Saturday along the line.

A small group of 3 went to Bishop's Cleeve to bring back a redundant sleeper that was lying by the track.

Due to circumstances we were unable to complete the job. We did check out the report of a twist at Gotherington, but the attendance was too low to deal with it.

The locals took great interest in our presence, augmented by the arrival of the first train out of CRC.

After a bit of a debate we answered the request to remove the sleeper by towing it to one side, well away from the track.

We were delighted to meet Andy P at the crossing. Andy is an early stalwart of Broadway, and then moved sideways to establish his own gang - the drainage gang.

Sadly, Andy P is now moving to Devon - we shall miss you, Andy!

 

 

 

Back at Winchcombe we were joined by a fourth gang member, and undertook some maintenance on the blue Landie, a veteran of the track laying activities over the last few years.

Yard shunter D2182 trundles through platform 2 at Winchcombe.

Lunch was taken under the canopy at Winchcombe, where some shunting entertainment had been laid on for the cafe visitors. It's good the see people using the Coffeepot, even though at the moment they can't join the train here.

The shunting concerned the re-arrangement of our third rake, as well as that of the PWay ballast train of Dogfish, which are getting a bit of tlc from our C&W lads.

Monday on the canopy

A nice quiet, dry day of getting on with things, in the company of the Broadway maintenance gang.

It was lovely to discover that Rod and Terry had been to put the slabs back round the posts, now that they are in.

Didn't they make a fine job of it !

Neal spent the day drilling and cutting.

Here he is, putting a hole into an upright, where a bolt will hold on the car park side wing.

John and Yours Truly spent the day painting up on the centre span. We are coming to the end of painting the boards for the stairs - unless another coat has to go on. Could be a last minute surprise!

The Broadway Maintenance Gang offered to help with making the dagger boards for the last segment of the canopy. That was gratefully accepted.

We see them here, taking 5 boards off the centre span, for conversion into much shorter, pointy bits, with a hole in them.

The boards were taken down to the workshop area, where Dave, Ian and Brian rigged up a frame, which would allow the cutting to shape of the many boards systematically, and much faster.

 

 

 

Here they are, drilling one of the myriads of little round holes that these daggerboards seem to have. Some even have two!

Neal came to have a quick peek, and condemned the first effort. Hole not in the right place! We want to get it right.

Back to the drawing board....

 

 

 

 

Back by the canopy, we find that Neal has got out the laser level to check the height of the posts we put it.

He's taking a reading off the bottom of the truss here, to be compared with the top of the two posts by the steps. It seems we are OK.

Next to the drilling of the bolt holes, Neal also rounded off the corners of the angles, where they arrived at the roof supports for the steps. There was a rather sharp corner here otherwise.

Looks neat, doesn't it?

Tuesday - on the canopy as well.

Much the same work as the day before, but with more rain showers, which interrupted painting.

It's good to see the gradual return of touring coaches. Not sure how many were on here (social distancing?) but they filed off, and into our station, so that's got to be good.

We spent some time discussing with a very enthusiastic gentleman visitor from the NNR.

He was bowled over by the beauty of Broadway station, then again at the sight of our magnificent Pacific.

Well, he's right, our rebuilt Bulleid is magnificent. Not very loud though (we like loud engines...) and there is surely something wrong with its whistle? When the driver yanks the lever, it seems to draw breath with a rasp first, before emitting the expected whistling noise.

Today we spent most of the day painting.... the boarding upstairs on the centre span, the posts again (their paintwork suffered a bit in transport) and finally the wings that Neal put on, which were in dark grey primer last time you saw them.

We've also been giving the woodwork down the sides another (!) coat of undercoat. We had to use cheap pine for want of budget, so hope to make up this vulnerability with a layer of fungicide and many coats of paint.

Wednesday on laying stone blocks

This week, a little rant. We bought a pocket tape measure, to help the hunt for suitable blocks:

To our astonishment, it came with no fewer than two 'safety warnings'. On a tape measure! What is our society sinking to, when it is deemed necessary to warn adults about the 'risk' of using - a tape measure? What next? Warning stickers on pencils: 'Sharp point, wear safety goggles'? It's in the same league.

Rant over.... we had a good day on the Usk hut. The weather was warm, but the day was interspersed with several heavy showers, which made us wimps dive for the cement hut for shelter.

At least Paul had a treat for us, a jam roll which he cut into slices for the 4 participants we had today.

The went down so well with our flasks of coffee It also sapped the will to get up out of the camping chairs, and actually go and do some work. But needs must.

 

 

 

As we are busily laying blocks along the platform side, where the big window will be, we thought we'd better measure up to make sure it all fits.

Readers will recall that the original window overlooking the actual weighbridge had failed, and the building part collapsed around it. That was because the original window had no lintel, and when the upper part of the frame rotted away, the two courses of blocks on top fell down through it.

Thanks to some friendly people on the SVR we were able to take over their weighbridge window, which was formerly at Minehead. It is the same shape, and also has two sliding windows of the three. However, it was about 20% bigger, and we could see it once had an arch on top, whereas Usk had not. Would all that fit in under the roof?

Paul measures up the new window - will it fit?

We consulted our drawings, but various pages gave different heights for the building, but eventually we reached a consensus that a self supporting arch of two rows of blues would fit, and there would still be room for one course of blocks on top. That would be perfect. 

