Building a little siding

Friday on the CRC turnout.

Quite a good gang of five on Friday. They made the little Battenberg cake that we had brought (love the marzipan!) look rather small. It soon went, but then we had to start work.

 

 

 

The first job was to load the cube on to Stevie's trailer at Toddington.

This was unloaded at Winchcombe, and will be needed as a site safe for our tools at CRC, early in the new year when we put the replacement turnout in.

 

 

 

 

 

The idea for Friday was to rummage through our pile of second hand bullhead rails, and find acceptable ones to act as stock and closure rails for the turnout. 

These are plain rails, in between the crossing and the switches at the other end.

First, we had to measure the thickness of the heads, so that we could approximately match the rails. 

 

 

Then we rummaged through the pile. Not easy, when each item weighs a tonne, and is potentially wanting to break your leg.

We made two smaller piles - one of scrap rail, and one pile of rails useable in the turnout. We needed 6 rails of 60ft each, or equivalent. 

 

 

 

 

Rather than make one big pile of useable rails, we decided to bring one round, since it was already attached to Stevie.

 

 

 

We lifted that one in, to see what it looked like.

It looked OK. 

 

 

 

The day was damp and somewhat blustery. We escaped most of the downpours, such as that one !

 

 

 

That first one went so well, that we decided to bring more round. In the end we put 3 plain rails in. The fourth that we had in mind was the full 60ft length, and needed the stretcher bar for carrying (it was too floppy) which, as things always turn out, was in a different station. Dang. 

So that one is for next time. 

At the end of the day we thought that we had done quite well. To the question 'Can you see what it is yet?' we think that we can answer 'Yes'.

The idea is to assemble it fully at Winchcombe, sort out any problems (we already found a few on Friday), and then re-assemble it at CRC. That shouldn't take very long.

Full assembly at Winchcombe does mean however that the turnout will reach into the area of that parked car in the distance.  In order not to interfere too much with the busy Santa volunteer parking, we will try and do the rest over one working week shortly. It does mean that we need additional mid week volunteers, to get the assembly done in one go.

Form an orderly queue, please... 

 

Some readers may be wondering, what are they going to do with the existing turnout at CRC?  There is nothing wrong with it as such, its main problem is expired timbers, and the metal is rather old school GWR. So we are going to re-use it in the PWay yard at Winchcombe - see picture below.

This is the future site of the CRC south turnout. It will go in on the right, by the pile of rails. It will give a simpler approach to the two C&W carriage stabling points. C&W don't want too many curves and switches throwing the stock this way and that, as that makes it difficult for the buckeyes that we use.

 

The PWay stock siding will then be the one on the far left. One day there may also be a carriage storage shed here. The exact location and size have been the subject of discussion for some time now. And of course there is no money.

 

 

Saturday, out with the gang.

Despite the 'Heavy rain' forecast by the BBC, it was quite a pleasant day, and 12 volunteers turned out for what became quite an interesting couple of jobs.

 

The first job was ballasting at Little Buckland, where the recent tamping had exposed sleeper ends and shoulders that needed boosting.

We met the loaded ballast train at the Stanton yard. 

 

 

 

 

Not long afterwards we heard the steady Plod-plod-plod of the Sulzer diesel. 

It was 26043, whose crew were delighted to come out for a job.

Here it is, just backing on to the ballast train, before propelling up to the job site. 

Once arrived, an eager volunteer sprang forward, ready to wind the 'Pirate ship's' wheel about 100 times, to get the ballast plough underneath down to rail level.

Then we were ready for the drop. Here the train is just manoeuvering up to the start of the drop. Several men were up on the Dogfish, ready to open the doors, whole others followed on in the Shark behind.

The weather at this point was a bit cold and grim, with dark skies and drizzle.

Below is a film of the train doing the ballast drop, with all four wagons being emptied, and the Shark brake van behind ploughing the ballast out of the four foot, and outside the rails left and right:
 

 https://youtu.be/x7gZ_EoUj6Y

Here is the train about to come to a stop again, with the new ballast very evident, as it comes from a  different quarry than that dropped during the extension build.

The gang on the balcony of the Shark were clearly having a good time. There was an atmosphere of great joy, and visible pleasure of doing something different from changing sleepers and packing the inteminable dips.

 

 

 

With the drop completed we returned to Stanton.

While the main party moved on to Toddington, a small group stayed behind to load another wagon from the small pile that remained. 

 

 

 

 

Lunch was held in the mess room at Toddington. After that came job No.2 for the day: to lay in a short stretch of track near the yard throat, so that 3 diesel bogies could be stored on it. 

This is the area proposed, that green bit on the left. It's just for storage, doesn't have to look too pretty. Mustn't cost anything either. 

