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.