Earth movements.

Friday on steels.

Having missed Tuesday, we were back in the 'greenhouse' with Neal and John on Friday.

Having completed the purlins, the job of making the P2 canopy has now turned to the fascia boards. Getting the millscale off these has turned out to be a lot harder than with the angles. One way is to let them rust, then grind that down. 

John is primering those parts recently cleaned, while Neal takes a rest from the relentless disking.

 

We also saw what they had done on Tuesday - they cut the 3 long RSJs in half, so producing 6 that were of the right length. These 6 will become the uprights that will make up the frame inside the cavity walls.

They still need gusset plates welding on the tops and bottoms. The horizontal RSJs connecting them are on the right.

It's a kit of parts! Now where is that hex spanner....?

Saturday at Winchcombe.

A quick extra session around the Usk hut. Greg came in to give the end of the paver path a treatment against the white cement dust that was on it.

 

It should look a lot darker from now on, similar to the rest.

We watered the grass seeds along the edge again, it's a bit too hot at the moment for them to grow without help.

Then the C&W 03 came by with the Fruit C we saw last week.

The wagon was being taken to its final destination for the winter, on the end of the Santa coach.

So in this way you get a nice little freight shunting scene, with the signalman looking on.

Outside the Usk hut Greg had completed the cement dust treatment, and his eye caught the dusty appearance of the former safe from Broadway station. It was still in the same condition it was in when we retrieved it from a skip.

Greg restored the brasswork (keyhole cover, maker's plate and door handle) and then gave the paintwork a good clean.

The little safe, which would have held a modest day's takings (such was the modest passenger business at Broadway) still has its original key, so is fully functional. The maker's plate states: 'From E&F Turnbull, Newcastle on Tyne'. We looked this up - Kelly's directory of 1883 shows that Edwin & Frederick Turnbull were ironmongers at 68 and 70 Newgate Street. The business must have grown quite a bit, as there is now a famous E&F Turnbull building, a large bright red brick warehouse occupied by them for a wholesale business from 1963, and converted into flats in 2002. The 'From' most likely means 'supplied by', and it is likely that there were other safes from the same supplier at GWR stations of the early 1900s.

PWay ballasting.

A small group took 'STEVIE' out for a canter again, to do small amount ballasting with dumpy bags along the track.

Here is 'STEVIE' being manoeuvered cautiously onto the rails.

We've still got to shift that pile of rails in the foreground, to allow access to the mess coach in its new position.

Picture by Walt.

Here is the RRV arrived at CRC, with the trailer loaded with dumpy bags in tow.

 

 (Stop frame video, with thanks to Walt)

In the video you can see the dumpy bags being unloaded just outside CRC station, where they were used in small quantities to beef up the shoulders of the track.

Tuesday on steels.

The last warm day of the season... we used this to remove more millscale, primer the result, and apply undercoat to some of the finished purlins.

Here Neal and John grind away at the now rusty millscale. A bit over half of this side is already in primer.

Yours truly was on painting duty, but before you do that you have to remove the oil and steel dust from when the holes were drilled.  So that means a lot of brushing and wiping with turps.

 

 

We also had a useful discussion about P2, and what steps are next if/when planning approval comes in. That shouldn't be long now.

In fact the winter closure window has several jobs for us, so we need to work out priorities. The Winchcombe canopy needs rebuilding, we need to dig a conduit from P1 to P2 at Broadway, and dig out the foundations of the P2 building.

The works proposed for the viaduct give us a window of no trains on the Broadway extension, which is an opportunity for us.

Then we also had a delivery - the gusset plates for the P2 canopy have arrived.

John and Neal enjoy 'opening the box' and finding out what is inside. Is everything there?

The pieces are in raw steel, so we need to primer that urgently. The next few days' forecast is wet.

This is the result of half a day's painting in undercoat, again as a protective measure. The 'greenhouse' may have a roof, but if it's windy everything underneath gets wet anyway.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A full complement of 4 today. Bad weather announced, but it was fine really. We spent the day digging.

