Glorious mud

Monday at Broadway.

First thing, a brighter picture of the new WAY IN sign. It's true, we'd like to widen this canopy, but when to find the time? First we need to finish the footbridge steps, then the P1 canopy extension including its prior manufacture, and then we're on to P2, which also has a canopy and its own extension.

Plenty of food on our plate then.

Broadway entrance in sunnier climes.

All the shaped timber for the sides of the steps has now had 3 coats of preservative, and two of primer, so Neal was finally able to make a start on cutting it to size.

Here we see him with the first piece, starting at the bottom. A great day!

While Neal was starting to measure angles and cut wood, the other two continued with primering the 3 by 3 timbers. It seems endless, but we did get to the end today, and also to the bottom of the gallon pot of primer. Good coordination there.

Neal's 'workshop' was the northern end of the building, in the belief that this would be less windy. But it wasn't, we seem to be going through a North Easterly at the moment. At least the sawdust didn't hang about, it just disappeared in the gusts.

The first timber to be fitted was a tricky one straight away. Neal had to tailor it around the upright supporting the roof, and at the bottom some unkind person had planted a rivet in just the wrong place.

Neal seemed to be expecting this, and had brought a very large diameter drill bit, with which he drilled shallow holes that would take the rivet heads.

After finishing the primer work on the timbers, we got out a large cardboard box, whose contents had been shot blasted an zinc coated a few months ago. These were the handrail brackets, originals from HIA. They had all been carefully unscrewed and left in a plastic bucket somewhere on site.

We counted 36 of them, or 9 per handrail. Looking at the steps though, we reckon we need at least 10, so we'll have to make a few more. Others look surprisingly moth eaten, they must have been those at the bottom of the HIA steps, where there was no roof. Another is bent, so a little more TLC is needed here.

As the sun went down, mid afternoon, Neal was just fitting the second timber, and making sure that the two met perfectly, to minimise any gap for water ingress.

All the timbers will be taken off again, so that we can properly treat the freshly cut ends with preservative and some paint.






Wednesday on the Usk platform.

Low numbers today, as several were on yet another course. A small gang went off to near Hayles Abbey halt to do boxing in of ballast, two went off to return the white Landie from its MOT and overhaul, and just two were on the Usk platform today.

The day started muddy - these two enormous lorries brought stone to the contractor on the river Isbourne, to put into gabions.

They made a mess of the PWay yard and its approaches, there is mud everywhere.

Have we got to lift this? Just the 4 of us?

We then had a customer round to collect the 4 No.1 lamp post castings that he had ordered. They're just under 200Kg each, and can be lifted by 3 fit men, but we didn't have 3 fit men. 3 kind volunteers came to help, and eventually we did manhandle them on to the trailer, which fortunately had a very low bed.

Need a GWR platform lamp post for your railway? Drop a line to breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk. All profits go to GWSR plc.

Are you going to behave yourself today?

So just yours truly and Paul on the Usk wall today. We got Maxie out and placed her on the throne, and after quite a few pulls on the cord - more than usual - she eventually muttered into life.

Paul showed us a wrinkle today used by bricklayers - a dash of washing up liquid in the water makes for a very creamy mix. It had to be dry too, as the blues we are using do not absorb any water at all.

The job today was to put up a tower round the end of the platform, including on that extra bit of concrete at the back that we laid last week.

This is as high as Paul could go, as otherwise the bricks will start to slide around.

We liked the wall, it's going to look great. Rain came after lunch and it soon got dark, so that was about it for today.

We had some hot Cornish Pasties for the team for lunch, a great treat. And the visit of our new director responsible for the PWay - coincidence, or not? They must have a nose for it.

Helping to churn the mudbath was this dumper, which the contractor on the Isbourne is using to ferry the stone down to the gabions at the edge of the river.

After the rain and high winds we've had, the already deeply rutted path to the site is now filled with water, with the dumper rocking, swaying and splashing its way along.

Here's a peep over the works, taken from the start of Chicken Curve. The right hand side looks done, lined with the gabions, and the left hand side is now being addressed.

The upstream end on the other side of the embankment - through the little tunnel - is also going to be done.

Finally we took the remains of the smaller Usk building window to a volunteer joiner, who will make a new one (or rather two new ones; we have the third, big one) in his spare time. It's not a big deal if you have the skills, but it's still very kind to offer to help.

This is the window in question. All the windows rotted, having been made of softwood 150 years ago. The big window on the left side, which allowed the weighbridge operator a good look over the weighbridge table, had completely collapsed, helped along by a rotten softwood lintel and a French lorry that reversed into it while turning to buy something from the burger van opposite.

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A late submission by John M shows the small gang out along the track today, boxing in south of Hayles Abbey halt:

Beautiful countryside, fresh air and sunshine, why not come and join us?