Let him who is without sin cast the first stone

Monday, a special day on the PWay

A special sortie today, to fix a twist at Peasebrook on a non-running day. We are still running, but have reduced some services from two locos in steam to one, to reflect the rather poor passenger turnout. An informal poll of other railways suggests something similar there, so the only way out of that is likely to be a greater relaxation of COVID measures, so that people can travel together without fear.

Most of us have now had two jabs, so we are increasingly confident in our daily lives.

We surveyed the twist last week, and before we started work Andrew had a quick look again to see where we needed to dig out the ballast.

 

Then let the digging begin!

The down side had to be cleared to the centre of the sleeper over about 40 yards.

Then we got out the slewing jacks, instruments that we rarely use, and just when you have forgotten that you had them, a need for them arises.

The track needed to be moved over to the Cotswolds side for a few inches.

Seen one of these before? Here's a close up.

Four slewing jacks, each with a steep slope at one end, were put in a line and cranked up. The track rose up, but did not move sideways. Heck! Men with bars were summoned. They rose to the task, but the track would not. 

The next attempt changed the placing of the jacks a little, in that only two were put at the front, and the other two at the rear. That did the trick, and the track inched eastwards.

Repeat, until the whole 40 yards has moved...

Next came the packing ritual. Our Duff jacks were put in a line and then raised until the rail in question was level. Ballast was packed underneath.

Note the black sky behind. We had some real downpours on Monday.

 

The jacks were put in alternate cribs, so with 5 of them to hand we had to move them along several times.

When the Cotswolds side was done, we did the Malvern side, until both rails were level with each other.

We had no fewer than 4 heavy downpours today. You could see them coming, we are right out in the open here, and the area around Cleeve Hill was completely obscured by evil looking clouds. Bad news for those caught outside. The last downpour even had a clap of thunder, and hailstones.

At the end of the afternoon we had done the job. Here is what the track looked like again, after our gentle attentions. Subsequent reports from people on the train report that all is smooth again.

We think the underlying cause is a number of disused badger setts that are collapsing under the trackbed, so it may be that we will have to return to the site for a follow up packing session. We shall let a few operational trains run over it, then take another look.

Tuesday on the footbridge

Another day of heavy showers, with thunder at one point. Heavy black cells of clouds appeared over Cleeve Hill, and irreversibly approached us. We dodged the first with a long tea break, the second with lunch.

 

 

Neal has got the bit between his teeth on the steps now, and he even spent a few hours yesterday and finished off the top two sections of the Malvern side, as you can see in this picture.

It's wet too. We lost a screw down the Aco drain in the foreground, opened it up, and found it 80% blocked with mud and pine needles, enough to fill a  whole bucket.

At 11.45 the first train of the day arrived, hauled by 4270. It was bucketing down, so we got this steamy shot as it left to run around.

Not long afterwards the sun came out again. That's May 2021! It became hot and humid. Too hot for Neal, who took his orange coat off.

Here he is fitting the middle section of the five on the Cotswolds side.

Towards the end of the afternoon he had advanced to the fourth section of five. 

Tomorrow we need to be at Toddington, as we expect the galvanised columns to return. Neal thought he might even have the time to finish the fitting afterwards. It's good to see all those specially cut pieces of timber go together so easily.

 

 

Wednesday on the Usk hut.

A quick stop at Broadway first thing, to collect a forgotten pair of gloves, found that the timbers on the steps on P1 were now done. Brilliant!

Neal must have stayed on well into the evening, but Mrs. Blogger was ready with the tea, and we couldn't miss that.

There are all the timbers, now bolted and glued into place.

The next stage would be to sand them down again, for another coat of dark stone undercoat. They've had quite a few nicks and bumps.

At Winchcombe the car park was full. We haven't seen that in a long time, proof that things are getting back to normal at last.

We're willing to work, but are the passengers willing to travel? Occupancy was slightly better this morning, with 2 1/2 coaches filled out of the 6 on the train we saw.

 

 

The Uskovites start early, they were on site some time before 08.30, and when the cameraman arrived, they were already well under way with the second foundation course up to the DPC.

They did one side last week, and were stopped by rain. No rain today, so progress was good.

The final side was completed late morning, with almost all of the red bricks in place. Just the area around the door to finish. This was left pending research into the doorstep required.

GWR tank 4270 is still in charge of the trains, with one train in service during the week. Here is the morning train returning from CRC, having just slowed to pick up the token for the Toddington section.

Having laid all the bricks that we would need, it was time for serious thought. Now come the stones!