 

 

 

C&M were digging a hole and asked if we wanted the topsoil. This was very welcome, as it helps us fill the void we have around the tree and the back of the platform.

Dave directed the dropping of the soil - there was more to come.

.... and indeed a second load arrived. All we had to do was push it to the right places, and filter out the detritus that was in it. It had clearly been somewhere else before, witnessed by bits of brick, metal and glass, all of which we picked out carefully and put in the bin.

 

The soil came from here, the increasingly small green patch still left behind P1 at Winchcombe station.

Last year a patch was already dug out for a patio area, and now we are getting a little further of this urbanisation with a second patch of concrete and slabs.

Originally the area between the station building and the signal box was all green, with the exception of a cattle dock. Now we have a toilet block, a very large visitor centre, an area slabbed over and now a second area of slabs to come.

 

 

Back with the Usketeers, we find Dave and Paul measuring up for a coat hanger rail.

Is this level, Paul...?

We have been hanging our coats on three nails driven into the wall and we thought, why not make a feature of this? A coal agent would have to hang his coat somewhere.

After receiving the last load of soil from behind P1 we spread it out between the Usk hut and the tree. More is needed here, but we have our eye on some.

One load was dropped by the newly raised drainage inspection pit, so we levelled that out too.

This area also needs more topsoil. With night time temperatures now about to drop to near freezing, it will be too late to do any more seeding this year.

 

We then had a little unboxing. A kind blog reader offered us some old fashioned office accoutrements, and we were happy to accept. They arrived by Royal Mail the very next day, so that was jolly efficient.

One box full of old fashioned office stuff.

Here it is, unpacked. This fits rather nicely with the old typewriter and the dial up telephone.

The old stapler is 'VELOS' brand and this was sold by Rees, Pitchford & Co of 72-74 Victoria Street in London SW1.The company sold office equipent and dates back to the beginning of the last century. The VELOS brand was used from 1946, so this stapler is a pretty old thing. The wooden dividers are particularly attractive.

What puzzled us a bit was the long green thing in the foreground.

Here it is, upside down. There are two rollers underneath. It's clearly been used a lot, because the brand name is all but rubbed off, as are the measurements for a ruler on the green side.

Anybody know what it is?

 

Today was a blue timetable day, which meant one steamer and the DMU.

Here is P&O just putting on steam again, after being slowed at the bracket signal.

Another job we did today was add complementary fill around the base of the building, as what we had put there earlier seemed a little low.

We still need to extract the wooden boards used to separate the chippings from the grass.

Later we caught P&O on its return from CRC, blowing off long and loud. Shame about the wasted coal though.

The PWay gang spent half a day at CRC today, and the other half in the yard finishing off the stop block that is being assembled for one of the sidings at Toddington. (the one that ends by the new yard lamp)

The stop block was largely finished last time, but still needed two more sleepers underneath, as well as a second one fitted to the actual buffer stop.

This was the view at the end of the day, showing the newly raised catchpit covers, now surrounded by level ground and some topsoil. More is needed in this area. The wall that was built here is now largely redundant, as the two sites are pretty much of equal height now. The 'pit' that was a bit of  hazard here has been eleminated, and the area looks a lot more friendly than the previous weed infested hole with Heras fencing around it. A bit more topsoil here, and the area can have its grass seed applied.

Finally we had a look at Hayles Abbey halt on the way home, as we are planning a working day here. It could do with a bit of TLC. The Cotswolds stone has settled and needs beefing up a bit, there are quite a few weeds on the paths, and a bit more Creosote could be applied to the fencing for maximum tidiness. Otherwise it is in reasonably good shape.

Exmoor Associates.

It's good to be able to report that the recent General Meeting of shareholders, which was backed by an online vote, was successful in raising sufficient votes to change the company's Articles of Association to allow the charity YVT to achieve control. This will enable the YVT to support the company to a much greater degree.

Thank you all those shareholders who rose to the call. The main resolution required at least 75% of shareholders to agree, and that is not easy. However, EA did it, and in fact 84% of shareholders agreed. That is remarkable, and good news indeed.

We await the next newsletter with great interest. It will be out shortly, we were told.