The original stone lintel is still in our hands, but it is too short for the new window, so we will use a row of engineering blues to make the new lintel. Blue bricks at Usk were already used for the doorstep and the chimney, so we are remaining within the style of the building.

While Paul and yours truly were debating all this and doing the research, Jules and Dave were busy laying stones. Dave was laying a third course in the foreground here, while Jules was inside backing up the platform side.

 

Once Dave had laid his course, he did the backing up layer behind it as well.

Having solved the window conundrum, Paul started on backing up the corner on the left.

Trains came and went.... here hauled by Dinmore Manor.

During the morning a contractor came to repair a leaking water pipe behind the third rake at the bottom of the yard. This leak seems to have gone on unnoticed for some time, as we think it was caused by the contractors working on the Isbourne, and that was last year. Not the first place you'd go to look if your water pipe was still water tight.

The leak was found, which is a relief.

A picture of the leak repair, by Jonathan.

Back on the Usk hut site, it was P&O that pulled away smartly today, as the Usketeers were having a coffee break. The mixing site was strangely isolated, Maxie all alone...

In the afternoon Paul turned his attentions to the corner on the right, where we planted a quoin last week.

We need to think how to come off this quoin, and form a course that is the right height for the small window that is due to go on the gable end here.

The answer is a 5 inch course, followed by a 4 inch one, to reach the 10 inch corner quoin (allowing for beds of mortar) and that will be the right level for the underside of the window cill.

We found the window cill for it OK, but the second one - for the side opposite to the big window side by the platform - was a real job to find. It is 900mm long, that should be fairly plainly in sight, and eventually it was found at the very bottom of a pallet, later covered with 6 ins blocks. To hide it, no doubt!

Here is our end of the day picture. Note the rise of the inside wall in the corner - that was Paul's work in the afternoon. On the gable end a number of blocks have been sorted out for the window cill level, while the fireplace on the right is being integrated into the stonework.

The Wednesday PWay gang colleagues spent the day at Gotherington Skew Bridge, where a twist had developed in the area where a relay we did a few years back to allow the bridge to be repaired, and where it joined with the existing track.

Andy and Peter packing the track with Kangos, driven by a gennie on the Landrover.

That problem is now sorted.

While on site, our 'Spy' John took this fine action picture of P&O coming off the Dixton straight and on to the skew bridge.

Well done, chaps!

Our Spy also helped with a trim round Hayles Abbey halt, just as Dinmore passed through, heading north.

The grass is growing really quickly these days, the sheep can hardly keep up.

Derek's 1966 colour pictures

A day out in Cambridge on 20th August 1966 and only one photograph with a railway subject. Can I go back and do that again and rectify things? Sadly not, at least not yet, but the original subject matter will be lost!

The driver of this Oxford to Cambridge through train is taking the token for the single line towards Sandy. My notes don't say where, but I think it is Blunham. In its day, the Oxford to Cambridge route either joined or crossed seven main lines out of London and should never have been closed as is now realised.[A14.31] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The partially demolished Hook Norton viaduct on the Banbury to Kingham and Cheltenham route is seen in the next two pictures taken on 29th August 1966.

 The first is the view looking south...

 

 ...and the second is the view looking north. [A15.04 and A15.05]

The pillars are still there today!

In February 1967 I attended a course at Bournemouth as part of my training for my job at Pressed Steel Fisher in Oxford. I used my lunchtime to take some photographs. On 23rd February 1967 Standard Class 4 76011 is seen on a Waterloo bound train having just left Parkstone. [A15.32 and A15.33] 

Standard 76011 is the same type as our Toddington Standard 76077. It is one of 115 locos built at Horwich and Doncaster, and which were used everywhere, except on - the Western Region. They had a light axle loading, and were 'widely used, and highly regarded'.

76011 was built in 1953 and spent its working life in the south, mostly around Eastleigh and Bournemouth, from where it was withdrawn in July 1967, after a shortish 15 year career. The loco was scrapped by Birds only 4 months later.

If you admire these smaller Standards, as we do, how about helping the Toddington Standard with a donation, standing order or a sponsored part? You can do so here:

https://standard76077.com/support-76077

With your help we can recreate a similar picture as the one above, say in the cutting leading to Winchcombe tunnel!

As you may have learned, 76077 was recently re-wheeled at LMS in Loughborough, but continued progress does depend on funds coming in.

Again on 23rd February 1967 Merchant Navy 35007 is seen arriving at Poole on a train for Waterloo. [A15.35] 

Bulleid Pacific 35007 was ABERDEEN COMMONWEALTH, a very successful mainline passenger express loco that clocked up 1.3 million miles in a respectable 25 year career. It was withdrawn 5 months after Derek took the picture, and cut up in April 1968.

Before I had a camera I took myself off on various local train trips, for the experience, with not a thought about photographs. My only memento is the memory and the railway tickets that I kept. Here is a small selection of the many that I have. I do have some pictures relating to the rail tours and the tickets for these are included in this selection. The earlier tickets are mainly from 1959 to 1961.

When younger, my father would take my brother and I on local railway trips and one unusual day out from Oxford was to Churn Halt. This was on the Didcot to Newbury line and was in the middle of nowhere. I can remember sitting on the hill looking over towards Churn Halt below. We travelled on most of the local lines, sometimes taking our bikes and cycling from our destination to visit airfields, Fairford and Brize Norton were two. So it was in my blood to continue my travels on my own when I was old enough

 

Remember that you can buy full sized copies of these scans through breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk.