Winter storms

Monday on the footbridge

An icy cold morning, with rain and wind. Not the best weather for painting, but it must get done.

 

 

John and Neal were on the platform, giving the structural timberwork another undercoat. Is there no end to this? At least they were in the dry.

Yours truly was up on the centre span, applying primer to the T&G boarding (after Neal had cut it to fit the sides of the steps) and that cold was very hard. It's breezy up there, and after a while there were raindrops in that wind too, and the work was getting covered in a fine mist of rain. We finished off the primering, then took all the boards down on to the platform, in anticipation of the storm announced for Tuesday. It'll stay dry there, for next time.

 

After finishing his painting job, Neal could be seen here taking measurements. This is good news, they are in anticipation of putting up the final part of the canopy.

Later we could see Neal on his hands and knees on the platform. What he's doing there is making a stencil which will tell him where to drill the holes on the truss, which is currently at Toddington.

 

 

We're going to have a few mince pie specials touching Broadway, but as soon as they stop, our scaffolding is going up. That'll be on January 4th. Our excitement is starting to mount!

Tuesday in a stormy Dixton Cutting.

The day started cold and wet, and during the morning the wind got stronger and stronger, reaching a wet crescendo at lunchtime.

 

We started the day by clipping up the rails laid in by the previous gang.

John was in the little mini digger again in the background, raking ballast towards the track.

Now that we have laid in all the replacement rail, we have sorted what came out into poor (for sidings) and passable (might be used again further on).

This involved cutting off the ends of the rails moved up, and of those to which they would be joined. That is intended to removed the crippled ends along this stretch of the line.

John found himself in the 4ft. It was a good place to work from, but it was not clear how he would get the machine out of there once the rails were back in. Climbing the machine over the rails felt a little hairy - watch this space, is all we can say.

Manoeuvering the Telehandler back and forth across the drainage channel at the bottom of the slope did not always go well, such as here. The concrete channel segments have been twisted and smashed in this area.

The weather slowly got worse during the morning. A brief 2 hour bit of storm was forecast over lunch, followed by calm, and then the full storm overnight.

This picture, taken from the Landie on site, gives you an idea of the rain that was lashing down. There are people out there!

 

During a brief lull, the Telehandler was sent back down the line to fetch two more reasonably good rails.

Very cautiously, using our new lifting beam, it was brought up to the rail head where we were working.

 

 

At 12.30 we decided to break for lunch, as the rain was getting intolerable, and everybody had icy cold wet hands.

Our bodies were reasonably well protected, as we are experienced and have bought (ourselves!) the right sort of kit, but there is little you can do about wet hands.

Are we going out in that again?

The rain drummed down on the roof of our diesel powered 'welfare facility'. Turn on the kettle, and the diesel slows down audibly. It accelerates again when you make the brew.

Unperturbed by the machine gun drumming on the roof, we munched our sandwiches and, thanks to Chris, half a dozen mince pies.

Checking our weather apps, we found that around 2 in the afternoon there would be another lull, so we set forth to the rail head once more. A few minutes too early, we might admit, as it was still raining, and we all got wet again, before the sun came out.

This is as far as we are going to swap round rails. The final two lengths can be seen in the 4 foot here.

As Peter and Chris prepare to cut off the crippled ends, yours truly, Walt and Paul did the last few yards of clipping up.

 

This is as far as we got today.

The plan was to lay in the last two rails, cut to length, to reinstate the track, but we only managed one, as you can see. Unfortunately the pull cord on the disk cutter failed. We tried to repair it, did one more cut,  but then it went finally. Chris eventually took it away for repair at the end of the day.

By this time next week we would like to see the site finished off, so that we can move our kit to CRC, where we are due to start the replacement of the northern loop turnout.. This has an old crack in the nose. Nothing serious, it's been there probably since it was put in in 2000, but now something has to be done about it.

At Toddington we also have two turnouts to replace. One is at the northern end of the loop (remember how we took the crossing out there in the summer?) and the other is at the southern end of the loop.

The southern one is in fact a crossover, and is one of the oldest PWay installations on the whole railway, dating back to the 1980s. It is worn out, and will now be replaced.

(Picture with thanks to Andrew)

As we can't do all 3 replacements, this third one will be done by contractors, with a complete set of replacement rails and fittings. Out GWR Trust is paying for the job, made possible by your generous donations and legacies.

In the picture you can see it being built in the factory. Pretty cool, huh?

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A bitterly cold start to the day. The outside temperature was 4 degrees, but with the leftovers from storm Barra the windchill factor gave a feeling of minus 4. It went straight to your hands, a part of your working body that is difficult to keep warm and dry. We went to the nearby mess coach and had a cup of coffee over it, hoping that the rain would die out.

The rain did die out, so we ventured forth into the weather. We were a bit hesitant about starting up a mix, so decided to sweep out the interior of the building (it's a building now, see?) which contained most of the leaves belonging to the oak tree that stands over us.

Half an hour later the rain had gone, so we went for it. We did three mixes today, not exactly a record, but remember that the weather is foul and the days short.

Our three brickies ('Blockies'?) were Jules, Dave and Paul. Each took a corner of the building, while yours truly fussed with choosing future blocks. John shuttled back and forth with barrows of sharp sand.

Jules above took the NW corner and did a splendid job backing up the two halves of the corner. That clears the way for the next quoin on the corner there, which has been selected and placed nearby, ready for lifting into place next time.

Paul worked on the fireplace (sorry - forgot to take a picture of this) and put two courses of blocks over the arch, changing the courses from semi circular to straight here.

Dave took the NE corner, and backed that up too. In the picture you can see what he did, a complete row of undressed blocks from the door on the left, to the side of the big window on the right. That gave a level surface on the right which, at the end of the day, permitted us to place the first stone that reached the top of the big window.

This is that moment. This block will support the arch over the window, so we have chosen a big fat one. It's a tad too long, so the overlap for the next joint is a little close, but we think just about acceptable. The important thing was the right height and the right weight of block here.

Another block for the other side is ready, but at this point we ran out of mortar, and the light was about to go. It'll be for next time, and then we are ready for the arch former to go on. Neal of Broadway fame is helping us there.

During the day we had a look at the slip repair works, and a chat with the site manager.

They've made good progress with the installation of the sheet piling, it's about half way along here. The machine you see sits on top of existing piles and walks along them.

Once the piles are in, the slope will also be soil nailed.

The tiny mini digger is there to back fill the space behind the piles. The whole works should be complete in time for our first trains in March 2022.

There was no work today though. The remnants of storm Barra were too strong to allow the crane to work. The team was on site and watching the anemometer on the crane very closely, but the maximum allowable wind speed on it (14mph) was always exceeded during the day, not dropping below until after it was dark.

Bridge 8 appeal:

Success!

From the Trust website:

Bridge 8 Appeal has raised a staggering £200,000 in less than a month. I give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has donated – your combined efforts have achieved a fantastic result and the work can proceed in January 2022. 

That appeal is now closed but we are always pleased to receive donations for future projects on GWR. I therefore invite you to donate to our General Funds to be allocated to future projects as and when required.  

Ways to donate are shown on the GWRT website. Thank you all for raising this very essential amount. Work can now proceed, the traffic lights can be removed, and we will have shown that we can look after our structures.