Track all back in place.

Saturday at Didbrook.

A good turnout today, as reinstating the track is interesting, and the weather was fine. But what a cold start - frost on the ground, and zero degrees when we arrived at Didbrook 2 bridge.

 

 

This is Didbrook 2 bridge. Our drainage gang was here recently, to dig out the 4 drains, one in each corner. They did a good, neat job here.

That this bridge regularly floods (as does Laverton Bridge) can be seen by the depth gauge on the wall, and by the brown tidemark, which goes up to 5 feet !

 

Our mess coach is stabled just above, so we climbed up to the trackbed and deposited the day's goodies on the table:

Seven chocolate croissants, and they didn't last long. We have discovered a source of these in a nearby mini mart.

 

 

 

The first job was to use the digger to tweak the newly clipped up 4 lengths into a better line. This really helps the tamper, which can only shift a few inches at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the tweaked 4 lengths we can see that the rest of the track has now been laid, but that a lot of cutting, shutting and clipping up remains to do.

We cut off about a foot from each end of each rail. This is for welding (every other length) and to take off the dipped ends for a smoother ride, and fewer cracked fishplates. 

The accumulated feet soon mount up, so each next rail needs to be dragged further. As we are on a curve here, pulling at it didn't work, so we had to lift each rail out of the chairs, move it along, and then wriggle it back into the chairs. That was quite work intensive.

 

Looking the other way, from about the same point. Both cutting and clipping up can be seen.

 

Nick had a go on the hired in electric rail saw. We are still trialling this, over several days.

Behind him, next to the pole, is Stanway house fountain. It's a single jet, 300 feet high, and the highest gravity fountain in the world. It's fed by a reservoir on the hill behind it.

This reservoir was the power source for the unusual hydraulicly powered locomotive on the short lived Didbrook branch. Locals talk of a Parsons turbine on the tender of the locomotive, a large reel and a hosepipe back to nearby Stanway house.

The unusual technology was apparently not developed further, as while it was running Stanway house could not run a bath, to the dismay of His Lordship. The final blow was cartwheels coming down Stow Hill, which would repeatedly damage the hosepipe across the road. In the 1960s the Western region had diesel hydraulics, but way before that Didbrook was first in trialling the water hydraulic. Country craft, eh?

Not many people know that.

Watching Nick from a safe distance (Paul Fuller)

 

 

 

 

As every other panel had fishplates, new holes had to be cut into each pair. 

Here David and Tim prepare the drill. This one is a four stroke, and never gives us any trouble. But, unlike the disk cutters and impact wrenches, its operation is quite vibration free.

 

 

 

Here the rail drill is being operated by David.

Swarf in the foreground shows where holes have recently been cut, and a stiff, deep skirted fishplate fitted. 

That won't give us any trouble for a long time.

Note also the Panlock keys, which don't fall out. Although the one on the right might - it's not fully home.

Pete and Tim bolt on a fishplate. Older style Mills keys in the foreground.

(Paul Fuller)

(Paul Fuller)

 

 

 

 

Having moved each rail forward to close the gaps again, many rails wanted to twist as they were on a curve. That makes it hard to get the keys in. The team on the right was well away, while Tony on the left is struggling, as Yours Truly with a turning bar tries to persuade the rail back into an upright position. 

Bullhead rail is very flexible; FB less so.

 

 

 

 

The next section is finally fully keyed up!

Kevin gives it a nudge with the 360, while Bert Ferrule tells him which way to go (or maybe he's listening to Saturday Night Fever).

 

At the end of the day we had cut and keyed up six more sections. That takes us to the 10th of the 17, plus an extra one for all the bits we cut off. That is in store on the ELK in the distance.

We were very happy with progress at the end of the day.

The appeal for some donations for the PWay tool fund (last week) was honoured by a number of people, to our great joy. Thank you for your support, we will spend it wisely.

Back to Broadway.

High winds - some storm name or other - but sunny, with a very wet underground on Monday. A digging day at Broadway! The digger is on hire, so we need to get on with it.

 

This is the starting situation, the circulating area at the bottom of the stairs, with a high bank behind it. There is a pile of clay on it which Neal put there to back fill the hole on the right once the concrete is in, but we no longer need the fill now.

 

 

First Neal built himself a little ramp, so that he could track up on to the bank.

After that we could start digging, and soon the first dumper load was emptied into one of the trucks.

