The unveiling

Monday the scaffolders came.

A grey start, but at least it was dry in the morning. The scaffolders took until lunch time to take down their stuff, and the lovely six sided lantern in the middle lived a charmed existence as long scaffold poles and planks whizzed past inches away. We sweated as we watched, but it went OK.

So at last we can show you what we built. It took 5 years and a lot of hassle, but we got there. A few minor items remain outstanding, but the final part of the canopy is now available for all to see. Make sure you come and visit, and wander around its airy loftiness.

From the forecourt.

Broadway 2022.

 

Broadway 1904

Here's the 1904 picture, with a crowd of people waiting for an excursion to Stratford. Did we get the canopy end and footbridge right? The chimneys and pairs of windows are not properly recreated, but we were unfortunately unable to sway the builder our way. Most of it is right though.

 

The view under the canopy - lofty and airy. How the GWR welcomed their passengers.

The view from the platform. Sorry about the tables, they'll go when we re-open.

Looking down the stairs, and along the roof.

This is the view from the footbridge, showing how the final part of the canopy matches the existing roof.

The view sideways from platform 2. Heras fencing since put into store.

The view from a little further down P2.

This is the same view from Hall Green, our sister station.

This is the other 1904 view, along the full length of the station, platform side.

And the original from 1904, a little more compressed. All the signage is different though.

This is our favourite shot, taken from the trackbed. It shows so well how airy the entrance canopy is, and how well the replica hexagonal lamp fits in. We have a second for the other side, as soon as we get permission to build it. We are ready!

For those interested in detail: Because today the footbridge and station building are closer together, Neal has designed the canopy end to ride over the top of the footbridge steps, to a point where the dagger boards meet the roof of the steps. In this way he has won back 6m of the former 7.5m canopy length.

The central post was once in line with the platform facade of the building, while at the same time in the position of the LH newel post of the bottom of the steps. The other post was in the place of the RH newel post. So it's slightly different today, but thanks to a clever re-design we have succeeded in giving the same effect of space and light.

Our 5 year vision is now revealed - do you like it?

Last few days before the scaffolding comes down.

Thursday and Friday on the canopy.

There are only a small handful of days left to finish the canopy. We thought we had a week to spare, but little things came along, the flashings were delayed and in the end we are working every day until the scaffolding comes down. That is due to take place on Monday next week.

The long awaited flashing arrives.

 

The flashing was late because - well, there are lots of excuses these days, on both sides of the table. Finally we had a message from the supplier that 4 x 3m lengths were ready for us - last Wednesday. Too late for delivery before the scaffolding comes down, so all that we could do was volunteer someone (ahem...) to drive 220 miles to go and get the stuff. It would have been very awkward to attach the flashing to the end of the canopy, with the scaffolding removed.

 

 

Among the several small jobs remaining was the fabrication of a frame to which the WAY OUT sign could be attached.

Here is John cutting some angle to size for that frame. We spent quite a few minutes debating where exactly the sign would be hung - by the exit, obviously - but because the footbridge and the canopy are not in the place where they ought to be (see previous blogs) the location of the big hexagonal lamp, the last truss and the WAY OUT sign are not exactly where they were in 1904.

We stared intently at the 1904 opening picture, of which we have a blow up in the mess room. We consult that a lot! We finally decided that it would be next to the hexagonal lamp, even if that had shifted position a few feet. The GENTLEMEN sign (at the other end of the building in 1904) also interferes with the sighting line if we put the WAY OUT  exactly where it was originally.

This is the 1904 opening picture which shows the original signage. The footbridge steps, hexagonal lamp and WAY OUT sign are all evident.

Neal started the day with the final length of architrave, here along the Malvern side. Of course it has a purpose, but it's sculpted lines do make the station design attractive as well. 

Nailing it on means another round of painting for yours truly, as the nail heads need something over them, otherwise they will rust and spoil the paintwork.

Later in the day the bracket for the WAY OUT sign was made up, and test fitted with a G clamp. It will hang from this frame on two pieces of steel to just below the dagger board height.

Having nailed on the architraves on the Malvern side, Neal started on the flashing pieces. They are 3m long each, but that is still way too short for one side of the roof, so two are being cut to fit end to end.

Later in the day the Cotswolds side flashing was seen to be up. This makes a neat end to the building, and also gives a bit of protection against rainwater seeping in from the end. The lead flashing at the top has been removed to make this possible, so looks a bit untidy. Neal will put it back on, don't worry.

So how many working days do we have left then? Er, one, was the conclusion. Better get on with mounting the big lantern then.

The two big lanterns (yes, two, as the other is for the P2 side in the same place there) have been in storage, and one was taken out for fitting.

How to get it up to the 'conservatory' at the top under the glazing?

