Broadway signal box news.

Saturday, on call out.

There was an urgent shout to examine the JJ Farms bridge at Far Stanley, where footplate crews had reported a bad jolt, and a couple of broken springs. 

 

 

 

 

A quick dig at the end of a sleeper showed that it was voiding underneath, so that could explain the jolting. There was also a kink in the curve at that point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The top of the sleeper had only the faintest hint of white abraded stone, so if something was happening here, it was recent.

We decided to lift and pack the southern end of the bridge, and at the same time, attempt to eliminate the kink with these four sluing jacks. They are the heaviest piece of kit that we have in our arsenal.

Also in our arsenal were these chocolate covered doughnuts. The chocolate, in the 31 degree heat, was just about clinging on, but it didn't affect the taste...

With the track successfully slued, and also lifted, it was time to fix it in place with Robels and plenty of ballast.

From time to time we had to let a train through. Saturday was rather dieselly, as we were short of steam footplate staff that day. On the other hand, you did get to hear the sound of a class 37 under load.

When we found no more spare ballast on site, Dave managed to find us some from a buffer stock half a mile away at Gotherington Skew bridge. We distributed one and a half bucket fulls here.

Afterwards the site looked like this. Both sides lifted and packed, and the southern side had a kink removed as well.

Problem solved!

As we had had an early start, without our usual tea and briefing, we decided to take our lunch break at the Coffeepot. From here we took a return trip to CRC, so see how the repair was working. The answer was - JJ Farms bridge is now smooth as silk. 

At CRC there was a layover of 40 minutes. They were actually able to switch off the diesel engine, to save on fuel and emissions.

Jim was fascinated by the works plate in, er.... Newton-Le-Willows. Where's that?

Google was able to help us there.  But what is the 'Le' in several place names that we have actually for?

 

 

Enjoying the beautiful Cotswolds countryside, and reflecting on the future...

 

 

Back at the base camp we noticed that the steel post holding the keypad for the gate had made another victim - see scratches with red near the top, and red shards of plastic on the ground.

A quick survey of our vehicles found no damage - phew! 

For once it wasn't our fault.

 

 

 

 

 

During the 40 minute layover at CRC we went topside to have a look at the roadworks along the A435 over our bridge, and the routing of the cycle path being built. Quite a number of people have mentioned to us that they didn't know what was going on up there, and how could a cycle path be routed over our bridge, with its narrow pavement? 

 

We therefore took a number of site photographs, which we give here and below.

This first one shows that the cycle path follows the road on the Cotswolds side.

The building is the original (wood built) ticket office for the race course, now sadly unused. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second picture shows how narrow the footpath was along the Costwolds side - about 3ft, just as wide as the yellow pipes in the ground. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next picture shows the footpath on the Malvern side, which was much wider.

So what they are doing is shifting the road westwards, reducing the space on the left, for more space for the cycle path on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next picture shows the other end of the bridge, a few steps towards Bishops Cleeve. Here it goes hard against the old foot acces to our P2, with three lanes for queuing passengers at the top (but today no longer in use)

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few more steps forwards, and you can see space being won on the right to continue the footpath down the road to Southam lane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture shows the view back towards Cheltenham, from the north end of the bridge. The wider footpath/cycle lane is starting to appear on the left.

 

 

 

We then return back to the south end, standing outside the original road entrance to our ticket office (now out of use)

The new cycle lane continues up the hill, leading to the roundabout.

On the left was a public foothpath, running alongside the road. This is closed during the works. 

 

Arriving at our former ticket office, sadly now out of use, the footpath entered the race course car park via the gate in the foreground and, turning left, crossed the fence via a stile and then proceeded alongside our site all the way down to Southam lane.

There is no current official point of entry to our station at this point. Whether cyclists using the new footpath could do so - a gate exists - is not known to us. 

 

 

 

 

Broadway signal box news.

 

For a number of weeks now we have heard unconfirmed reports and snippets that Broadway signal box might, after all, be activated this year. We haven't dared comment on such reports, but now confirmation has come from the top: Our new chairman, in a presentation to plc shareholders, confirmed that Broadway box would be activated at last. This would be one of the projects during the 2025/2026 season.

To quote our new chairman: 'I'm an engineer. When I heard that we had built a signalbox, but not used it since, I said : Whaaat?'

Such welcome news, and what a great start. Numerous other projects were listed during the talk, but these will all depend on funding, and your support, during the next 2 - 3 years. More concrete proposals will no doubt be tabled later in the year. Broadway box is low hanging fruit - it's all ready to go.