 

 

Alas, the thick clay began to stick to the bucket, and eventually it stayed in there, even after repeated shaking.

Digging it out was no sincecure, it was tough stuff, and gluey.

Once up on the bank Neal was able to track along it and start to reduce its height. The spoil from that was dropped on the ramp behind the digger.

Yours Truly kept an eagle eye on what came out. The surface layer behind the old building is full of demolition rubble, including glass and china.

For example: this broken inkwell. Recognise the letters? We found two more, intact, last summer. Sadly this one is a bit too far gone.

More interesting was the next find, a Codd bottle, with the top snapped off  (quite a common phenomenon, in the day people would break the top off to get at the little marble inside)

The Codd bottle, probably filled with mineral water, or perhaps ginger beer, was marked W. E. Smith, Redditch, Trade Mark.

We showed this to Paul, who has an interest in the history of Redditch, and the Redditch - Evesham railway line. He immediately messaged back with the picture on the right, his latest acquisition: a 1906 season ticket in the same name! It looks as if the proprietor lived in Stratford on Avon, and commuted to his factory with this monthly season ticket, third class. Change at Broom! Monthly cost: £1 4s 0d.

Based on this, we would say that the bottle was dropped into the clay behind the old waiting room round about the time of construction of Broadway station, i.e. 1904.

Back to digging and dumping.

We now have two conduit risers in the platform, and care had to be taken not to damage the plastic liners with the dumper passing over them. From the picture you can see that the track of the dumper is barely wider than the width of the top of the conduit, so after a while and some near misses we decided to dig in some reinforcements, and finally a large plywood sheet over the top.

After lunch there was a further brief spell of windy sunshine, with a few showers forecast later on. How right that was, except that the Met Office failed to mention just how heavy they would be. 

The sky went black, and we fled to the safety of the P1 canopy.

 

The signal box in the background is misty because of the heavy rain falling down. At least we were dry.

After 30 minutes the sun appeared again from the south, making a rather pretty picture.

We turned round to face the other way, and it was even prettier !

At the end of the afternoon Neal had scraped off the top of the bank behind the building.

This area outside the south end had a pile of debris on it, and that was also cleared.

Finally Neal built his little ramp again, so that he could get down.

It became clear that we would easily fill the two wagons again, with possibly more in the future, although there is unlikely to be time this winter. More fill needs to go from beneath where the photographer is standing, as well as from under the digger where it is in the picture.

Tuesday - more digging at Broadway.

The forecast was for light rain all day, so we thought we'd give it a go. In fact it was heavy rain first thing, then showers, and we managed to dodge these, so didn't really get wet. Amazing.

 We got a lot done on Tuesday.

 

 

 

 

Here is Neal round the back, where he set out a line for the path around the building to be laid out. This will be paved and measure 900mm wide.

As the terrain on the left rises, in line with the field, the terrain will at some point be supported by a low wall, which will end up by the footbridge tower that you can just see in the picture.

We are now digging into pure clay - no more 120 year old finds - and this became a big problem for us, as it kept sticking to the digger's bucket, as well as to the inside of the dumper. Vigorous shaking didn't help, and prising out with a shovel was nigh impossible. So we cleaned the bucket thoroughly once, and then dipped it in the water filled hole each time to lubricate it, a bit like they do in ice cream shops (if you frequent these).

We spent the whole day digging, with no distractions. The heavens threatened, but just a handfull of showers came down. The wagons were almost completely filled by the end of the day.

 

The dumper can tip only so far into the wagon, so once they were completely full at the front Neal came and pushed everything back, to create more space.

This should give us another  10 - 12 dumps for when we come back on Thursday.

This was the result at the end of Tuesday. Look how everything glistens - the clay is soaking wet. The little pond in the foreground is for the foundation block for the third canopy support column.

The ground between the back of the building was taken down by about a foot, and sloped downwards. The path around the building has been dug out, and a trench created to take some concrete for the base of a wall.

The ground where the photographer is standing also needs to be dug out, and a big tree stump removed. So it looks like at least another two wagon loads are required.

Wednesday with an Usketeer.

Dave is still away with minor ailments, and he is much missed. Just Paul and Yours Truly today then, but we still did well.