We felt that the safest way for it (one was already damaged before it even reached us, and has since been repaired free of charge by the supplier) was to carry it across the tracks to the other platform, then walk it up the steps, over the footbridge, and then half way back down again and into our 'conservatory'.

Here it is upstairs now, while Neal prepares the job by threading through the wiring.

Then came the tricky job of hanging it from the ridge purlin. Three scaffolding boards were removed temporarily, to allow the nose of the lamp to poke through underneath.

To drop this would have been catastrophic - it took us 5 years (!) to organise these unique replica lanterns. We can think of only one similar set in existence - at Moor Street station, Birmingham.

A certain episode of 'Only Fools and Horses' was constantly on our minds....

The 'gas supply' pipe had to be attached to the lantern, then wound carefully into the threaded holes in the ridge purlin above, by revolving the whole thing round and round, hoping that the thread would finally bite, and not cross thread itself. We got there! There is a lock nut on top as well.

A last look of the lantern in place.

On Monday the scaffolders will come and take the scaffolding down again. We hope and pray they don't put a pole through the glass. Carefully does it, Lads!

Tamping the PWay winter works

The PWay winter works - rail replacement and dipped joint removal at Dixton, replacement of turnouts at Cheltenham, Toddington north, Toddington South and the Toddington yard throat - have been completed as far as the rails and sleepers are concerned, but cannot be signed off until they have been ballasted and tamped.

The tamper is here now, and members of the PWay department have been accompanying it as company representatives, in case of any problems. These pictures are by John, rep for the day, so our thanks go to him for sharing.

Here the tamper is at Hayles Abbey halt, where a fault in the computer occurred, which meant a return to Toddington and a new part required for it.

Approaching Toddington, from inside the leading cab.

 

A snag has also arisen in that the Winchcombe slip works are still not finished, despite being ahead of schedule at one point. Principally this involves removing the ballast and membrane placed over the track, and all the S&T reinstatement afterwards.

Because of that the tamper and ballast supply trains cannot reach CRC, or the Dixton cutting. Extra tamper time will therefore have to be organised, unfortunately at extra cost.

One week to the unveiling

Thursday - and Monday on the canopy

What, no Friday? Ask Eunice why....

 

We feared the worst with the this storm, which was announced as severe (the highest windspeed forecast that we had seen in 10 years) but on the day we seemed to escape with just minor inconveniences at Broadway - a couple of branches down (but all the tall pines still upright), a dumpy bag blown down the line, and a large pile of pine needles on the station approach.

This is the station approach, photographed the day before. And it's still the same after both Eunice and Ferdinand - phew! What a lovely row of trees they are.

The pictures below are a combination of the last two working days at Broadway, as they are very similar, and we are getting to the end of the job.

The jobs remaining are painting some topcoat on the end, fitting the architraves to the edges of the roof (waiting for a supplier) and wiring up the big hexagonal lamp.

Here is the canopy now completed, with all the glass panels in and the final pieces of corrugated iron on the end.

Those architraves go on here, to wrap around the edges of the last sheets on both sides. We're hoping for a delivery on Tuesday.

What you could have in our cafe - coffee, and cake!

 

 

 

 

Our return on Monday coincided with the cafe gang doing a cleanup prior to re-opening. We received an invitation to join them for a coffee and a biscuit, an invitation gratefully accepted, as Ferdinand was still puffing, and it was jolly cold up on the scaffolding.

After coffee and cake it was back up on top, where Neal was busy with the electrical conduit, which in the picture has been extended into the staircase.

Once the conduit was in (and even painted!) Neal began to prepare for the cable that runs through it. Here he is attaching it to a special springy wire, which is used to find a path through all the twists and turns of the conduit.

In this picture the cable has been pulled through from the building, while the wire has been pushed through from the staircase.

With Neal pulling quite hard from the staircase, we managed to send the cable through the second half of the conduit.

The last job of the day was to attach the 'gas supply' column to the ridge purlin. This will hold the hexagonal lamp that will be attached underneath.

We can't put it on yet, as the scaffolding planks are in the way. The scaffolding comes down next week, so we will still have a few days to complete that, and the tidy up underneath.

Race to the finish for the PWay gang

With the railway normally due to open in 10 days (but delayed by a week to March 12th!) the pressure is on to complete the various infrastructure works. There is a lot going on - a landslip repair at Winchcombe, a bridge at Stanton, a turnout replacement at CRC, Toddington north and south, and a crossing replacement at the yard throat.

For the PWay pictures below thanks go to Walt and John, who were so kind to share these shots for the blog.

Tamper coming off the unloading road at Toddington.

