Thursday in the greenhouse
Back from a few days away, and straight back to work, this time on the steels with Neal at Toddington.
While we were away, neal laid three of the four fascia boards for Broadway P2 end to end, so that he could drill the necessary holes in the big gusset plates that we cleaned of millscale a while back. These plates will join the fascia boards together.
These three fascia boards, measuring together a total of 21m long, represent the full length of the building, the 'Gents' excepted. Quite big really...
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| Our beer arrives - at last ! |
While we were cleaning millscale off (foreground) the Donningtons beer delivery van arrived (background).
The chap wanted to know what the waiting room was for (other than to wait for trains to Honeybourne) and we said it would make a perfect bar on Steam & Ale days. The building has an 'IN' door and and 'OUT' door, with space for a long counter at the back - ideal for the Steam and Ale activities.
Here Neal is fitting a gusset plate to the fourth fascia board, which goes at the back of the canopy overhang by the steps.
We had our lunch in the mess room by the loco shed, and spotted this nice class 50 on the apron outside the shed:
If you didn't go to the diesel gala, you will have missed this in action. What a sound it would have made (we missed it too, being with the GWRT at Welland), it has 16 cylinders in V formation, 246 Litres displacement and 2700 horsepower.
Will the engine fit your car....? One day, someone will try.
For some reason this locomotive is known as 'DAVE' by those on the ground with a sense of humour. (?)
During the day we also geared up for a busy RRV Friday and Monday.
Our building materials supplier brought more sand, concrete blocks and Thermalite blocks, which you see here.
On Friday the RRV will take these to Broadway, and unload the various bits across the building site. It will then travel to the headshunt and retrieve the balance of the plain brick pallets that we still have, which we stored out of the way on a truck.
Monday the RRV is booked to assist with the removal of the parapets that we loosened earlier at Stanley Pontlarge. In their place temporary parapets will be fitted. Made by Neal. Of course.
The original parapets will then be taken away for repair.
The afternoon at Toddington on Thursday saw a heavy cloudburst descend on us.
Neal worked on, unperturbed.
Friday at Broadway.
The delivery to Broadway.
Preparations started at Toddington, where the RRV took its trailer to the unloading road.
In the foreground 'STEVIE' is positioning itself over the rails, while in the background Neal is loading the trailer with no fewer than eight pallets of goodies for the P2 build.
The trailer can take 13 tons, but nonetheless it looked pretty well loaded.
We had three pallets of concrete blocks, three of Thermalite blocks, and two bags of sand.
More sand was waiting on the platform edge at Broadway, having come in by road earlier.
Half an hour later, 'STEVIE' arrived outside the signal box. It was such a good example of cooperation between the PWay lifting team, and the canopy gang at Broadway.
This should keep us going for a while.
The bags of sand were dropped off by the mixer, ready to use. They were joined by the two bags waiting on P1, which also had 10 bags of cement in them. 'STEVIE' swung them across.
In the foreground the sand brought by 'STEVIE' is being lifted off; in the background are the two bags waiting on the platform.
Two pallets of concrete blocks were dropped off where they will be used most - by the workshop end, which has concrete block internal walls.
Once unloaded, 'STEVIE' took the trailer north for the second job of the day.
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| Picture by David. |
This was to travel up to the headshunt, where a Mermaid in storage had been used to park bricks ordered in... 2015.
There were 7 pallets of plain, aged bricks, the same as we have been using.
They should be enough to finish bricklaying (except for the specials)
The extra brick supplies were unloaded where the previous pallets stood - we have used almost all of them now.
As we left we took a parting shot. This shows some of the pallets of blocks on the platform. Two have already been emptied, and the blocks taken into the building.
The height of the bricks laid at the rear, on the left, is visibly greater than the right. It's 28 courses, against 20.
Two sample boxes of bricks have arrived from the local brickworks, but they are not quite what we had in mind. Another visit is needed.
Saturday, out with the gang.
A good gang. Just seven of us, but as one of us commented later in the day, a smaller gang is preferrable, as you get to know the people better.
Saturday's job was at Laverton, where two long dips on the Malvern side have appeared (again!)
Margaret is eyeing in the spot, while Bert Ferrule walks over to identify the middle of the dip.
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| How do these things work then? |
While he did this, Dave and Nick got he Robels ready. Two of them have recently been fitted with small exhaust pipe extenders. These now have a bend in them, to direct the hot exhaust away from the operator's hands. We had informed the manufacturer of this issue.