Before we start, a brief word about the Greet Road overbridge. This is not owned by the railway. It was resurfaced last year, then a hole was cut into the tarmac. That has turned into a sizeable pothole, and now a weight limit of 7.5 tons has been put on it.

That could be awkward for our wartime childrens' experiences, as they come by coach and one of those weighs, typically, 13 tons.

In the weighbridge hut we started to take up the floor. It was damp all over, with a particularly large patch inside the door.

 

The Winchcombe weighbridge was rebuilt after the war, and we are discovering what that meant in practice. The ground outside it, strangely as with the weighbridge hut at Usk, is much higher than when it was new. The floor inside is niow sunken, compared to the outside. Outside the door a patch of concrete slopes downwards towards the door, and in the recent storm this is where water ran into the building. We need to address this.

We took up the bricks in the floor, and found a layer of ash underneath, and a further hard layer underneath that. What could it be?

The ash was damp, and seems to act as blotting paper to damp coming in from underneath, and the sides.

We took up all the bricks in the floor, leaving an irregular patch of concrete. This was very ugly. We decided to give it a neat, straight edge, and ran a cut along the side of the balance mechanism.

The dust that came out of that cut was extraordinary. It poured out of the door for a good 20 minutes, which we passed sitting a good distance away. It even came out of the chimney.

Ad interim, a quick picture of the C&M team getting the Winchcombe footbridge ready for new, non slip covers for the treads.

The area was thouroughly cleaned with a pressure washer, which also took off a lot of the paint previously applied. This will be repainted.

Outside, measurements were being taken for the new woodwork for the refurbishment of the entrance canopy, and its two new bracket castings. This project is now getting new impetus.

Inside the weighbridge, sweeping the ash that was underneath the bricks in the floor revealed - a second floor, also of bricks. Surprise !

So the floor has already been raised once.

We will remove the ash next time, and put down a damp proof membrane on a bed of sand, itself also covered by a bed of sand.

PWay at Didbrook.

The track is all back in place now, the gang having reached the southern end of the relay site. Rail has been lifted in, cut, and clipped up.

Paul, our PWay manager was very busy on site today, but he did manage a couple of drone pictures for you.

The current site stretches from the foreground, up to the mess coach centre top. The first relay (of the same economy sleepers) two years ago went from the mess coach to the smokey area at the top, a similar length.

With this second relay all wartime economy sleepers have been removed. They are now in store, and will be used again in various sidings, for which they are still suitable.

The Hayles end of the relay.

Closure rails still to go in.

Lastly, a drone view of the Hayles end, looking south.

Paul was very happy indeed at the end of the day. We are under some pressure to get everything serviceable again asap, as there are race trains on the horizon.

Lining, lifting and packing the track are next.

Note that the B4632 is closed until April 4th, between the Toddington Roundabout and the road to Stanton. It was resurfaced last year - are they cutting it open again?

 

 

Busy, due to the cold.

Broadway on Thursday.

Abandoned ! The forecast showed a minimum temperature that was still suitable for brick laying, but on arrival first thing on Thursday there was mist, and an outside temperature of minus 1 1/2. That made it impossible for us to work, so we turned on our heels and drove home gain. Quite a distance, in the case of John. It's that time of year.

Saturday, out with the gang.

We have started the process of relaying the track on the Didbrook 2 winter programme. A great day. It was just like the old days at Peasebrook, on our way up to Broadway. And many of the same faces too.

Logistics were a bit tricky, as the track was now up and there were big piles of ballast on the up line, along which we usually drive to reach our work sites.

The Ranger cautiously edged its way over one such pile, but got stuck, despite 4 wheel drive. Wheels spun madly on the loose ballast.

It was pushed back out by several members of the gang, whereafter a second attempt succeeded, with a bit more welly.

This then was the start of the relay, at the northern end. The contractor with the hired in 360 is just arriving, and refurbished spacer boards, freshened up after the 2018 Broadway extension works, are laid out in readyness.

 

 

 

The trackbed had been well prepared by the contractor, we were impressed. No digging out of the end to get the first sleeper in. We soon had a dozen concrete sleepers down.

 

 

We had two teams going. One to make up groups of 4 sleepers for the 360 to lift, the other to drop in the spacer boards and get the set down.

David in the Telehandler brought in a steady stream of concrete sleepers, piles of which we had positioned two years ago.

Is it straight, Tony?

Initially we tried hard to get the line straight, but with the 360 in the way of the line of sight this proved to be a thankless task.