Luckily we have quite a few lengths of old rail (Old? Look at this one !), so they could be lifted in on top of some GWR throughbolted sleepers that we have stacked by the driveway (which we were also pressed to remove)

While waiting for the Toddington Telehandler to arrive with the first sleepers, we devised a little puzzle for a newbie: 

 Can you just knock that key back in? It seems to have fallen out. Ta!

 

 

 

Ah! here comes Simon with the sleepers.

 

Just drop them off slowly along here, while you reverse. 

 

 

 

As the gang was laying out the sleepers with the throughbolters on, the 'Rat' 26043 came back from shunting the ballast train, and prepared to return to the diesel shed.

STEVIE brought in odd lengths of rail that were left over from a crossover that we put in here about 5 years ago.

 

 

 

 

And Hey Presto ! After just a couple of hours the storage siding, about two lengths long, was there. A bit rough & ready, but that is all that was wanted.

Hmmmm... How about a bit of loco ash, the traditional packing material for cheap track? That would level it out a bit, especially at the far end. 

In no time the Telehandler, this time the larger one from Winchcombe, brought in a couple of bucket fulls.
 

There's a bit more fettling to do, but that's basically it.

 

 

Tuesday, painting at Toddington.

On this sunny day we took the opportunity of painting rivet heads at Toddington.

This is the last of the 4 trusses, with rivet heads primered and undercoated. That should deter the rust a bit for a while.

The canopy structure is now likely to be mounted in September next year, just for the asssembly phase on site. It will be on a non-running day, but will not otherwise need a line block on a longer basis. There will be scaffolding only around the building, and this will allow us to work on the canopy until the closed season, when there will be a shorter period of scaffolding actually on the loop.

That's the plan at the moment.... 

 

 

 

Passing through the loco shed we spotted this interesting chimney casting, together with the pattern.

You don't see that very often. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A busy day, again in the sun (the forecast for the next 10 days is very poor though) and we spent it most usefully by preparing for a supply drop of materials to the platelayer's hut on Friday. 

 

That meant finding and carrying to the loading area behind the C&W shed everything heavy that we were likely to need over the next several weeks by the tunnel mouth.

This included about 240 reds, some blues for a fireplace arch, half a bag of sand, some concrete blocks to replace those that were removed to get rid of the tree stump there, Maxie the mixer (tried out, and still going strong!) and three chairs that we found in the skip. We want to be able to sit down for a cuppa from time to time, after all. 

 

After a couple of hours on the scrounge we had assembled this little package for STEVIE to trundle up the line for us. There is no budget for the platelayer's hut!

STEVIE actually came by today, but was sent out on a mission to Bishops Cleeve, and was likely to return too late. So the supply drop will be on Friday.

 

 

 

Much of the rest of the day was spent clearing up the weighbridge site, now that we have finished everything, bar the wooden window (which will be a fill in job on rainy days).

Here is Dave shovelling up the remains of the old tarmac, next to the new strip. 

 

 

 

 

Then we took down the Heras fence. The two holes at the front have now been filled in again, so there is no longer any need for it.

The weighbridge now looks normal again. FoWS still intend to give the interior a repaint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Heras fencing panels were taken to the compound, and put into store with the others up on the mezzanine.

 

 

There seemed to be a lot of military activity in the sky today - this A400 was seen three times. Or maybe there were three of them...

At the end of the day we dropped into Toddington, to see what Neal was up to. On Tuesday he took our mini digger there, to dig a hole. 

What was that all about? 

The answer today was that there will be a short extension to the concrete apron in front of the loco shed, and in anticipation of the concreting a drain was put in first.

 

 

 

Next door BETTON GRANGE was given a short trip by the shunter. The loco is decorated for Santa, and was lit up for a boiler test, we ascertained.

It was nice to see this little GWR diorama, withauthentic water tower and two yard lamps, and the loco's brasswork shining in the low sun. 

 

With the Grange outside there was space in the loco shed for a snapshot: there's a 38XX, a Hall, and a Merchant Navy. Only the 2-8-0 is ready for service; the other two just started their regular overhauls.

At the back are three fascia boards for Broadway. Neal brought them in, no doubt for more riveting. He's trying to do a maximum at Toddington, so that there is less to do on site once the canopy goes on. When we built the P1 canopy there was much more riveting required after the canopy was assembled, and we'd like to shorten that.

Under the glass of the side-less greenhouse more daggerboards had received a coat of paint.

These here are the longer ones that go on the canopy ends, and they have just received their first coat of undercoat.

All around there was lightweight debris, evidence of the strong winds and rain that we have been having. The rain goes straight through here, we're basically doing all this work outside.