Big push at Didbrook.

A Friday special at Hayles.

Four of us out on Friday, to get a bit more of the relay done. We are under time pressure, with services due in less than a month, and some stock movements before that. We need to get the track back in, roughly levelled, ballasted, welded and tamped.

 

It's particularly at the southern end where more work needs to be done. The join between the relay and the existing track is not yet done, and we intend to cut and shut another couple of panels beyond that.

 

 

David was very busy drilling holes...

... while the others lifted the track just before the join, to make it level.

Kevin our contractor and digger driver made himself useful by dropping spent ballast in the cribs, and this we then shovelled underneath. The 360 has a rotating bucket, something we don't see every day, but it was jolly useful here.

David also cut the ends off the last panel, while...

... Paul supervised from a distance.

We had a rail with squats in it here, so to deal with that, as well as close the gap in the panels, resulting from all the bits we cut off, a small supply of nearly new second hand rails was brought up.

Monday at Broadway.

No progress possible with the building, due to the cold weather. The night time temperature has been below the minimum of 3 degrees for a week now, and more, similar weather is forecast.

 

 

We went to the local hardware shop (Cotswolds, in Broadway, highly recommended) and they were very kind to cut us three new glass panes for the accidental damage to one of the canopy lanterns with the flashing 'safety' light on top of the dumper. When parking up underneath the canopy, we remembered the height of the roll over cage, but the additional height from the light was out of sight. Shit happens.

 

 

Monday was pretty evil weather really, constant rain all day, so we spent it in the mess room and continued with the fill-in job of cleaning up the woodwork on the MR bench. The whole bench was coloured so dark brown that it was almost black. Comparison with the similar bench at Winchcombe revealed that the latter had a lighter varnished frame, so this is what we are going for here.

This one was overhauled at Wolverton, and varnished very, very dark brown, with traces of a lighter varnish underneath. We're going for that original varnished look again.

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday with the welders.

Five volunteers on site on Tuesday. This was just in case the welders needed assistance somewhere, but none was required and after hovering a bit, we went to the southern end of the site and did quite a bit for ourselves there.

Here are a few pictures of the welding work:

The famous 'vee' when the moulds are warmed up.

Using a hydraulic ram to push off the excess material, while still hot.

The 'vee' of the second weld, looking south.

A weld after cutting off the excess material, still due for grinding completely flat.

 

Our first job, while the welders worked away at the northern end, was to move a sleeper a few inches to one side so that the fishplate would fit.

Although digging ballast is hard work there were several volunteers for this, as it was cold outside (3 degrees and mizzle) and the digging would warm us up some.

After digging out the sleeper we pushed it along with a Duff jack.

More cutting was done, this time by Andy, the man behind our sales of rail ends. After the second Didbrook relay here he will have a new stock, so don't hold back. All sizes are possible, but generally they are about a foot long.

After cutting the rail we had to move it up to close a gap of about 6ft. Barring it, even with fulcrums, didn't really get us anywhere, as the rail is on a curve and there is a lot of resistance in the chairs.

So we resorted to jacking it along, bit by bit, using various fill in pieces to bridge the gap on the end. 

The team leader of the welders wandered over, and smiled at the way we dealt with problems when expensive mechanical means were not to hand. And we did it, another two rails were fishplated up.

 

 

At the end of Tuesday one more rail was due to be lifted in, and two closure rails cut and fitted. Not too much. Then, final levelling of this end, otherwise the welders won't get the rail ends to line up.

 

 

 

 

The welders did 4 joints on Tuesday, and are expected back twice more. There were some delays (6 joints were planned) as the different rates of wear on our track meant that they needed a special type of mould, which they hadn't got with them. But next time they will.

 

Finally, Dave spotted this train of loaded ballast wagons in the Parlour Road at Toddington. This is also for the Didbrook relay.

The actual day for the ballast drop is not yet decided, but it will  be soon.

Wednesday update:-

The welders returned for a second day, and did 5 more welds.

The volunteer gang measured, cut and fit the last two closure rails, so the railway is now complete again. Additionally there was lifting and packing, as well as changing one sleeper, and straightening several others.

More remains to be done for Saturday, and the welders have another 13 welds to do.

 

 

Wednesday in the weighbridge hut.

Another damp day, and inside the weighbridge it was even worse. Water was running down the windows. We had a measuring tool for humidity with us this time (used to test firewood at home) and out of curiosity we tested the floor. It came back as 23% humidity, and a triple raindrop warning! So that is pretty damp, and we do hope that our rebuilding of the floor will address the issue sufficiently.

 

 

 

The first thing here is to remove the old floor. Having removed the bricks, we are left with a large lump of concrete, which mostly covers the original machinery pit.

Dave here is smashing the larger lumps into something more useful.

 

 

 

 

We got all the 1945 rebuild concrete out, except this bit, stuck half way under the new balancing mechanism. That is not resting on it, but on a row of blues on the edge of the new pit.

Despite hacking at it all morning ('You've really got it worried now, Dave') we had to throw in the towel at the end of the morning. It dawned on us that removal was not essential, the new floor level would in fact be above it.

 

 

 

Last week we scoured the yard for a new lintel, to cover the hole here. The old one was made up out of crumbly concrete, and disintegrated after a modest tap.

We eventually found the perfect candidate - the right length, not too thick - in a pile marked ' Drainage'.

We asked the team if we could have one of several in the pile, and they very kindly said 'yes'.

So here it is going in.

It really was just right, so we are very grateful for this example of inter departmental cooperation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made up a barrow of mortar, and bedded the new lintel down on top of it. Here are Paul and Dave just lifting the lintel into place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That left us pretty free to get on with the floor itself.

It was a bit of a magic moment for us, because after all the lifting and demolition, here we were, putting things back together again. And better too. 

Here Paul is filling Dave's wheelbarrow with sand, for a one inch layer on top of the old floor, for the DPM to go down on.

 

 

The floor soon had its first blinding layer. We bought two bags of sand for this, and the thicker final layer, on which the new floor of bricks will be laid.

 

The last thing that we did was fit the DPM. Luckily we were able to find one about the railway, so that cost us nothing (although the sand did) . We cut it into two halves, and manhandled both into the building, one on top of the other.

Next time therefore we will barrow in the rest of the sand, and start on relaying the bricks, this time in a pattern all over the floor, without that ugly concrete patch.