So we put the sleepers down as best as we could, inching some this way or that when gaps in the deliveries allowed it.

The concrete CS1 sleepers were mostly piled in the middle of the 300m work site, and after a while the reversing 360 started to get in the way of the Telehandler reversing to get sets of sleepers out.

 

This is the team that attached the sleepers to the lifting bar. Unfortunately the new chains fitted did not allow all 4 sleepers to be attached at once (too short) so some time was lost jiggling each group of 4 about until they were all attached.

This is as far as we got from the north end - 128 sleepers laid down, out of a total of 446 required over the 300m stretch.

 

 

We then walked back to the mess coach for lunch.

The bridge in the picture is Didbrook 2, one of the few bridges that were replaced in concrete in BR days.

After lunch we walked over to the southern end at Hayles, to start again.

That way, we should meet in the middle, and always have an access route to the sleeper piles.

 

Here is the start made at Hayles after lunch. A pile of 8 has already been put down, ready for distribution, but it's a bit too close actually.

The lifting rig was in action again, and from the picture you can see that the outer chains could not reach their intended sleepers. The inner ones are attached.

This is the Hayles end, starting to look quite long as well.

The dug out trackbed was pleasingly level, so all the sleepers went down level as well.

There's a bit of a kink here, but that can be adjusted with bars next time.

The days are still short, so we called time a bit after 3 o'clock.

This is as far as we got from the southern end.

Here's the final shot from the first sleeper laying day. A goodly line of newly placed sleepers stretches into the distance, as the team walks back to the mess coach.

The rails on the right will be cropped and then welded into 120ft lengths, to ease future maintenance. A handful of spare rails have been brought in to make up the difference, and Andy will get a new supply of rail ends for sale as anvils or door stops. Have you got yours yet?

At the Hayles end we laid 120 sleepers, so that makes 228 in total laid during the first day. Just about half way, a pretty good performance.

An extra day at Didbrook.

Four of us did an extra day on the PWay winter relay at Didbrook, to continue from Saturday's excellent sleeper laying. The digger and driver are on hire, so we need to maximise their use.

Where is that mess coach....?

Oh, there.

 

 

Next to the 4 of us was Kevin, the operator of the 360. Here he is, coming across the piles of ballast, which he levelled out as he went along.

We tried to line up the sleepers using bars, but for some reason many were very reluctant indeed to move.

Kevin offered to help with the 360, and that worked really well. And quickly too.

Neal (from Broadway) eyed them in. There is nothing happening at Broadway, as it's too cold, except for laying track.

Once the sleepers were in an acceptable line they were barred into the chairs.

 

 

 

Behind us was this strange gate, at right angles to the track.

It marked the start of the short lived branch line to Didbrook, just beyond the tree line in the picture....

We ignored the history, and kept right on laying track.

Here we are at lunch time, with the northernmost 5 panels in.

We're still far from finished. All these rails need cutting and shutting, moving up, new rail joints created every other panel to get 120ft lengths, clipping up and packing lightly, and then finally tweaking into the required line on a curve which starts at Toddington, and goes round, in one big sweep, all the way past Hayles and into the Defford straight.

This was a high speed line, so the curves were long.

 

After lunch we moved to the southern end of the relay.

These rails were also laid in, so that at the end of the day we did 5 panels at one end, and 5 at the other. Now 7 panels remain, in the middle.

The little team admired its own work at the end of the day, then separated to avoid the lens of the photographer...

We agreed to meet again on Tuesday, again in order to maximise the use of the hired in 360.

A second extra day at Didbrook.

Just 4 of us on Tuesday, but once again utilising the hired in 360 and driver, and we made great strides forward.

 

 

Neal shuttled groups of sleepers over to the 360, from a stack that was shrinking rapidly. Those in the foreground are the ones we pulled out.

As there were just three of us besides Neal. The same little team had to hook up the sleepers, then run round the 360 to the other side....

Paul adjusts the level of his trousers to make them more fashionable.

... and then unhook them again at the end of the long row, starting at Hayles.

By mid afternoon we had almost caused the two rows of sleepers from north and south to meet.

It then dawned on us that we were a couple of dozen sleepers short, so Neal was volunteered to go to Winchcombe and get another 3 loads.

Here he is, just arriving with the first one. Unfortunately it then got too dark to fetch any more.