 

 

 

One item we will miss is the handing over of the token between drivers and signalman. The token is replaced by an acceptance lever in the box. While we are not experts in GWR signalling set ups, we understand the acceptance lever is driven by the fact that the other box to the section, at Toddington, is quite some distance from the departing train.

 

 

 

 

Still a shame though, that we won't see the signalman interact with the drivers on the platform - that's part of the historic ritual. 

 

 

 

 

 

If things go well this year, by the end of the season we won't be seeing these crosses any more.

 

Thumbs Up ! 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Monday at Broadway.

Very windy, and still hot at times. Three of us on site, due to the expectation of another delivery of sand (we get through this quite quickly) and this, we were told, would arrive 'today'. That proved to be one o'clock, although we were there at 8.30, just in case. 

 

The brickworks have finally come back with a sample, so that we can judge the colour. It was.... almost the same. This was agonising... we compared the brick to two specials, and a plain stretcher, and discovered that all three originals were different. If you peer closely at the main building on P1, you can see that all the bullnoses for example, are darker. So which one do we ask the brickworks to copy? Do we improve the matching of the colour, or carry on with different shades as per P1? We are stuck with a legacy of different shades, imposed on us when the bricks were first ordered back in 2015 or so.

 

We decided that, rather than ping-pong examples back and forth, that the best way forward would be to visit the brickworks ourselves (in Measham) and see what options thay have for us.

 

 

We then carried on with the blocks on the interior.

 

Here you see John, working on the second half of the back.  

 

 

 

 

 

Neal spent a lot of the day cutting and measuring, and the result at the end of the day was the dividing wall, and part of the fireplace cut to size, ready for John to actually lay with mortar.

Neal also fixed more insulation strips, this time around the storeroom door. 

 

 

 

 

Then, finally, the sand delivery came, at lunch time.

 

 

 

We had two bags, and given that the RRV can't come until August, the plan was to half empty them into two other dumpy bags, and then pump trolley them down one platform, and back up the other.

 

 

 

 That worked quite well, thanks to Kevin from the Broadway Maintenance team, who came as a 'helper'.

 

 

At the end of the day John had also laid most of a course of hard concrete blocks around the store room.

This room needs hard walls, so that shelves, machines etc can be attached to them in due course. 

Tuesday at Broadway.

A big push this week, as John, our chief brick layer, is not available next week. And the weather is with us. 

As Neal had so kindly laid out all the necessary blocks to build up the south side fireplace, John decided on Tuesday to actually bed them down with mortar. 

Here you see him standing in the fireplace. He also worked on the Thermalite blocks on the dividing wall, the other side being built of the hard concrete blocks. 

 

At the end of the day the fireplace was chest high, with an arch resting on a left over piece of angle to hold it up. Thermalite blocks are in on each end of the dividing wall, ready for the next course. 

Locos for the day were P&O, and Foremarke Hall. At the end of the day a Growler came in with the second to last train at Broadway.

The platforms were pleasantly busy. Unfortunately 'Auntie Wainwright's' was not open, due to lack of Broadway gang volunteers. Every penny we earn there is pure profit (all items being donated) so the volunteer in there has an important job. Not only taking the money, but also answering all the questions about the station's history.

If this is something you could do, why not give it a try? Come and have a chat with them (esp Mondays and Wednesdays), and if you think you'd like to help, sign up via the Trust website:

 https://www.gwrt.org.uk/volunteering/volunteer

 

At the end of the day John had moved on from the fireplace, and started on another row of blocks at the rear.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Two of us, on another hot day. But interesting, as it was time to unwrap the new cast iron downpipes and accessories, paid for by the FoWS. We decided to go for a trial fitting, to see how the layout would work, together with the ACO drain planned across the door.

 

First we had some follow up work to be done from last week. The left hand corner of the door still had three bricks to be replaced - last week we ran out of time.

Paul and Yours Truly ambled down to the yard, and found us some more original bricks from Measham. Many of those on offer were cracked or spalled, so it was a difficult choice, but in the end we got three acceptable items. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this was the result afterwards. That corner is now done too, so from the visitor's perspective, the bottom of the building now looks much more presentable.

There's also the higher floor now. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the morning this enormous double decker bus drew up, and disgorged three groups of schoolchildren. How does 'farmer Brown' keep them all busy, and under control? We had a sneaky look - he's got them on the stirrup pump! One bucket filled with water, one empty. One kid on the pump, the second aiming the end into the empty bucket. After a little while he cries 'All change' and it's 'Awwww' from one group, and 'yay' from the next.... 

