Week 10

Still no material change - the railway is still closed to visitors, and no one is permitted work.


Heritage matters

We have almost completed the third of the Quad Royal poster boards for Broadway.



One is awaiting lettering to be applied, the one for the booking hall (replacing a temporary one) is varnished and visible in the picture by the broom on the left, and the third, with a chocolate brown frame and a blackboard black surface, is in the process of being painted on the table. (in grey primer in the picture)

A surprise delivery was for 9 machined uprights and two 2.5m long timbers (also on the table) which will form part of the steps on P2 at Broadway. The P1 timberwork is ready for mounting. If only....





The instructions were to apply 3 coats of preservative, two of primer and one of undercoat.

That should get things moving along.



GWR Stationmaster's hat

Success! Thanks to readers of the blog we have been offered a genuine example of a GWR stationmaster's hat on loan. What a relief.

Here it is. It's dark blue, with gold braid and a sort of beehive crown on top, all surrounded by an oakleaf design lace band.

The cap badge can be either as in the picture (post 1935) or scripted, as seen in the bench ends at Broadway for 1904. We are going for the scripted design.

The generous offer of a loan came from the museum of the SDR, to whom we are very grateful indeed. Isn't it great how these GWR railways help each other out!

The hat came in a shoe box with acid free paper, and was immediately dispatched on further to the costumier in London.

We're still not quite ready to go, as some of the subcontractors (cap badges, gold braid etc) are in lockdown, but we think that this will soon change.

We don't know the cost of a replica hat yet, but if anyone else is interested in a copy of this hat, now is the time to say so. Contact breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk. You can't buy them in the shops.


A GWR lamp post

This original lamp post came from the Cheltenham - Kingham line, was moved to a nearby garden upon its closure, and in this second generation move was heaved across another garden today for its new, third home.

The top for it is original, and has survived in good condition.




Note that the design of this post is different from the type we have on the GWSR. This one has no Acanthus leaves on it (the Acanthus leaf is a common architectural motif which symbolises enduring life). It's simply a fluted column which splays slightly towards the bottom, and we think it is an earlier design to the one in use around the turn of the last century.






Gotherington Landslip

With the fantastic weather we've been having the repair work at Gotherington has made great progress. It's really been a week of uninterrupted sun, and there is more on the cards, leading us to wish for (say it not too loudly) a little bit of rain for our dried out lawns and veggie plots.

That said, Mrs. Blogger tried her hand - for the first time ever - at planting some runner beans, and she was immediately punished by a sharp frost (!) which killed the little seedlings stone dead in just one night. So there!


The landslip repair then....

The 5m and 10m piles are all in, but there's a bit more soil nailing to do to finish. The mini digger and the dumper are back filling the lower row.

You may well wonder, how did they manage to drive the piles down so level, so that they all stick out to the same height?

They cheated - cut off the sticky-out ones with a gas axe. Oh.

Here are the levelled piles, and a start on back filling has been made along the top, track side.

A hand rail will be fixed to the top of the piles, as there is a bit of a drop down to the next level, and a great surface for your local Banksy to show their talents. If they can get in. The nearest underpass is actually quite well protected, with a steel paling fence.






We're very proud of our mighty 5m and 10m piles with the vibrating pile driver, but that is nothing compared to this real one:

https://youtu.be/RpyeIghu3I8

That is a pile driver. It's diesel powered; that is, the head is a single cylinder diesel engine which has compression ignition - as diesel engines do - when the head comes down for the blow, and the diesel ignition stroke sends it back up. Neat. And those aren't the wimpy little 5m or 10m piles that we have, they are 25m piles. Their job is not to hold something back as at Gotherington, but to act as foundation feet for a building to stand on, in marshy conditions (such as in Holland).

When their 25m piles have been driven 24 1/2 m into the ground, little bits of varying lengths still stick out of the ground. Along comes a man in a van with a specialised task: the 'Koppensneller', or head hunter. His job is to cut the concrete piles to length (i.e. cut the heads off) and expose the reinforcement rodding, so that it can be bound in with the ring beam rodding that will be located on top.

Other people's lives, eh?


Our appeal.

No news! Officially we're still at £243.000 as per 19.5.2020. No doubt we may well have hit the target by now, but that will pay for the works, what will pay for the months of non-running? Don't hold back, donate something to keep us going. We are not earning any money until at least the end of August, thus missing the entire summer peak. It's a catastrophe, a miniature version of the entire British economy. Surely we can't go on like this?

Here is our appeal page again:

https://www.gwsr.com/supporting_the_railway/Emergency_Embankment_Appeal.html

Any help with staying alive is greatly appreciated.





Answers to the quiz:


Got your answer sheets from last week ready? No cribbing! Be honest.

1.      Lime Street station is in which city?                                                                              Liverpool    
     

2.      What’s the gauge of the Toddington Narrow Gauge Railway?                                   2ft gauge                                                                              

3.      What did 6000, King George V, carry which was unique to main line UK steam locos?  A bell                                                      

4.      How long before an approaching train arrives must we be in a position of safety on the PWay?                                                                                                                         10 seconds

5.      Webb was the CME of which railway from 1871 to 1903?                                         LNWR

6.      How many platforms will there be at Worcestershire Parkway?                                    3                             

7.      In joke. Sorry!                         

8.      How many cylinders does 35006, P&O, have?                                                             3

9.      Class 55 diesels are more commonly known as what?                                                  Deltics

10.   Introduced in 1959, what’s 110A?                                                                          Flat bottomed rail                                            

11.   If 4-6-2 is Pacific, what’s Atlantic?                                                                               4-4-2

12.   What’s the predominant colour of Network Rail trains?                                         Yellow

13.   In what operating circumstance did the 1951 version of the GWR rule book, state that “passengers in the leading vehicles should be warned of the advisibility of keeping windows closed?”                 

                                                                                                              When approaching water troughs

14.   What class of locomotive hauls the Hogwarts Express?                                                Hall class                           

15.   In 1985, Class 50 diesel locomotive, 50007, Sir Edward Elgar, was painted in what livery?   Green                                                                                                          

16.   The titled train, The Elizabethan, ran between London and where?         Kings Cross - Edinburgh Waverley

17.   What’s the name of the steam loco number 60163?                                                         Tornado

18.   Shed code 1A was where?                                                                                                 Willesden

19.   Which GWR station never had any track?                                                                         Dartmouth

                                                 

20. At what inconvenient time (for the PWay gang) does the Winchcombe Coffee Pot Café close?   4.00 pm :-(        






No quiz this week, we'll give you a rest. Maybe you'd like to spend the time more fruitfully, sitting in the evening sun with a cold beer? Well, we would.


One last thing then, a picture from Brian Parsons:

It's a mighty 9 F, thundering towards Broadway station with a mixed freight. Yes, that's the sort of traffic we used to have on our line. The headcode of two lamps, one above the other, says 'Express Freight'.

The horse dock on the right has been lifted, but the signals are still there. The signal box closed in October 1960, after the blanketing in the area was completed. The date of the picture is August 23rd, 1960, and the loco is 92214. She was allocated to Banbury shed at the time, and was less than a year old at the time Brian took the picture, having been completed in October 1959. She was withdrawn after only 5 years and 10 months service, in October 1965.

Amazingly, Brian was able to tape record the passing of a 9F at Broadway, and if you want to know what that sounds like, it's here:

https://youtu.be/t0lL0LdNRCE

And the loco survived too! It is currently on the Great Central Railway.