Gala weekend

Gala day.

Your truly was invited to do a turn on the brake vans as 'Chaperone'. 

 

 

The day (Sunday) started well - just look at the queue to get in, and it wasn't even 9 o'clock yet.

Later in the day this field would be completely full with parked cars.

 

We tried to get a snap of each of the locos present on Sunday.

This was the first one, Austerity No.15 from the WPR. As a former K&ESR volunteer we knew these locos well, but had never seen one with an air pump so well concealed. This will interest our friends with the SSN in Rotterdam, who have a (genuine) war time Austerity, but one which has a steam brake only. Where to put the air pump, without disfiguring the loco? On the running plate in front of the cab? Next to the smoke box? In the bunker? No.15 has found an excellent solution here.

 

 

Next was No 65 from the Bluebell.

As a former volunteer on the K&ESR we also knew this loco well. It helped to lift the original line, and there were high hopes that it could eventually be based on the K&ESR, but to our great surprise it suddenly went to the Bluebell. 

 

You don't often see an SE&CR works plate, so here is one.

Locomotive works in sleepy Ashford, Kent? Of course! 

 

 

 

We went to pick up our cash box and brake van tickets, and waited for the brake van train to rumble in, at first hauled by 2807.

We set up shop by the amusingly named 'Queen Mary' brake, as it could hold 20 visitors, against the GWR Toad at the other end, which had space for only 10. It was a bogie brake, with two balconies - luxury.

This is what you pay for - a view of someone's large behind. But fun. People loved the experience. You get rattled about, smell the air, hear the sounds, and have first hand experience of everything that's going on.

We were asked to bring a torch, but there was no need, and the dark was rather fun anyway.

 

 

As the journey south was uphill, the driver opened up after a while, and we got a wonderful spectacle of light from the first balcony. This was cutting edge participation, nearly as good as a cab ride.

 

 

 

 

 

At CRC our freight train pulled into P2 (which we had helped to build 10 years ago).

It was the first time we had actually been on it in commercial use. The bottom of the old wooden toilet block was still there, with its 'Niagara' urinals. We considered them for Broadway, but the construction of the concrete slab under the floor made the related drainage impossible, so modern suspended urinals it became.

Ahead of 2807 was BETTON GRANGE, giving footplate rides during the morning, we heard.

Then came a choice - an hour in the Hunting Butts headshunt doing nothing, or frequent the snackshack, and be served by a former chairman. We opted for a tea and a piece of cake.

Here you can see the unusual sight of a train on the rarely used Hunting Butts extension. The C RC signalman was unusually busy that day.

The return journey was tender first, with the Queen Mary rattling along on the end. Here we are, about to enter Greet tunnel, the second longest in preservation. It's on a curve, as you can see, so at one point it is completely dark inside. Great! That's how tunnels should be.

 

On both our journeys to CRC we stopped for a small fire. These dogged the timetable all day long. All the different trains on the timetable ran, but increasingly late during the day. The gala naturally wanted to present a large variety to our customers, so with all the stuff going on even the smallest interuption had a knock on effect all day long. On Saturday it was a sheep on the tracks.

 

 

  

The first fire that we found was just beyond Hayles. It was an easy fix - the fireman put it out with the slack pipe. We saw that done in Poland too!

 

The second one was by the mobile home village just before Cleeve. Here the fire brigade had come. They spent quite a long time - too long, in our view - dousing another small berm fire. We waited patiently, and that didn't help the timetable either of course. The fire crew looked very cheerful though.

 

Passing through Winchcombe we found the two well tanks at opposite ends of a short freight train.

 

One is a Borrows well tank, the other a Kerr Stuart, but they looked the same to us. (Google says that the Kerr Stuart is built to a Borrows design - ah!)

 

 

 

Also at Winchcombe was this Pannier tank - Austerity combo. 

That would have made a great noise in Greet tunnel.

 

One locomotive that we glimpsed only briefly was 75069.

Here it is at Toddington. The double chimney that it has is quite clear to see. It came to us courtesy of the SVR. It felt more at home with our exclusively Mk1 stock than the little 01, which everyone adored though.

Gotherington station was having a fine old time. There were lots of people on its platform, which was decked with tables and chairs for - chicken or chick pea curry. This sounded most attractive. The home made cakes got a mention in the brake van, which is some recommendation.