Our next observation (not really a complaint) is that the heat shields are getting cracks. They need to be tougher, as they get a lot of knocks when being moved about.
Two steamers were out and about on Saturday.
Here is 3850, about to cross the Laverton Road bridge.
Is work on the PWay a bit of a holiday really?
You'd think so, wouldn't you...
Having determined the scope of the work (over a panel in length) we inserted three jacks (one was out of service with a leaking seal) and started the Robels.
Four of us were on Robels, one was in the Telehandler, one acted as lookout, and the last one shovelled the ballast.
Here is the length by the bridge, finished. That was 30 sleepers along one side, quite a lot.
We had rather dusty limestone ballast on Saturday, not very clean.
It covered the hydraulic pan jacks with fine dust, which got into the gap between the piston and the cylinder wall. The gasket that is supposed to keep the cylinder clear of dirt soon wears under these conditions.
At the end of the day we had a second pan jack fail. You can see the 'why' here, the surface is covered in oily dust. The side of the piston also looks dirty.
Mechanical obstuction free jacks do exist, although they are not common. We should try a couple, but that's more unbudgetted expenditure.
After lunch we moved up to the foot crossing for a second dipped rail, over a whole length. In fact both rails are old favourites, we have done them several times before. Maybe the embankment is drying out in the hot weather we've been having?
We happened to glance downwards, and found this on the roadway at our feet. A length of rusty steel wire.
It dates back to Stevie Warren clearing the trackbed of huge rolls of unwanted old fencing wire, which he took away in the jaws of his JCB.
It's the reson we are reluctant to take our car up on the embankment.
Mid afternoon we were finishing the second tamping of a 30 sleeper one sided dip. It consumed two buckets of ballast, which David fetched from Stanton yard.
We're looking south here, down a very long straight, past Laverton Halt, Stanton Fields bridge and the B4632 bridge. The Cornishman would roar down here at 60-70mph.
Back home in Winchcombe yard, we rescued this short signal post, which we found in the metal skip, together with a load of other S&T equipment.
Our PWay manager has a plan for the post...
The lamp posts are street lights, not railway. Their bottoms have failed, so they are scrap, unless someone wants them, as is?
Monday at Stanley Pontlarge.
Out with the RRV, to remove the damaged parapets on bridge 28 at Stanley Pontlarge, and replace them with a temporary set.
We started off from Toddington yard, where Walt had prepared the RRV with a trolley loaded with the temporary replacements. These had been created out of left over bits by Neal (when not making the Broadway P2 canopy).
Yours Truly was posted down on the road (it leads to just 5 cottages, but has regular traffic) with two barriers, a chair and a flask of coffee.
The first thing we did was remove two parapet capstones, which had become displaced.
The pilaster underneath had been damaged, with several bricks pushed to one side.
It wasn't long before we had to put down the coffee cup, and spring into action.
Two horse riders came by, so the action above was paused and we got a grateful wave.
After unloading the temporary replacements, the temporary bolts were taken off the original parapets.
The RRV was then able to lift the old parapets off, and place them on the trolley. Easy - but the result of good preparation. We were there a month earlier, when we burned out 156 rivets, and replaced a few with temporary bolts.
The bridge looked strange without its parapet guard rails.
Below, Sarah and Chris stood by the second road barrier and watched the goings on from a safe distance.
After both parapets had been removed, it was an easy job to lift in the temporary replacements.
They fitted perfectly, all the bolt holes lined up precisely. All we had to do was fit the bolts and tighten them up.
No adjustments were required at all - another excelllent job by Neal.
We were back at Toddington in time for lunch, a quick and efficient job.
This was the scene at the end of the day.
Temporary parapets in place, a perfect fit.
The displaced brickwork has been marked up with chalk, and will be taken down and re-laid by members of the C&M department. The cap stone will be replaced when the original parapets, after repair and repainting, are re-fitted. This will be an in-house job, a low cost excercise using our own people, instead of expensive contractors.
Sometimes we seem to forget that we can do things in house, and the go-to solution is an outside contractor. But here we have demonstrated that we can do something ourselves, and do it well.
(additional pictures by Paul and Walt, with thanks)
Two of us on site, but a very busy day around us, which is very cheering. A proposed second visit to the brickworks was abandoned, unfortunately. The samples provided are very different from what was agreed.
