Thursday, the digger is back.
Typical winter weather too - 5 degrees, mist, drizzle.
Neal sat in a nice warm cab; Yours Truly sat, clad in Goretex, outside on a cold, wet dumper.
This is the start of the job - removal of the ramp to the top of the cutting, from where we previously removed an excavation pile.
At a second stage we need to excavate a pit at the foot of the steps. Here a concrete block will be cast, to support the third canopy column.
We spent the whole day digging this area out. It's surprising how voluminous it gets, once you start churning it over.
The little dumper shuttled back and forth between the digger and the two trucks up the platform, carrying one tonne of clay and brambles mixed in at a time.
By 10.30 we'd been at it for two hours, so we thought we'd treat ourselves to a cup of tea in the signal box.
Neal suggested that we take this photograph.
It shows two pine trees on the drive.
Those on the left will be cut down on Thursday.
Just as a souvenir of what it was like.
Two of these pine trees here will also be cut down.
Back to business.
Later in the afternoon two new window cills arrived.
They have been specially made for us, and cost £422 each.
Neal and Yours Truly continued to work in the cold and drizzle.
To our delight, Mike arrived to do some work in the kitchen, and offered us a coffee each.
We gratefully accepted !
At the end of the afternoon, when the light started to fail, we had dug out the ramp, and formed an approximate circulating area.
More digging has to be done in the corner, where the foundation block for the corner post needs to go.
Friday - back to (the) front.
We were warmed up again overnight, but at Broadway the next morning the same weather met us again. Fog, gloom, mizzle. Great.
On Friday we started on excavating the foundations for the corner canopy post. There will be three such supports - two at the bottom of the stairs (replacing the RSJs there at the moment, they are temporary), and a third one in the corner behind the dumper. This third one is not original, but was a recommendation of the structural engineer. Probably not a bad idea at Broadway, as it can get windy here. It's not just to support the weight of the canopy here, but also the pulling forces in case of high wind.
The foundation slab for the two posts at the bottom of the stairs was cast quite a while back, so needed freeing up from debris that had fallen in. The block for the third post is going in a deep hole in the corner, and this was successfully excavated. We're in virgin clay here, as you can see from the colour. Elsewhere the clay tends to be black, as it's mixed in with locomotive ash and demolition rubble.
This picture shows well the extent of the work over the last two days. All those caterpillar tracks represent where there used to be a large mound of clay and rubble. Neal is standing in the pit for the first two posts, and in the foreground is the hole for the base of the third.
That's it for the time being on the northern end, so in the afternoon we went to the southern end, where there was a pile of clay that was left over from the last time the wagons came up. We dug that clear, and now the two wagons are nearly full again.
We then moved round the back, where the strip of level ground behind the new building is too narrow.
We widened several yards, without having to add to the spoil in the wagons, by repositioning what we dug out. The neighbouring field is on a slope, and on the corner here it is beneath us, whereas on the other, northern corner it is above.
Neal got as far as this tree stump - one of many pines already taken out over the years - but as the light began to fade again we decided to continue on Monday, armed with a smaller bucket.
Monday at Broadway.
Three of us on site - Neal on the digger, John laying bricks, Yours Truly making mortar, cutting bricks, making rubble, and removing brambles from the area of the signal box.
First though, a couple of photographs from Toddington, taken Saturday on the way to the PWay Christmas lunch.
The rebuilding of Toddington's missing chimney is complete, and the scaffolding is down again.
Here is what it looks like.
This was achieved by the new team in C&M, and they are to be congratulated on a great effort.
Just to compare, here's a bit of history:
This is Toddington as it should be, with 3 chimneys. Probably a 1950s picture. (Tony Harden collection)
The nearest chimney has gone! Only the base would remain for 42 years. The chimney served the stationmaster's office, currently merged with the former booking office, to become the station shop. The slate fireplace below is no more though.
Back to Broadway on Monday then.
Neal attacked the tree stump behind the building with the narrower bucket, and then an axe. Matters were complicated by what looked like a second, oak tree stump that was half wrapped around the pine one.
