Back with a vengeance.

Thursday in the loco shed

Very positive news is that Neal has been able to return to work. He's had a tough time, but building the Broadway canopy is not only motivating, it's a social thing too and you make good friends.

John working on the angles

We've had to adapt a little. Because of COVID measures only small groups may use the loco shed where we have been preparing the steelwork, so there are now time slots that you need to book. 

Thursday was the first one available to us, and we've got another pencilled in for Tuesday.

We've been able to place a small order under a previous budget, which allowed us to have a set of 4 angles bent to a radius.

Here Neal is cutting one in half. These curves will form part of the brackets at the top of the posts, and they will support the final truss which sits on top.

Here's one bracket clamped up, and ready for welding.

The curved piece that we commissioned, and that Neal was cutting in half, can be seen in grey.

Lunch was outdoors (rather than in the narrow Mk.1 mess room) and we sat in loose chairs in front of the goods shed doors. After a while 30 tons of coal arrived, and were poured into our bunker with a large cloud of black dust.

Luckily we had finished eating by then.

Before COVID arrived we had manufactured the purlins and fascia boards, with all their rivets. They've had one coat of undercoat, and we've started giving them a second one.

There's a bit of pressure now to finish the manufacturing, as the 2807 crew need our work area for some accommodation bogies. When we are done, we are going to park the steelwork in the new mess room, which, for a while, will have an unused space on the ground floor.

Our final picture of the day shows Neal trial fitting one of the new brackets to a post. The two posts also need galvanising, as part of them will be at or below ground level, where they are vulnerable to rusting.

While we're at Toddington, how about this picture, provided by one of the steam guys, of the new heritage lamps on the end of the goods shed at night. There will be more such copper lamp tops down the side of the shed, and around the goods shed extension.

Saturday at Peasebrook

While the main gang was out south of Greet tunnel with a list of minor faults, two volunteers headed for the stretch between Little Buckland and the Broadway distant signal. Here marks at 10m intervals were applied to the track. These will help in evaluating the track, three years after which it was laid, and with two years of regular service behind it.

The distant signal here is relatively new, and not yet in service, pending completion of arrangements at Broadway. It did help us however to take a nice picture of Dinmore Manor with train No.1, on its way to Broadway after first heading for CRC out of Toddington at 10.00am.

25 minutes later the train came back, now tender first, after a brief stay at Broadway. Sadly too short to make it worth while to open the cafe for passengers, but, a reminder here, the cafe is open on Thursdays and Sundays from 11am to 4pm, both non-running days. This allows the general public a look at the station, and a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Do join us!

In between trains we marked up about a mile of track, at 10m intervals. Here is Steve, on the other end of the tape, with a large but somewhat unwilling piece of sticky chalk, trying to write the distances neatly on the web. Apparently the sticky yellow chalk is from the road mending sector, and is normally used on rough asphalt. Ah.

Just before our lunch break we were interrupted again, but this time by the other loco out on the line, 35006 with train No.2.

At the beginning of the job, and at the end, Steve measured the temperature of the rail. At the end it was 27 degrees C. It's amazing how it can be so much higher than the temperature of the air that surrounds it.

 

P & O returned just as we were finishing, early afternoon. We stopped just south of Little Buckland bridge, the parapets of which can be seen next to the locomotive. Sun and direction of travel were just right for this sunny photograph of our main line train - a Pacific with 6 on.

New C & W blog.

News has reached us of a change of address - bookmark this one now:

https://gwsrcarriageandwagon.blogspot.com/

A dynamic young team has picked up the relay - try them out!

 

On the subject of C&W, look at the lovely lettering they did on the three replacement poster boards for Broadway.

This is the first of the three, and it will be used for two double royal posters. 

The size of the board is called 'quad royal'

The other two, still to be lettered in the company style, will replace existing boards that were knocked up quickly out of plywood, to get the station up and running.

A quickie on Monday, in fine weather, resulted in the Paxford (formerly Blockley station) bench receiving its first undercoat of chocolate.

The graffiti cut into the back by bored schoolboys waiting for their bus over several years has been filled in, although it will retain plenty of character as you don't go through 100 years as a railway bench without a few bumps and scrapes.

Some History of Monmouth Troy

The three pictures below were provided by blog reader Robert James. They are part of our history now:

This one, and the one below, were taken in 1983.

This is the goods shed at Monmouth Troy.

Here is the front of the station, looking just like Winchcombe station today!

This one is of the platform side of the building, and was taken by Peter Davies in 1980.

The canopy has been enclosed all round to make an extra room.

Tuesday in the loco shed.

Work continued on the metalwork to complete the Broadway station canopy, which was not finished when we opened in 2018. Fortunately all the steel already exists, so we don't need to spend any money on that, we just need to complete the fabrication.

Money will need to be spent later on to pay for the erection, covering the cost of scaffolding, craneage, glass and glazing bars. We'll cross that hurdle when we get there.