All the turnout jobs are now complete, in as far as reconnection of the rails is concerned. Still to come are ballasting, tamping, and S&T reconnection. They all take time, but we are on the case. The tamper is already here, courtesy of our long standing friends Bob and Rick.

For the tamper to work, we need fresh ballast! A short ballast train of a class 47 and two Dogfish was filled by Walt in the cutting at Stanton.

What the weather was like you can guess from his picture, taken from the cab of the Telehandler.

And before you think, well he's in the dry there so it's OK, the doors on the Telehandler are only half height, so his left leg is out in the rain and gets wet!

Here's a better picture of the short ballast train at Stanton. More ballast is coming, about another 100 tons need loading, so we hope for a few dry days for Walt.

The ballast loaded by Walt was then spread around the various rebuilt locations, as here at Toddington, so that the tamper had the material it needed to work with.

It's difficult to spread tons of ballast precisely, so this is where good old human effort came into play. Members of the PWay gang gave an extra day in order to complete the job on time. Here they are doing the job of a ballast regulator (a machine that we don't have) and clearing sleeper ends of any excesses. Tough work indeed.

But it was worth it - look at this clean cross over, achieved by contractors, and finished off by the volunteer gang. Neat, or what?

 

 

The diesel department provided the motive power on Monday, here with the recently painted blue class 47 at Toddington.

More digging of ballast by the PWay gang, here on the new crossover at Toddington on Tuesday.

The ballast drops then made it possible for the tamper to do its work, which you can see here at Toddington north, where there were two rebuilt turnouts to tamp. It has a long list of tasks.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Good news here with the lintels. They are back from the galvanisers, and can be seen in this picture about to receive a treatment of T wash, a mordant solution which prepares the surface for a coat of paint (should you wish to apply one, which we do)

Lintels ready for painting.

Dave starts on the corner today.

Today's work was centred on the SE corner, the one facing the barrow crossing. We had our trestles built with two branches, so that we could work between the small window and the big one. The short term goal here is to get the stonework up to the level of the tops of the windows, so that we can lay down the three lintels. We're a couple of weeks away from that still, but the lintels aren't painted yet either, so that fits nicely.

During a break we had a quick wander up to the road bridge, to have a look at the slip works. Unfortunately there was no one visible to ask about progress, but the works as such look finished, while there is still quite a bit to do with the track, as it is covered in a layer of ballast (to protect it) and of course once the contractor has gone, our valiant S&Ters have to reconnect everything. The rails are still in place, so that is not an issue.

 

While Dave worked on the outside Paul was backing up inside - we can't make progress with one, without the other, so it's important to back up. Especially here, as in the foreground we plan to install some more chunky blocks which will serve to give resistance to the end of the arch over the big window.

Dave filled in the short gap in the foreground (around the green tinted block at the bottom of the picture) and then, with yours truly, lifted the next quoin up on to the corner.

In the picture Dave is checking the first impression level, which is usually followed by much banging with the lump hammer, and pushing in of little bits of mortar here and there to get the level just so.

From ground level a few moments later you can see that this quoin will bring us up to the level of the lintel by the little window on the left, with just a short bit in between to fill in. Unfortunately we are now getting to a stage where finding just the right sized block is getting trickier, as the choice remaining is steadily getting smaller.

With the quoin on the corner settled down, we placed a second large block up against the top of the big window.

It is this block that will offer the resistance to the arch of bricks that will be built over the white window behind.

Hey, what's this? Amazon will sell you anything, and so they did. In casu this 5m length of 5inch chimney liner, which we are going to use to route the course of the chimney away from the top of the fire place and across to the middle of the wall adjacent to it, to be followed by the stack itself.

This reluctant and springy coil arrived in the back of the car today, together with two other Usketeers and all their kit. Cosy!

This little shot from the siding gives you an up to date view of what we have built so far. Don't forget that we resleepered the siding too, built the wall in front, recovered 800 platform edging blocks from Swanbourne, a couple of thousand bricks from Verney Junction, laid the foundation slab of the hut (with its hours of tieing the wires around the reinforcement sheets) and then finally laying blocks. We've come a long way.

 

 

Our end of the day picture shows how the RH corner was built up today. The quoin is at the height of the lintel; the bit in between is a few inches short still, but can be easily done next time. Then at last we will have the first window ready for a lintel plate to be laid across.

The window on the left has one side at lintel height, the other not yet. The same goes for the door (which is actually a bit higher), where one side also still needs to be raised to lintel height.

The blue bricks in the foreground are largely from Verney Junction, and are destined for the arch over the big window. That's about 100 bricks!

The building, all round, is now well above head height. It's turning into a proper little cube of stone! If you want to be out of the wind (as when the phone goes) you can stand inside and be in the lee, although not by any windows, which still need glass.