 

 

 

 

 

The double decker parked itself carefully outside the white stripe that says 'Keep Clear'.

Then another coach turned up, this one from Heathrow (!).

Coach drivers are very careful, but there is always 'Murphy's Law'... 

 

Sooner or later you will hit something, like this one did. Looks like more than once too. 

 

 

 

 

The first train south was headed by our Peak diesel.

Some of the diesel drivers are particularly friendly, like this one.

Good on ya, mate ! 

The first carriage had 5 occupied compartments. Three occupants were on their phones, and two were asleep! And it was only the start of their journey...

 

 

 

Down by the toilet block we found a collection of volunteers from Colas Rail, who had come to help us. 

You may recall that on a previous visit, Colas helped us with the surface of the road by the Usk hut. Here they were, back again. And, we heard, again next week. 

They must like us.

Today's job was painting the fence, which looked very grey, it must be admitted. 

By the end of the day it was a neat brown again.

Thank you, guys! 

 

 

 

Walking past the entrance to our admin HQ, Churchward House, we were joined by three old ladies who had tried to buy tickets there. We were only too glad to set them right.

 

 

 

 

Then it was back to the weighbridge. Having finished the brickwork repair, we decided to address the stormwater drainage. The downpipe at the back is original, but has a hole in it. Where it drains to is not clear.

We're going to lay this ACO drain across the front, and connect the rear downpipe to it. 

 

 

 

At the back we have the original downpipe. The new cast iron pipe will take the water diagonally like this, round to the front, where it will go to a soakaway via the ACO drain. That is the plan.

We're standing in the neighbour's garden here. That is how close the weighbridge is, after the adjoining land was sold, back in the day. 

 

 

 

We need to cut the original down pipe just above the hole that it has, and intercept the water and bring it round to the front.

The last thing we did was to remove the Ogee gutters here. They were the original reason we proposed to help with the dampness in the weighbridge, as they were clearly leaking, and a fern was growing where the water seeped out. 

On removal it turned out that the two gutters were not linked with the customary nut and bolt, thus allowing two different levels to occur, and the water seeping out. 

Here is one of the gutters, ready for grinding, to fit the new downpipe we have sourced. 

After grinding down the rusty drain fitting in it, we were annoyed to find that the new downpipe still did not fit. There was only 1 - 2 mm in it. How could that be? Cleaning the paint off the inside of the new downpipe did not help much either, it needs some metal skimming off it, inside. We will need to investigate what tools are available to do this. Some sort of Dremmel perhaps?

This is where we decided to call it a day, and repair to the Coffeeepot for a mug of tea. Yours Truly also had a mint Magnum, which was frowned upon by Paul.

What do you think - can you eat ice cream, with a mug of tea? Is that permissible? 

 

 

From the June 1981 GWRS newsletter.

- Thoughts turn to the establishment of a separate limited company. The charitable status of the GWRS does not permit the serious inward investment that will be needed to rebuild the line.

- Auto coach 169 has been purchased from BR at Gloucester, funded by an interest free loan of £2000 from a member, which is to be repaid by raising 100 shares of £20 each from other members. The mechanical condition is very good, and restoration costs were thought to be minimal. It was to be the railway's first coach.

 

Photograph by Steve Hill

(Auto coach 169 later left us, and is currently, restored, on the WSR).

- A PWay raiding party went to St. James yard to recover track materials. It was buried in the adjacent council yard. The rails were of a lighter grade, the sleepers rotten, and a turnout had no blades - fairly typical of such raids. It was proposed to use the rails in the yard at Toddington.

- GWR 2-8-0 2807 was purchased from Barry in March 1981, together with missing parts scavenged from 2873. It was expected to arrive at Toddington in June 1981 (this one is still here!)

- Work began on the P2 waiting room, which was in very poor condition and had to be partially dismantled.

- 24 lengths of bullhead rail arrived from Sheffield, and two lengths of track were immediately laid with them.

- Tim Bazeley bought a Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0 diesel shunter. It was in working order, but needed a new head gasket.

- Other loco arrivals expected by the end of June were: 5952 Cogan Hall, 7828 Odney Manor (both of which since moved on) and two industrial tank engines, a Peckett and a Hunslett. (The Peckett is also still here, albeit currently undergoing a full rebuild)