Here we are at the end of the day. You can see that the two sleeper rows have almost met in the middle. This gap can be filled on Wednesday, and a start made on cutting off crippled rail ends, and clipping up the rail to the sleepers.

Two Usketeers at Winchcombe.

Dave didn't feel quite fit enough to come again, so it was down to Paul and Yours Truly to continue with the brick piers.

It was bitterly cold, just below zero, and actually colder in the weighbridge hut, than outside. This is almost certainly due to the damp that it suffers from. We will deal with that.

We now have two brick piers, one under each end of the thin RSJ that is holding up the front wall. Today was lintel installation day.

In the picture Paul is chipping away some of the old brick remaining from the original pit, superceded by the new pit built after the war. Bits of projecting brick were impeding the placing of the new reinforced concrete lintel. This is the grey strip that can be seen just in front of him.

Yours Truly had to lean into the pit and hold on to the other end while Paul was doing this - very uncomfortable. But we got there.

This is the lintel from underneath. The big metal piece is part of the balance mechanism, and can move imperceptibly. We need to keep the lintel clear of it.

The pieces of slate form part of the measuring for the amount of final fill we need to reach the bottom of the old RSJ.

We reckoned: one more brick, and one piece of slate.

The two shots above show Paul in the process of fitting the final bricks, one from the front, and one from the rear.

And here it is: the lintel in place ! Job done.

Our noses and fingertips were icy cold. Coffee inside the weighbridge hut did not appeal.

We spotted a brief sunny spell, so set up shop under the station entrance canopy opposite. Warm. Bliss !

That canopy is still the subject of a rebuild, but one which has seen a number of delays as we sought more information about the old structure, and the carrying capacity of the threaded bolts in two columns on the left, that were never used. You may recall that two additional brackets were cast for it, to achieve the original intended length.

The next stage in the reconstruction is to drill 3 holes in each of the two brackets - two for the mountings, and one opposite to attach the fascia board on the nose end.

So what do we do next? The front wall will need to be repointed, and probably the top few courses under the gutters taken down, and rebuilt.

But we are fed up with the damp inside, so will have a go at that. Next week we will take up the floor and put a damp proof membrane down, as a start.

In the picture, all the dark patches on the floor are damp. The normal colour of the bricks is blue-ish grey.

Didbrook on Wednesday.

Quite a good turnout of 15, on this normal PWay working day. There were three teams - clipping up, laying sleepers/rail in, on the final stretch, and cutting rail.

Picture with thanks to John Mayell.

Here we have a picture of the clipping up gang, starting at the Toddington end. It looks like the gang itself was split into two teams.

Getting those keys in is quite an art.

No pictures of the assembly of the final stretch, you'll have to imagine that. Yours Truly was down a hole at Winchcombe. A very cold one.

The third activity at Didbrook was cutting off the crippled ends of the rails.

We are not happy with the petrol powered rail saws that we have. They are heavy, fiendish to start, and on top of that unreliable as well. They keep having to be sent back for repair.

Thanks to Andy's sales of rail ends (for anvils, door stops, you name it) we have a little fund that might let us buy the first of perhaps several battery powered PWay tools. But to avoid any unpleasant surprises in service, we thought we would rent a battery powered rail saw, and see how it went in practice.

Here is Andy, the man himself, using the electric rail saw. So far, so good, was the verdict. It had the power to cut rails  OK, and the autonomy of the battery was about 4 cuts. So we would need at least 2 batteries, if not more. This relay, for example, requires no fewer than 68 cuts.

Here are some pictures (courtesy of Andy and Paul ) of the elecctric rail saw in question.

We also have a little video !

Paul, our PWay manager, has only a very limited budget from Head Office, so this initiative is up to us to progress, if we can. He asks that if readers would like to make a donation to help us become electric ( our impact wrenches also qualify, we have the same starting and reliability problems with them) then such donations should be made to the GWR Trust, specifying that they are for the PWay tool fund. That way we can also boost the donations with some gift aid.

Additional information, if required, is available from: pway.manager@gwsr.com.

And finally:

At the time of writing work at Broadway looks set to resume next week, if the hired in digger gets there. The trackbed to Broadway is currently under a possession to repair a bridge, but we must get the two trucks, filled again with spoil, away as soon as possible after February 6th. They (their contents...) are wanted by our drainage department.