The station was very busy on the commercial side.
A Johnson's tour bus turned up first thing, and disgorged 52 passengers, who, with nothing much to do, hit the plc shop. Shop manager very happy ! The booking office had one of its best days ever, we heard.
Here is a picture of the crowd that awaited the first incoming train:
A delegation from our S&T dept. arrived, and set about testing various signals. Arms were checked, to see if they would go up and down (or down and up, in GWR fashion)
The two builders on P2 plugged away at the rear wall. John laid a course and a half along the southern half of the back, while Yours Truly mixed mortar, and cut 90 bricks in half, generating huge clouds of pink dust (cough)
John was on course No. 29 here. We are getting close to the point where specials take over (we were going to count on P1 how many courses this actually is, but forgot as we left, so apologies for that.)
The second to last train came with a diesel on the Cheltenham end as usual. This time it was a Whistler - here it is.
We could hear it belting away somewhere down at Peasebrook, a considerable distance away. Well, it was hauling 7 coaches and 3850, a heavy freight loco in tow.
This was the situation at the end of the day. The last train of the day is in the platform, and you can see that the back, southern end of the building is nearing the top.
We now have a question for blog readers.
The signal box steps were built in about 2015 in original GWR style, but in cheap softwood. Now, 10 years later, they are life expired. A newel post and a handrail are rotten. Our C&M department has made temporary replacements, so as not to hinder the scheduled final opening of the box next season. You can see the change of colour in the picture below. The stringers are also starting to go.
The question is, where do we go from here?
We have two options proposed:
- A replacement in steel. Cheaper, longer lasting, but not authentic, or
- A replacement in hardwood. More expensive, but definitely authentic. But the railway has no funds for luxury. (We made a small loss last year, and are hopeful of reaching break even this year.)
What do you think?
Wednesday with the Usketeers.
All three of us today, on a bright and (a bit too-) sunny day. Today's task was to fit the ACO drain front of the building. This will intercept any rainwater running in under the door (it used to), and channel the rainwater from the new rear downpipes round to a soakaway at the front.
We got the drain out, and tried to assemble it on a flat piece of ground. It was pretty flimsy plastic, but this is what we have - it's 'recycled' as they say. Google informed us that the slot between two halves was for a strip of silicone to make the joint watertight. Not a very permanent solution, but it won't carry large quantities of water, so should be OK.
Our trial fit revealed that the swan neck fitted two weeks ago was a bit too close to the wall. Luckily we had bought bobbins just in case.
Calculations showed that half a bobbin would be about right, if we rotated the swan neck enough to empty properly into the drain.
Here is the new position, with the swan neck rotated a bit, and half a bobbin (a bob?) to act as a spacer. The old bolt hole can just be seen on the right.
With the downpipe now emptying fully into the drain, we set about locating the channel. It needed to be just below the existing tarmac (so that surface water could flow down into it) and a tad away from the building.
Here Dave is making up a first mix.
This was pushed under and behind the channel.
A final mix with sand was used to smooth the joint with the wall.
At the end of the day the drain was in. The grilles still need to be cut to size, but you get the idea.
The foreground will be tarmac, sloping down to the drain (which is below the level of the stoop), while centre right is a gap that will be filled with stone sets that were there before.
We tested the channel with a bucket of water, and it ran away fine.
Wednesday on the PWay.
Back to Laverton for the gang, this time to just south of the road bridge, near where the halt used to be.
You need a good eye to see the issue, but these three arrows show the dips in question.
Foremarke Hall was out today, with the green class 20 on the second train.
The dips, all on the Malvern side again, are first measured with the cross level. At the same time other members of the gang are already bringing in fresh ballast from the Telehandler, to beef up the supply for robelling.
Quite a lot was needed here. Readers may recall that Laverton bridge was taken out to allow the laying of a gas main nearby, and the replacement bridge is a concrete one, which means that it is thicker, and the track has to be raised to get over it. Possibly this is why some settlement is occurring here.
Back in the yard some items were put aside for Broadway village museum, including an original GWR chair from 1903.
The museum is hosting an exhibition from August 8th with the history of Broadway station, as much as could be found out about it, the arrival of the GWR railway in 1904, and especially the people that worked there. It was a heroic effort of research, led by a member of the RATs archiving trust.
Go and take a look !
BTW Next week's blog post will be delayed by a couple of days.