Here is Neal with a length of the angle iron that we had bent to a curve. This will complete a triangle at the top of the post supporting the final truss.

A corner then needed to be trimmed at a very shallow angle. Luckily the loco shed is equipped with an excellent powered saw.

Here is the curved angle welded to the corner section, with an identical one underneath.

The bar in the middle still has to be cut to length and fitted though. Otherwise this one's done.

 

 

 

In the meantime yours truly was busy painting the steelwork already made, and here is the attractive ridge purlin in its first coat of dark stone.

Behind it is 3850, shorn of its cylinder block, but the new one is just out of shot on the right. A tremendous achievement! There are currently no fewer than 3 GWR 2800s stripped to their frames in the loco shed: 2807, 2874 and 3850.

Having done the two smaller corners, Neal started to lay out the bits needed for the two larger corners.

Each post will have two of each, the smaller ones pointing inwards and the larger ones outwards. On top will be the final truss.

 

 

Of course while we beavered away inside the shed, normal rail traffic continued outside, with our large Pacific on duty on one of two service trains today.

Here is P & O just pulling away with a set of 6 from P1 at Toddington.

Wednesday on the Usk goods platform.

It was good to be back with the gang, after your blogger missed two Wednesday sessions due to a short holiday, and a medical appointment (these days if you get a medical appointment offered, you don't argue...)

Had anything changed in the interim?

Well no, Paul's car was covered in packets of mince pies and elsewhere packets of doughnuts were on offer.

Help yourself.

Don't mind if I do....

Last week the lads finished the actual brickwork, so today we were faced with a complete platform wall of engineering blues. This coincides very nicely with the arrival of the Swanbourne edging bricks, which you can just see being cleaned by John in the top RH corner of the picture.

With the help of Doug in the Telehandler a supply of clean bricks was put on a pallet, and driven round to the end of the platform, where Dave and Paul were eager to lay the first one.

 

Although he had just lost 20 of the bricks he had cleaned, John was unperturbed and munched away at a custard doughnut, nicely in the shade on this hot day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was some debate about the doughnuts today, so we need to put this question to our readers:

Jam, or custard?

We vote for custard, but it's by no means unopposed. What do you think?

And then the first Swanbourne block was placed on the end of the new platform. All that work at Swanbourne, finally vindicated! Paul gives the first block a reassuring little tap with his trowel.

By the time our usual tea break had come up it was getting quite warm, so we sat with John on his piles of blocks to enjoy some refreshing cups of tea, and a few remaining mince pies.

Jules (who took the pictures these last two weeks) is taking it easy this week, as he broke a couple of ribs a while back, but is recovering nicely now. (we can reveal)

After some debate, and prompted by a helpful blog reader, we decided to let the blocks project half an inch beyond the brick wall, in order to avoid rainwater from draining down the brickwork. To keep things regular, we picked a length of wood strip and nailed it to the front - that was our marker, and kept the blocks straight.

Lunch was held under the canopy of the visitor centre, and we enjoyed the unusual spectacle of trains using P2 without actually crossing a train on P1. The train rumbled straight through, without stopping.

Here is Foremarke Hall, which jumped in to take the place of P & O, which retired yesterday with a small valve issue.

Trains are crossing at Toddington at the moment, so at Winchcombe we only see one at a time, here Dinmore Manor, just doing a token exchange with the signalman.

During a short break to get some water - after nearly a day, the heat was getting to us - we found Dinmore Manor returning non stop through the Winchcombe platforms.

And finally, mid afternoon, a rare shot of Foremarke Hall running south through P2. Even the fireman looks surprised. As trains were not crossing at Winchcombe, the signalman allowed some trains to use the P2 road, to keep the rails free of rust. Your reporter was there....

Our last picture today shows the southern end of the platform wall, now at full height and with 21 Swanbourne blocks placed and pointed. Result !

Doesn't it look great!

Last but not least, a couple of reminders:

Support The GWR Trust for free when you shop at Amazon: Change your Amazon web address to Amazon Smile:

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/

and a small percentage of the money Amazon make is donated by them to the GWRT. Last quarter the GWRT made £88 from people shopping at Amazon, of which £6 from yours truly. Extrapolating that, it means something like 15 people have signed up. We can do a lot better, and generate a much larger amount. And it's not limited to members, anyone reading this blog can do it - change your shopping web address for Amazon to Amazon Smile, and generate money for free for the GWRT. 

Old pictures of the GWSR

Another GWSR member has stepped forward and allowed us to scan in his photographs of the early days. It's 35 years ago now.... There's a new section on the Early GWSR Flickr site, this time by Steve Hill, currently a signalman with us.

Take a look at the early days at Toddington, round about 1985 / 86. The first 30 pictures have just been posted:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/73536293@N02/albums/72157715927803186 

Cadbury No.1 waiting with one of the first ever trains at Toddington.