

 

 

 

Passing through the Toddington North cutting, we saw the results of the slip stabilisation works done there last year. Drainage was clearly important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further along we approached Stanway viaduct.

This all looks very neat and professional, with the waterproofing done, track reinstated and parapets stabilised.

 

 

 

A close up shows how the parapets were stabilised, with stainless steel guy ropes attached to wall brackets. These offer the opportunity for individual memorial plaques, and the blue squares show the ones that have been taken up. This raises funds for the viaduct repairs that are still due, to rectify the damage done to the brickworks by the water that used to leak through. That's going to be a much larger bill.

If you want to help with a plaque, here is the link:

 https://www.gwsr.com/support-us/stanway-viaduct-commemorative-plaques

 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Another bitterly cold day today, exacerbated by a nasty wind and a sneaky mizzle, which made you wet without you noticing it.

 

 

 

 

The first job of the day was before we even got to work - it was to open up the gates to the yard at Stanton. More ballast was arriving, in 30 tonne loads. Big stuff. 

Then it was on to the Usketeers at Winchcombe, who also had arrivals, but of a more modest scale.

Here is Dave, with a barrow of sand for the new floor.

We had a planning session first thing, to decide on the floor level we wanted to agree on. The DPM will wrap round the new floor, and up the sides beyond it. 

It struck us that the inside of the weighbridge hut was already less damp than last week, as evidenced by far less moisture on the windows inside. On the other hand, the underside of the DPM, when turned up, was soaking wet. So the damp is definitely rising up from the old floor, provoked by the higher ground now outside the building.

 

 

 

Here is what the first barrow loads of sand looked like in the corner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bricks for the floor are stacked outside. On further examination they are all surrounded by very hard mortar, probably poured into the cracks when this (second) floor was laid. It has to come off though, before we use the bricks again.

 

Lunch was taken inside the weighbridge hut, with the mizzle continuing outside.

The Usketeers were delighted when lunchtime was announced...

 

 

 

 

 

After lunch we started on relaying the actual floor. You can see how it fits inside the protective Damp Proof Membrane.

 

 

 

 

 

We forgot the end of the day shot, but it was a bit further than this. Paul was laying the bricks as fast as we could clean them, and at the close of play on Wednesday we were about a third of the way there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A little bit of news on the Winchcombe entrance canopy - two members of C&M were taking down some of the end of canopy woodwork, so that it could be extended.

Before re-erecting the canopy brackets, we are waiting for the fixing holes to be drilled into the new castings.

 

 

 

 

 

Also at Winchcombe, something negatively affecting our aim to be a 'living railway museum'.

Sadly, it's another example of operational needs/wishes pushing aside our desire to be the 'Best heritage railway in the country' ( a director quote from a shareholder meeting). The undisguised plastic meter and junction boxes have now been joined by a gas store and new electrical terminals in the middle of the lawn, which itself has been part urbanised with concrete paving and pub type picnic tables.

We are not singing from the same hymn sheet.

 

 

 

More work between Didbrook 2 and Hayles Abbey Halt.

 

 

 

The welders completed the welding of every other rail joint 

Here they are grinding down the excess weld material, and giving us a perfectly smooth ride, with no jolting dipped joints.

Every other joint will still be fishplated, but with cropped ends, also to give a ride without bumps (and cracked fishplates). 

 

On Wednesday the gang freed off the ends of the sleepers, after Monday's ballast drop.

This is necessary, so that the tamper operator can see the sleepers he is supposed to lift. 

And the tamper has arrived! It's an old friend, Bob and Rick do all of our tamping on this venerable machine.

In the picture is a PWay briefing about the job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, during Wednesday a tractor-trailer was hired in to remove the spent ballast.

 

 

 

 

Here it is removing one of the piles. The spent ballast was taken to Winchcombe. We have several ideas for what to do with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We also still need to remove the piled up 'wartime economy' sleepers.

These will be stored at Toddington, but not for long, as we have plans to re-sleeper 'siding 2', and they are ideal for that.

 

 

 Finally the 'cube' was taken off site and to Toddington.

The trackbed is ready for Bob and Rick, with their tamper.

We have one more job to do for the welder, and that is to weld in an insulated joint at Gotherington Skew, in place of a fishplated insulated joint, which was giving us trouble on that curve there.

That is for next week.

 

 

Big push at Didbrook.

A Friday special at Hayles.

Four of us out on Friday, to get a bit more of the relay done. We are under time pressure, with services due in less than a month, and some stock movements before that. We need to get the track back in, roughly levelled, ballasted, welded and tamped.

 

It's particularly at the southern end where more work needs to be done. The join between the relay and the existing track is not yet done, and we intend to cut and shut another couple of panels beyond that.

 

 

David was very busy drilling holes...

... while the others lifted the track just before the join, to make it level.

Kevin our contractor and digger driver made himself useful by dropping spent ballast in the cribs, and this we then shovelled underneath. The 360 has a rotating bucket, something we don't see every day, but it was jolly useful here.

David also cut the ends off the last panel, while...

... Paul supervised from a distance.

We had a rail with squats in it here, so to deal with that, as well as close the gap in the panels, resulting from all the bits we cut off, a small supply of nearly new second hand rails was brought up.

Monday at Broadway.

No progress possible with the building, due to the cold weather. The night time temperature has been below the minimum of 3 degrees for a week now, and more, similar weather is forecast.