Passing the garden, we snatched a long range shot of Bryan's home built platelayer's hut. We're building up a good data bank of PWay hut information.

In the foreground is a garden bench, made out of slate urinals, as Bryan once explained. 

At Winchcombe the Usk hut was in a blaze of glory for the weekend, having been converted to a small US army camp.

 

 

The Jeep from it passed us at Toddington in what the driver called a 'footplate crew delivery service'.

It's a shame that we stopped the 'Wartime in the Cotswolds' experiences, as we really enjoyed the displays of militaria. Our video of the Sherman tank mounting its tank transporter is a great favourite on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/DaYPn9P-9gE 

Love the roar of that aero engine in the back! 

The day was long, but we managed to beat the previous day's takings by a few pounds, so it was all worth it. And we a had a lot of happy customers.

Here they all are, in the back of the Queen Mary.

 

 ++++++ *** ++++++

 

Note that the next edition of the blog will be in a fortnight from now, not in a week as per usual.

Broadway.

No work done at Broadway, due to the weather and then the gala.
 

PWAY on Saturday

Absent, due to a shingles vaccination, which was rather unpleasant for 48 hours afterwards. 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A full complement, currently numbering three. 

The work today was concentrated on the remaining old brick pillar on the corner of the building. Note also how the plinth blue is broken on the corner, an old injury.

 

 

 

 

Dave set to work with the SDS drill and removed the three crumbly bricks holding up the corner. 

Just to make sure, Paul held up the corner of the building, in case it fell on Dave.

Or maybe he was just leaning against it there. 

 

 

 

 

Once the last corner bricks were out, and the remaining mortar in the hole chiselled out, the first bricks were mortared back into the hole, building on the bricks we laid last week.

 

 

Fitting the new bricks was a job requiring precision and feeling. What was holding it up now, why won't it go all the way in?

The 'moment supreme' came when Dave fitted the last of the replacement plinth headers. We also found us a replacement corner brick, after much rummaging through brick piles back in the yard.

This was the happy result at the end of the day: the front, the corner, and most of one side done. The new corner brick is like new.

We still want to point the bricks in black cement, and we would like to put on a layer of waterproofed mortar (a bottle of water proofing was given to us by a member of 35006) on the two courses that will be below ground. This, we hope, will stop the bricks absorbing the rainwater and spalling in the future.

We also had a good poke around the two cast iron down pipes, one at the front (actually in horrible grey plastic) and one at the back (cast iron, but fractured). We need to work out what parts to order from the cast iron guttering store, something to the order of £350 in cost, but so much more authentic.

 

At the end of the afternoon there was a surprise in the yard:

A fire engine ! Who ordered that? And what for? See below for the explanation.

Wednesday on the PWay.

This was spent in and about Winchcombe.

 

 

 

 

To start with the end of the day, this was the berm fire which prompted a neighbour to call the fire brigade. It really wasn't very much to see.

Several muscular lads from the gang walked up there (you can just see the Winchcombe road bridge) with fire buckets and poured water on the fire.

A rueful observation was that the fire buckets, taller than yer usual buckets, were very heavy to carry when full of water.

Well, yes....

 

 

 

The day was mostly spent in the C&W sidings, where a section that we relaid in concrete a while back was ballasted and packed.

 The ballast used was spent ballast from Hayles, so we can now say that nothing is wasted.

It was brought over from the other side of the yard, and put on a trolley, with which it could be moved about and dropped where most wanted.

There was a lot of shovelling, but luckily it was mostly downwards, off the trolley and into the four foot. And the gang was quite large today, so that helped.

Another, smaller team elected to do fishplate greasing in the tunnel. We have now almost completed this year's greasing of the line.

Here is the fishplate greasing team, on the Greet side of the tunnel. You might notice that we are no longer using the bulky back packs originally provided, as they were awkward to use, heavy, and kept clogging up.

Instead, we are now using very basic hand sprayers, which are much faster, and don't waste so much of this incredibly expensive product. If you know of a substitute/equivalent for Interflon, we'd love to hear from you.

As our tunnel is very dark inside, Chris made up this LED portable light gantry. It really worked too (see below) 

This is Chris with his gantry, some way into the tunnel, on the straight section uphill from Winchcombe. Clearly there is plenty of light. Previously we used a petrol generator on a trolley, with wobbly lights attached to it.