We have good photographs and diagrams, and all the stones were numbered. However, they have spent far more time outdoors than was intended - we lost a whole season due to COVID - and now most of the numbers are illegible. How to lay which stones where?

Paul and Dave consult the diagrams, but the idea of putting each numbered stone back in exactly its original place soon revealed itself to be a forlorn hope. We have vast supplies of stones all jumbled up in baskets, and most numbers, applied in waxy chalk, had crumbled off.

We decided to start afresh. We saw that originally there were courses of different thicknesses, and we would follow that process, starting with an 8 inch one.

 

 

We then hunted around to find the largest stones we had, with a dressed corner, and selected 4. These would go on the four corners at the bottom. All were 8 inches high. The biggest would need to go on the bottom course, as we could hardly lift them much higher due to their weight.

Dave and yours truly rolled this one, the biggest of all, into its approximate location from the pile at the back by the greenery.

It was due to sit on top of a layer of mortar and a damp proof membrane. This was first fitted all round.

The first stone is in place!

 

 

 

 

To lift the heavy stone gently and accurately, and without damaging the DPC membrane, we had a brainwave and went to fetch some PWay sleeper nips.

These worked perfectly. The soft stone allowed the pointed ends the grip that they needed, and our first rebuild stone was gently lifted on to the corner.

It was hard to get our brains round the fact that the hut was in a different orientation at Winchcombe than at Usk, so the SE corner so marked wasn't in the south east at all.

On top of that we will be reversing two of the sides. The large window (that once overlooked the weighing table) used to be on the right as you went in, but will now be on the left. This allows it to overlook the platform, and we think it should be seen as well, as it is a feature window.

Maxie the mixer was back in action after a more than one year hibernation. She started just fine, there's plenty of life left in the old girl.

Maxie was making mortar for Paul, as he laid the DPC membrane all the way round. 

It was held on by the four corner stones.

Last week they also put down the base for the fireplace, although that may yet move again.

Picture with thanks to Jonathan

Here is the second corner stone going on, with yours truly being mugged into holding one pair of nips by himself, while Dave and Paul shared a pair between them. Thought that stone seemed a bit heavy!

Picture with thanks to Jonathan

Afterwards that second stone looked like this...

.

... and we soon moved on to the third corner stone, in which your blogger wielded the cameraphone, while Jonathan was press ganged into holding one half of a pair of nips.

This stone was rather smaller!

After the fourth stone was put into the bottom RH corner, we had all 4 corners on, and this made us ready to start laying an actual course of stones next week.

The doorway in the foreground still needs finishing off, and when we have done that, we can put in the frame, which is in store in one of the wagons.

Now the Usk building is really starting to take shape. When we took the building down we gave its former owner a promise that we would put it back up on the railway, and we intend to keep that promise.

Derek's 1965 railway pictures in colour.

Anyone like classic diesels? Then this is for you! Derek is still in the West Country on an OURS tour.

Here's an unusual one straight away:

Still on the Oxford University Railway Society tour of the West Country this week. Moving on to a new day, 16^th March 1965, Warship Class D602 is seen on a Penzance to Paddington train leaving Par. [A09.10]

(You can buy a full sized (5Mb) scan of the original slide through breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk. )

D602 was called BULLDOG  and entered service on 3rd November 1958 at Laira. They were diesel Hydraulics built by North British and just 5 were built, all named after Royal Navy warships. Their names were D600 ACTIVE, D601 ARK ROYAL, D602 BULLDOG, D603 CONQUEST and D604 COSSACK. They were ordered by the BTC against the wishes of the WR, who preferred their own, lighter Warship design of the D800 class, which was built at Swindon. With just 5 examples built, they were obsolete almost from the start and under the BR rationalisation of designs they were withdrawn after only 9 years service at the end of 1967. All 5 engines were then based at Laira. Three were soon scrapped by Cashmore's, while two languished at Barry, one of them until 1980, when it had spent more time in the scrapyard than in service. The last one, D601 ARK ROYAL, was ultimately scrapped as well, as it was felt to be too far gone.

Next, on the same day a DMU on a Par to Newquay service is seen at St.Blazey. [A09.11]

A view from on board a train on the line to Newquay. [A09.12]

On board a Penzance to Liverpool train crossing a viaduct between Bodmin Road and Liskeard. [A09.13]

Another view from the same train. I didn't note the location of this one. [A09.14]

Next day, 17^th March 1965 and we had a brake van trip on the Wenford Bridge to Boscarne Junction line.[A09.15]

On the same train. [A09.16]

See you again next week.