Preparations for the roof.

Monday and Tuesday at Broadway

After writing two thirds of this blog, and uploading all of Wednesday's pictures, the screen suddenly reverted to a completely new one, with just one line of text - all the rest had vanished. Lost! Despite saving everything repeatedly. Disaster.

So please excuse the somewhat shortened explanations for Monday and Tuesday this time. They are out in the ether somewhere. Blogger is not reliable, and the formatting of the current version is clunky, worse than the previous version. Not easy to work with, and this mysterious disappearance of everything we had, despite saving it, is just another annoyance.

But we must move on.

 

So here is Neal on Monday, marking out the position of a new bracket for a wooden beam.

John made up the bracket out of a piece of angle, and here it is welded on. This bracket, and the wooden beam, is not original. It is needed to give extra support to the 3 inch corrugated sheets we have, as the original and less flexible 5 inch spacing sheets are no longer available to buy. (not the same issue as the thickness of the sheets)

 

While the bracket was being prepared, Neal started cutting some dagger boards.

We do of course have a big pile of them, made earlier by the Broadway maintenance gang, but these are all one-offs, so are made on the spot.

After several brief  'Zing's, the dagger boards for this corner were ready, and here they are already on.

Neal then got busy with that extra timber support. To tie it into the existing one, Neal here is preparing a joint by sawing the end off in a diagonal.

Yours truly was touching up the nicks, scratches and dinks that the steelworks has received while it was shunted around at Toddington for a couple of years.

At one point we decided to have a look at progress from a distance. You can see the daggerboards wrapped round the corner of the canopy. 

What do you think of it? 

The scaffolding still hides all of it really, but it won't come down until March 2nd, when the butterfly will emerge from the chrysalis.

Neal then cut and fitted the remaining bit of timber for that support. One piece of timber (red) wasn't long enough, so it was lengthened with a second bit we had, recovered from elsewhere, so the wrong colour here. Soon mended.

This picture shows the one-off daggers Neal cut on the left, and how they fit in with the moulding coming down the roof of the steps. That's work in progress here.

A number of readers enquired whether we will be painting the steelwork, and the answer is Yes. If the weather permits it. So here is a picture of the Malvern fascia board, after having Kurust applied to it, then primer, and here dark stone undercoat. With a bit of luck we should be able to do this to all of it. So far, so good.

On Tuesday Neal went down to the forecourt for a chat with S&T stalwart George. George gets the full works explanation and tour!

Later on Tuesday Neal had taken off the last 4 daggers from the roof of the steps on the right, and made new ones, each one slightly longer, to give a curve effect as they join the canopy daggers. That looks nice.

Sadly, at the end of Tuesday it all came down again, because the freshly sawn wood needed to go down to the container to be primered and re-painted. Oh well.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Unexpectedly nice weather, although not quite warm enough to sit outside. And it was a good day, with lots of progress thanks to the return of Jules.

Jules immediately got to work from the inside, backing up the Malvern side wall, where Dave was working on the outside laying facing blocks.

We would like to get both the small windows and the door frame bracketed by blocks, so that we can lay some steel lintels in over the top. These have been ordered, which at £170 for the three put a fair hole in our piggy bank. Plus £48 for three bags of cement!

 

 

 

 

Here then is Dave on the outside of Jules, laying on the wide area of the back of the fireplace that we filled in on that cold day last week. The mortar seemed to be alright, fortunately, but we were worried about frost.

Dave bought three bags of fine powdery mortar, 25Kg each. He was cross with the supplier, who to be helpful, heaved up one bag and absolutely threw it into the back of Dave's car, where it landed in a huge cloud of fine dust that went all over the inside. Grrr !

Luckily Mrs. Dave has her own car, although we did spot it at Winchcombe last week, so that cement explosion was a lucky miss there.

Here we see Dave on the inside again, fixing an inside corner stone by the window.With a good base there and the mortar gone off, we should be able to lay a final block here, so reaching the top corner of the window. Ready for the lintels, which we now have to collect from Long Marston, and possibly get galvanised somewhere for a longer life.

Speaking of inside corners, here is one that Jules did, by the big window. That side is now ready for the stone that will receive the end of the brick arch.

 

Jules is a fast worker, so a few more steps round and we see him by the other window, also doing a corner.

During the day Jules was able to catch up on almost all of the backing up that was still outstanding. No backing up means no next level of outside blocks, so it's vital work.

 

 

Now Dave is back outside on the Malvern face, where we decided to fit a fat 8 inch block up against the quoin placed last week.

Nearest the camera is a corner stone by the small window, which gives us a gap to fill now between the two.

This little cameo of Jules shows him pointing up the corner by the southern small window.

With the backing up stones very rough and undressed, the selection of the right stone, and generous pointing up inside is vital to get an inside wall that is more or less flat.

 

 

Then we have our end of the day shot, after no fewer than 4 mixes. That is progress!

Here Jules is just starting to get the hessian out, to cover the work at the end of the day. Dave is still busy with the top row that was started only today, and yours truly and Dave heaved a pretty massive 18 inch long and 7 inch thick block up there, which exactly filled the last remaining space. So that row is now completed. One more to go to the top of the window.

Just for interest, here is a picture from a couple of years ago. Haven't we come far! That siding was re-sleepered, packed, a platform built, coping stones recovered miles away from Swanbourne, the foundations of the building were dug out and the slab cast, and now we are nearing a height of 6 feet all the way round the building, nearing what they call the wall plate level. Not bad for a team of 4, with a long break in the middle of Covid as 'not essential' work.

News from the PWay.

They are busy, busy. Working three days a week, a real jacking up of our team effort, and never seen before.

Currently there is work on 3 sites:

Toddington loop points - here we are using contractors to rebuild with new materials the crossing linking the main line, loop and loco approach road, in an area just by the coal pile. Work continues here.

CRC - the replacement of the northern loop turnout, which suffered a broken crossing unit, (the big metal cross in the middle) is almost completed. We have a second one to do at Toddington north loop points.

Toddington south - We have two pictures of this here, thanks to Walt. This turnout was installed a couple of years ago, but the nose of the crossing here quickly deteriorated. We seem to have obtained/used a duff item 2 years ago, although possibly not apparent when it went in. The base plates under the crossing were also changed, and the levels were corrected using the sponsored Robels. They are now in frequent use - how did we ever do without them?

In the picture above the new crossing features in the foreground, while on the right two members of the gang are packing the timbers with our new Robels.

 

The second picture shows a shot looking the other way, Robels loaded back on the Landie, and their users looking a little worse for wear...

Plans have been made for 2022, and it looks as if we will be busy. More details when everything is approved and we have found the money. Everything sounds very positive, we must say.