Week 19 - Supermegaclippathon

A busy few days, as the railway slowly gets back into action, and we prepare ourselves for an August 15th resumption of services. Both loco and C&W departments are working hard to get the stock ready for the big day. It's not just the case of lighting up a loco and attaching a rake of carriages.

You can book all your tickets on line (in fact you have to) and we all hope you will make full use of our return to action. We need the business, otherwise there will be no money available for anything much at all next year. The best way of raising funds is by visiting the railway. You can go all the way along the line for a full round trip, but you must start at Toddington. This is required to manage any COVID risk and that's in all our interest.

Book your tickets here:

https://www.gwsr.com/planning_your_visit/visiting_gwsr/On-line_Ticket_Sales.html



Saturday

The whole day was spent on an asset recovery exercise, but details will have to remain under wraps until it is completed. This is likely to take several more Saturdays. It's been pretty taxing, as the 'ole body is not used to hard physical work after sitting around at home for 4 months. We were pooped when we got home on Saturday evening!

There are pictures, but you'll have to be patient.



Monday at Broadway

Work has started on the restoration of the all-wooden GWR station bench recovered from Paxford, formerly at Blockley station. It's a one man job; we'll show some pictures when we have a bit more progress.




Wednesday at Peasebrook

Supermegaclippathon! The whole gang, as many people as possible, was called out to clip up about half a mile of track at Peasebrook, all at once. This was in support of a re-stressing project for a stretch of track that had shown some minor signs of movement during the very hot days we've had this summer.




Robert gave his usual briefing, but this time to 17 people - quite a large gang- and that meant a much large circle, due to the distances we have to keep between us.

The other change was a late start of 11.30 - this was to hit the track at a time in the day when it was at its ambient temperature.

It seems that we have a couple of jokers among us. Paul on the left took as his weapon of choice today a large courgette. He's not going to clip up a lot of rails like that, but perhaps he was thinking of John Cleese's Monty Python lessons on how to defend yourself against people armed with various types of fruit?

Anonymous on the right was determined to keep the virus at bay with this new, full face mask. The rest of his clothing drew comment too, as one gang member was heard to query why his Hi Viz vest was so clean, and Anonymous admitted that he hadn't worn it much. Sooooo......!!!

Off we went then. We parked up in the Broadway public car park, profiting from the last few days when it was free to park due to the virus. As proof that the country is getting back to normal, the charge becomes applicable again from August 3rd. Now there's proof things are getting back to normal again.

In the picture the gang is walking down the track, unused for over 4 months now, past the new distant signal. The trees alongside Peasebrook Farm are in the distance, that's where we were headed.

We thought we'd start at the far end and work north, back to this point. It's the northern breather of the CWR ending near Broadway.

We wanted to have the shorter walk at the end of the day, but - in fact it seemed just as long as going there, we were tired out by then. It was a weary trudge over ballast at the end of the day.

On arrival we were met by the GWR Track Engineer, and we gathered round for a briefing session on site.

What we are doing is re-stressing the section in a natural style, without the use of hydraulic pullers. This means unclipping the whole section to let the rail come to a natural state of expansion at its ambient temperature, then clipping it all up again.

We were there for the latter job.

The job was rather repetitive, so we'll spare you many pictures of the same thing.

In the picture, you can see Paul way ahead, clearing the rail bottom of ballast, so that it can safely be dropped down again from on top of the rollers we cleaned last week. Was he using his courgette? We don't know, he was too far out of sight. It seemed a blunt tool for the job, if we're any judge.

Those nearer the camera were using the lifters to raise the rail, after which Rob on the right would remove the rollers and clean the area under the rail, so that it could be dropped down again without trapping anything under it. An army of clipper uppers followed behind the camera.

We spent an afternoon doing this, and achieved about a quarter of a mile of track re-clipped. It doesn't sound like very far, but we're talking thousands of clips here. At least a similar figure still needs doing, as this picture looking north reveals.

Looking south, everything is very neat. Well, that's the bit we did today. We started at a point which is somewhere on the horizon here, it has no name but it's where the sleepers change from Pandrol clips to SHC, and it's about 1/4 mile away.

It might as well be Namibia...

We stopped for the day at MP 5.III (from Honeybourne).


More clipping up will follow, depending however on the achievement of a reasonable ambient temperature for the rail. That probably excludes the next two days, which are forecast to be extra hot.

Much as we would like to help, we may have to stay at home to rest, and enjoy a refreshing beer. Well, someone has to do it.




Heritage lamps for the Toddington goods shed and mess room extension.


The railway is taking heritage increasingly seriously, and just look at these magnificent copper lamps that we have just commissioned for the Toddington goods shed.




These classic copper lanterns are made by a craftsman coppersmith, and we were so impressed by the quality of both lanterns and their associated wall brackets that we ordered 8 of them. As the railway has no money, we passed round the hat and several generous members of the steam department funded one each.

The lamps come on two types. The one in the picture is a corner one,which sits in a hooped bracket, and has a door in the bottom.

Those for the side of the shed have a side bracket, and also a door in the side.

Here is Nigel demonstrating how the first lamp will be mounted on the corner of the end of the original 1905 goods shed.

The electric supply is cunningly hidden inside the framework, and will barely be visible. The brackets are beautifully made.

Here are the two corner lamps fitted to the office of the goods shed, later in the day. The two modern, temporary lights fitted earlier in the year have been removed again.

We know that our goods shed had at least one lamp like this originally, because we can see the traces in the brickwork on the corner where a small area has been flattened off.

Here is the complete goods shed, with the new mess room extension at the rear. Fitting out of this continues. The other 6 lamps will go down the side of the extension, on the other end, end one on the track side. In this way a safer environment after dark has been created, as well as a more authentic look for this venerable old building.

Well done all concerned!