Three weeks to go

Monday on the footbridge steps.

Warm again, and dry - good painting weather. Just as well, we have lots of it to do. We need to get the boarding back up on the P2 steps, before we start on the next job - the last section of the station canopy. It starts on Tuesday January 4th, and excitement is mounting. We've got all our ducks in line, materials ordered, scaffolders coming, and a 2 month non-running period.

Our painting area has been moved to under the P1 canopy, where John can be seen working on the framework for the boarding. That needs an extra coat, the top one, as it's difficult to paint cleanly once in situ.

We had a new recruit on Monday - meet Henry! He's always got a smile on his face, no matter what the circumstances. Us, we're miserable old grouches, but Henry always smiles.... a bit inane really, but we didn't let on.

Henry helped us today clean out the shavings and sawdust from left and right of the treads. We don't want that area to be a haven for dampness. That took pretty much all day, but now it's clean and ready for Neal.

While Neal was waiting for Henry and yours truly to finish vacuuming he could be seen painting himself. There are 110 boards after all, and they all need primer, undercoat and one side of topcoat. And then again, when Neal has cut them to make them fit.

Underneath are timbers for the P1 canopy work, themselves ready in dark stone undercoat.

Mid afternoon Henry became tired, and was taken back to the car for a rest.

This was Neal's opportunity to start putting the timberwork back on the P2 steps. The bottom lengths go first, now sitting on a damp proof course to keep them dry.

Sunset comes early this time of year, so around 3 o'clock we have to start thinking about packing up, and it seems like our lunch break was only a couple of hours ago. 

In the picture Neal has fitted the bottom timbers, and many (all?) of the uprights, with a cross brace fitted to the small length in the middle.

 

Three weeks now (!) until we start to assemble the final part of Broadway's canopy. 

Tuesday with the PWay gang.

Yes, but in the local pub. It was our Christmas dinner. We are human after all, so had a gay old time, with a three course meal, raffle and quiz. The helpings were enormous, and few if any had supper that evening.

The following morning (Wednesday) the turnout was larger than average - guilty feelings about weight, perhaps?

Bridge strike video

We came across this one, which is identical to a bridge strike once suffered at Broadway:

https://youtu.be/ZRZEABnkOa8

This one's from 2012, ours was a bit more recent, but the circumstances were the same: A 360 loaded on a tractor trailer, the driver had no idea of his load height, and the jib bounced along underneath our bridge. The damage was surprisingly severe (those jibs are very robust, they have to be) and it was one of those things that finally pushed us over the edge to buy bridge protection beams. They have been an excellent investment, as we have not suffered any serious damage since.

Wednesday with the Usketeers

Warm and dry, great block laying weather.

First of all we had an inspection, as a party of PWayers ambled over to case the joint. Dave (centre) explains how we got that quoin up on the corner (brute force) and what we are going to do next (rebuild the hop-ups).

We're going up a level now, so we need these yellow stays on the trestles. These two prevent anyone falling off the ends, and in between there will be a guide plank and a kick board (for those standing underneath, likely to suffer from objects that fall off).

 

 

 

 

This is how you deal with last year's cake.

 

 

Having negotiated the loan of these stays (thanks, Jim, much appreciated), added extra fill underneath to achieve a perfectly level base, and then put everything up, we decided we deserved a coffee and a piece of cake.

 

 

 

 

Then we were all set to go. We got this next quoin up on the corner, and last week we prepared the row that has been tipped back in the picture, which allowed Dave to put down a bed of mortar for it.

A slight problem was how to get the mortar up there. All those safety boards are now in the way, we had to sort of spoon it through with the shovel at an awkward angle.

Soon afterwards, Dave had done the deed and this row was in. There's another row of thinner blocks to go on top to match the height of the quoin on the corner, and you can see the start of that by the window. Above that, it's another 5 inches, and then we are up to the top of the window. With this new height of trestle we reckon we can go right round, up to the edge of the roof. We'll need proper scaffolding for the two gable ends, and we are going to put off the evil day for as long as we can, before we have to pay hire and inspection fees.

In the meantime we had a quick wander up to the site of the slip works.

After last week's wind they have made good progress again, and are almost up to the end with the piling rig. Conditions were excellent for the job today.

Back with the Usketeers, and what we are also doing is back filling round by the big window, so that we have some level ground here for when we have trestles in front of the arch that we want to build.

Luckily there is some fill not far away, and during the day John and yours truly shuttled back and forth with wheelbarrows. It's slow, but steady.

The scene at lunch time, with the trestles up inside and out.

Around lunch time, yours truly had to leave, and the next 4 pictures are from Dave, who carried on with Paul and John until dusk.

Dave's first picture, with great pride, is the bit of wall shown earlier, but with a small quoin additionally placed on the right, up against the window frame. That means that the next one will reach the top, we have to think about that now when selecting the heights of the blocks. The top quoin needs to be level, so that we can lay a lintel across.

The second picture is from above, showing the blocks from the previous picture immediately being backed up from the inside.

Once a set of trestles is up, we have to stick to that place for a day, to avoid having to rebuild them each time. So in future we might do a lot more on one corner say, at the (temporary) expense of progress on another.

Half an our later, the same stretch of wall shows that it's now fully backed up from the inside. With the trestles in place, you can get helicopter views from now on. That's a 16 inch wall there.

On the left is the next quoin (the smallish one) with a new window bracket already attached, just visible.

Lastly, the lads did a bit of skip surfing. That always pays, you never know how. This time, we found some old office chairs, and they are perfect for our 'welfare unit' (that corrugated iron lamp hut, formerly at Broadway).

If truth be told, while it was cosy in there, some of the chairs weren't actually very comfortable, as they were so low, we could hardly get out of them.