At the end of the morning it was:
Stump: 1
Neal: 0.
Neal will have another go on Tuesday.
Round the back John was laying more bricks. In places, such as here, he was on the 7th course already, although it has to be said that with all the digger and dumper traffic at the front he has stayed away from that area, which is only 3 courses high.
John finished the day, after consuming two mixes, on the northern end, where he added the sixth course.
In the afternoon Neal dug a trench from the SW corner of the building out into the trees. This is a for a foul water pipe, which runs under and beyond the modesty screen. We are putting that in place now, before the screen is installed in due course.
While digging that trench we dug through a layer of demolition rubble, and one of the bricks that came out was clearly for a window. We have put it up here next to its modern replacement. There are slight differences in the profile, but once it's all up these should not be so noticeable.
Last thing on Monday Neal dug out the base of this pine tree, the nearest to the new building. It is partly buried with old demolition rubble.
As part of the planning consent we are required to protect the trees, but ironically one of these is now coming down (one of 6 in fact).
During all our digging around the site we are always observed by this little friend here.
The robin sits quite close to us, no more than 6ft away.
We were amazed to notice that he has only one leg, that diagonal line below his body.
How does he survive like that, sleep on a branch like that?
Paul Fuller sent us this pair of pictures. It shows a pile of FB and BH rails at Toddington.
The job for the day (last Friday in fact) was to sort these out into types, and stack them properly. The rails amount to some 300m of track, with concrete sleepers, and are ex Bicester MOD. We only paid for transport, an excellent deal.
They will probably be used to cascade existing rail in the main line. The rail is almost new.
Tuesday at Broadway.
Just two of us on Tuesday - digger, and dumper driver.
There is still some room in the two wagons, so we need to fill that, before they are taken away on Saturday.
While we have dug the hole for the foundation slab of the third canopy support, we felt that there wasn't enough free room around it, so dug away at the bank some more.
 |
| The hole for the third post foundation slab. |
A question arose on Tuesday: Why is there so much spoil to remove? The answer is twofold:
1. The foundations for the new waiting room are bigger, so more needs to be dug out, and
2. We are dealing with a large amount of demolition rubble from the platforms and the spoil behind them, all of which was simply pushed backwards in 1963, away from the tracks.
We had a small flat area available in one of the trucks, and this is ideal to place the two stumps that we took out. Neal suggested we put them in left over single use dumpy bags, to make handling easier.
Immediately after this picture was taken the bag opened up and the stump rolled out !
We did manage to get it back in, and then dropped the first stump into the dumper bucket.
This is the second stump about to go into the truck. Alas, fate struck again, because the journey along the platform suspended from the digger bucket weakened the bag, and just as we were lifting it in - click for the picture - it ripped and the stump fell out.
New bags please!
The first stump, transported in the dumper, didn't rip the bag, so was lifted up easily.
The delivery on Tuesday of the drainage chamber rings made it possible for us to dig the hole at the other end of the conduit that we laid under the track.
This conduit is for the stormwater drain that leads to the track centre drain. We need to connect that to the future downpipes from the gutters.
Back in 2014 or so Yours Truly drove the little Broadway Petter engined dumper behind this platform, and helped to back fill it. The ash and brick fill came from the embankment near the goods shed.
We never thought we'd see the back of the platform wall again.
This was quite a successful day. Wagons filled, stumps loaded, foundations widened, and a start made on the stormwater drain on the P2 side made.
A second hole, giving access to the conduit with the services, still needs to be dug at the southern end of the building. That is likely to happen on Wednesday (when we are Usking), which is also the day that 6 pine trees will be cut down.
At the end of the day we took this picture. It's one for bench afficionados. The two wooden benches are both GWR originals, but are slightly different.
The longer one (at the back) is slightly wider and lower, and came from the SVR. We don't know its actual origin.
The nearer one is taller and narrower. It's ex Blockley station, and we spotted it, derelict, in a bus shelter in Paxford. One end was cut off to make it fit the shelter, so the feet have unequal spacing. The Parish Council was nice enough to donate it, after we pointed out how rickety it was. A local chippy mended it for us, and now it's waiting to go under the P2 waiting room canopy.
In practice there are 3 kinds of GWR station benches:
1. The model with the cast iron bench ends. Three ends are correct, not the two you now commonly find. This type stands along the platform somewhere, outdoors.
2. The wooden bench (as in the picture). These stood outdoors, but in the dry, under a canopy. Often, however, they would be dragged out into the open onto a platform at some stage in their life, which gives rise to a rapid deterioration from the rainy weather.
Do not lift them by the arms, as they can be pulled off. Lift from underneath.
3. The wooden upholstered bench. This is the luxury model, which was used indoors only, in waiting rooms. They are quite scarce, and we'd like to have one or two more for our new waiting room. Let us know if you see one. We have one small one in the booking office (from an antique shop near Stroud), and a second, larger one off Ebay, kindly sponsored by a blog reader. They do not often come up at railwayana auctions, apparently due to their size.
So keep your eyes peeled!
Wednesday with the Usketeers.
The holidays are approaching, and we noted a few absences. Not so the Usketeers, all three of them now, taking their early morning coffee in the Winchcombe weighbridge.
As we chewed the fat, it struck us as an opportunity to record for the outside world the large size of the scales of this weighbridge. They nearly span the room, from one side to the other. Quite difficult for the operator to get to the sliding window now, to hand over his weighing receipts to the drivers.
The weighing table outside has 1945 cast into it, so our guess is that this arrangement was upgraded at the end of the war, from a 15T table to a 20T one.
For comparison, here are the scales from Usk. This is the more normal size, also visible in the on-line picture below.
The pit is also quite small, and shallower.
In the Usk building, you could open the sliding window and hand your notes out. The window in the picture has gone, as there was no arch above it, and the lintel rotted out, causing the whole side to go.
Back to Winchcombe. We're building two piers, to support a failing lintel below ground that supports the facade above. This is cracked from top to bottom.
Peering into the pit for the big beam that links the table outside with the scales inside, we can see that the pit also was reconstructed, in blues instead of in reds as originally. The failing lintel is the irregular beige stripe under the red brickwork.
Two piers L and R of the big beam will hold up the brickwork in future.
During our travails the Telehandler arrived, bearing gifts. This was half a bucket of spent ballast. This was tipped into the hole filled with concrete last week, as part of the underpinning of the corner.
As we stepped aside for the Telehandler to do its tipping work, our eye caught some graffiti on the brickwork around the door of the weighbridge.
The top one says:
SM
H Fisher
SM
and underneath, two courses down, C BRAITH (.....?)
We're not that familiar with the personnel at Winchcombe. Maybe someone knows more? The last stationmaster was called Carver. The 1905 one was William Edwards - we have pictures of both, a bit of luck there.
The other piece of graffiti that is clearly visible is a little addition:
If you can't make it out, it looks to us as if the weighbridge operator weighed a loaded vehicle, and then deducted the weight of the vehicle itself, to get at the weight of the load (almost certainly coal):
Tons Hundredweights Pounds
11 15 2
6 9 2 -
=======================
5 6 0
=======================
A bit of history for you. We are a working railway museum after all.
At the end of the day we had built the first of the two piers. It reaches (post photograph) the yellow line two courses under the lintel.
Next, there will be a second pier to the left of the beam.
This will happen in the new year, as the Usketeers will now take a well deserved Christmas rest. They're back on Wednesday, Jan 8th.
Goathland weighbridge hut.
It's not often we see a photograph of the inside of a weighbridge hut, but here is one, recently restored:
https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2024/12/top-awards-for-yorkshire-heritage-railway.html
Well done, the heritage guys of the NYMR !
It's sad that the rebuilding of the Usk hut and its platform were not given any publicity. It struck us as a good reason to appear in the railway press, but our internal approaches raised no real interest to exploit the opportunity.