 

 

We went to the local hardware shop (Cotswolds, in Broadway, highly recommended) and they were very kind to cut us three new glass panes for the accidental damage to one of the canopy lanterns with the flashing 'safety' light on top of the dumper. When parking up underneath the canopy, we remembered the height of the roll over cage, but the additional height from the light was out of sight. Shit happens.

 

 

Monday was pretty evil weather really, constant rain all day, so we spent it in the mess room and continued with the fill-in job of cleaning up the woodwork on the MR bench. The whole bench was coloured so dark brown that it was almost black. Comparison with the similar bench at Winchcombe revealed that the latter had a lighter varnished frame, so this is what we are going for here.

This one was overhauled at Wolverton, and varnished very, very dark brown, with traces of a lighter varnish underneath. We're going for that original varnished look again.

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday with the welders.

Five volunteers on site on Tuesday. This was just in case the welders needed assistance somewhere, but none was required and after hovering a bit, we went to the southern end of the site and did quite a bit for ourselves there.

Here are a few pictures of the welding work:

The famous 'vee' when the moulds are warmed up.

Using a hydraulic ram to push off the excess material, while still hot.

The 'vee' of the second weld, looking south.

A weld after cutting off the excess material, still due for grinding completely flat.

 

Our first job, while the welders worked away at the northern end, was to move a sleeper a few inches to one side so that the fishplate would fit.

Although digging ballast is hard work there were several volunteers for this, as it was cold outside (3 degrees and mizzle) and the digging would warm us up some.

After digging out the sleeper we pushed it along with a Duff jack.

More cutting was done, this time by Andy, the man behind our sales of rail ends. After the second Didbrook relay here he will have a new stock, so don't hold back. All sizes are possible, but generally they are about a foot long.

After cutting the rail we had to move it up to close a gap of about 6ft. Barring it, even with fulcrums, didn't really get us anywhere, as the rail is on a curve and there is a lot of resistance in the chairs.

So we resorted to jacking it along, bit by bit, using various fill in pieces to bridge the gap on the end. 

The team leader of the welders wandered over, and smiled at the way we dealt with problems when expensive mechanical means were not to hand. And we did it, another two rails were fishplated up.

 

 

At the end of Tuesday one more rail was due to be lifted in, and two closure rails cut and fitted. Not too much. Then, final levelling of this end, otherwise the welders won't get the rail ends to line up.

 

 

 

 

The welders did 4 joints on Tuesday, and are expected back twice more. There were some delays (6 joints were planned) as the different rates of wear on our track meant that they needed a special type of mould, which they hadn't got with them. But next time they will.

 

Finally, Dave spotted this train of loaded ballast wagons in the Parlour Road at Toddington. This is also for the Didbrook relay.

The actual day for the ballast drop is not yet decided, but it will  be soon.

Wednesday update:-

The welders returned for a second day, and did 5 more welds.

The volunteer gang measured, cut and fit the last two closure rails, so the railway is now complete again. Additionally there was lifting and packing, as well as changing one sleeper, and straightening several others.

More remains to be done for Saturday, and the welders have another 13 welds to do.

 

 

Wednesday in the weighbridge hut.

Another damp day, and inside the weighbridge it was even worse. Water was running down the windows. We had a measuring tool for humidity with us this time (used to test firewood at home) and out of curiosity we tested the floor. It came back as 23% humidity, and a triple raindrop warning! So that is pretty damp, and we do hope that our rebuilding of the floor will address the issue sufficiently.

 

 

 

The first thing here is to remove the old floor. Having removed the bricks, we are left with a large lump of concrete, which mostly covers the original machinery pit.

Dave here is smashing the larger lumps into something more useful.

 

 

 

 

We got all the 1945 rebuild concrete out, except this bit, stuck half way under the new balancing mechanism. That is not resting on it, but on a row of blues on the edge of the new pit.

Despite hacking at it all morning ('You've really got it worried now, Dave') we had to throw in the towel at the end of the morning. It dawned on us that removal was not essential, the new floor level would in fact be above it.

 

 

 

Last week we scoured the yard for a new lintel, to cover the hole here. The old one was made up out of crumbly concrete, and disintegrated after a modest tap.

We eventually found the perfect candidate - the right length, not too thick - in a pile marked ' Drainage'.

We asked the team if we could have one of several in the pile, and they very kindly said 'yes'.

So here it is going in.

It really was just right, so we are very grateful for this example of inter departmental cooperation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made up a barrow of mortar, and bedded the new lintel down on top of it. Here are Paul and Dave just lifting the lintel into place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That left us pretty free to get on with the floor itself.

It was a bit of a magic moment for us, because after all the lifting and demolition, here we were, putting things back together again. And better too. 

Here Paul is filling Dave's wheelbarrow with sand, for a one inch layer on top of the old floor, for the DPM to go down on.

 

 

The floor soon had its first blinding layer. We bought two bags of sand for this, and the thicker final layer, on which the new floor of bricks will be laid.

 

The last thing that we did was fit the DPM. Luckily we were able to find one about the railway, so that cost us nothing (although the sand did) . We cut it into two halves, and manhandled both into the building, one on top of the other.

Next time therefore we will barrow in the rest of the sand, and start on relaying the bricks, this time in a pattern all over the floor, without that ugly concrete patch.