Good news - and not so good.

Saturday at Gretton.

One of the first really hot days of the summer, and only 6 people. Perhaps the holidays are having an impact. Well, you missed a chocolate cake, it was somebody's birthday.

We started off with doughnuts, leaving the cake for lunch.

Sluing jacks being set up along the alignment fault.

 

We took two Landies out to Gretton, where an alignment fault had been reported.

We observed that this coincided with a very large row of Leylandii right next to the line. They were planted back in the 1990s when the line was relaid. Their roots affect the embankment through water retention (or not) and the result is track movement above.

Nick and Dave on the two Robels.

 

We managed to move the track a few mm, and then addressed another fault nearby, where the chairs were observed moving up and down on the sleepers.

The answer to this one was to tighten the bolts, which would lift the sleepers, and then to pack under the sleepers with the Robels.

The size of this Leylandi hedge can be seen in this picture. It's also very close to the track. When it was planted the little bushes seemed small, but they have grown to substantial dimensions. We learned from an arboretum that a Leylandi is a relatively new hybrid (about 120 years old) and mankind does not know the maximum height to which they will grow - in the arboretum some plants already stood at 30 metres tall! Not a good thing to plant next to a railway line.

Jim and Bert Ferrule having a discussion, on the long, very long Gretton straight.

Just before returning to the mess coach for lunch we also packed three newish sleepers that were replaced a couple of years ago, and that were seen pumping under a passing train. Their replacement dates back to the time before the Robels, so packing would have been by hand, and not very adequate. No more!

Back at Winchcombe we caught sit of the 'Bubblecar', which had been outshopped by C&W into the sun. It's rather tasty, we must say. We think the interior still needs to be fitted, but the outside is good enough to eat.

When we returned to store our tools, we found a couple of burned out wagon frames in front of our store van. They were vandalised at the southern end of the line, the fate of everything stored there.

This one has GWR axleboxes, and a hinged side. A three planker perhaps?

 

This one still had traces of paint, and was equally burned out.

If our memory serves us right, it was labelled as a 'PIPEFIT'.

They will go back into store now.

 

After lunch we split into two teams. One went to replace a cracked fishplate in the Dixton cutting, the other was armed with a large bucket of grey-blue paint to cover some tagging on Working Lane bridge. Traces of youthful trespass were not only revealed by the tags, but also by trampled fencing and a beer can half way up the wing wall.

On our return we fell into the chairs of the coffeepot outside seating, for a ice cream and some coffee.

 

The Ivatt rolled into the station at 4 o'clock.

Unfortunately we suffered from a slow shutter release today. Pressing the shutter release does not mean that you get that picture, but one a little later, after reflection by the camera circuitry.

Winchcombe is very busy once every hour, and so it was at 4 o'clock.

As the Ivatt waited for the diesel headed train to cross it, the southbound train headed by 5081 rumbled into platform 1, under the watching eyes of our little PWay team, tired and thirsty after a day under the hot sun.

Tuesday at Broadway.

During the last week Neal had the opportunity to mount the fire bucket board on the end of the building - here it is in situ.

We've got 3 authentic fire buckets, lettered by C&W, to go on them. Before we hang them on we'd like to make some wooden disks that will fit inside just below the rim, so that they can't be filled with water or sand. The end wall is only one brick thick, and is unlikely to support such a heavy weight. If we put sand on top of that, they will look full.

 

 

The station was reasonably busy on Tuesday, and we had quite a few onlookers and people with questions. Ice cream was selling well, and we spotted a fireman staggering back to his footplate loaded with 3 Magnums and three bottles of water. It's hot work.

The Ivatt was there again, and here it is reversing past Broadway signal box. Did you notice the article in the current Trackside magazine?  In an article about 'getting it right' our box appeared in an example photograph, and in a second, double page photograph (taken in 2018, when the station wasn't even finished) they describe Broadway as 'one of the finest builds of its type' Wow! Getting heritage accurate does matter, and it does get noticed. It's our job to show what the past was like, and people may not understand, but they do notice that we cared.

Next, those quad royal poster boards for the end of the building. They appear in the 1904 opening day photograph, lots of posters on the end of the building, which was once the main entrance into the station.

The quad royals were made off site, and Alex of C&W very kindly arranged to have them lettered by Pat.

Tuesday we got the suggestion that they could be put on a train from Winchcombe to Broadway, an excellent idea. We have a railway after all. We awaited the train eagerly, and found the two boards lying down in the guards compartment. Soon they were up on trestles for the final fixing arrangements.

During the day we were visited by Growler 37 215, which needed a bit of adjusting to produce the desired vacuum in the guard's compartment. Engines were turned off and on, exhausters activated, cabs changed, and eventually the brakes did come off and the train left. All part of the fun. Almost like British Rail!

Mid afternoon the two quad royal boards were up, fitting in beautifully with the fire bucket board.

Now for the posters... we tried hard to find period ones, and we hope you will agree that we did well. Those along the platform side of the building are from the 1930s, characterised by a large picture and a few words about the destination.

Turn of the century posters were more verbose, almost like newspaper advertisements.

From L to R -

- Cork, via Fishguard

- Great Horse Sales of Wrexham

- Art and Industrial Exhibition of Wolverhampton

- Stratford Races.

We were particularly pleased to find the last one, as it would almost certainly have been a poster used on our line. Stratford Race Course is just a few stops further along, after all.

The last shot of the day shows:

A hole in the ground, and stacks of building materials, with rusty containers. We would very much like to make a start on the P2 waiting room and canopy. The longer we wait, the higher the prices.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A full complement of 5 today - was it the lure of someone's birthday, and the expectation of some cake?

Jules and Dave were early again, and at 08.25 we found them on the gable end, one mix already made and being applied. They don't hang around, these lads.

You may recall that we laid out a line of 9 inch blocks last week, and this is what they were bedding down today.

After finishing off that line of weighty blocks, we put up the second lot of trestles along the Malvern side, and Jules then transferred his activities to the ends of the trusses. He's building stone and mortar around them, so that they are enveloped in the top of the wall.

 

 

The trains out today were headed by P&O and our summer visitor, Ivatt 46521.

The Ivatt is waiting for P&O to drift in and exchange tokens.

 

Looking the other way, and from the slight vantage point of a pile of bricks, we see Jules in the middle of the newly positioned trestle, while Dave is placing a few snecks to level off a bit of a slope we have on the left.

Paul on the right is building up under the end of the wall plate.

Having built up under the wall plate, Paul decided to set out the gable end, as we are very much on the point of building it.

That chimney liner sausage fought back! It was persuaded to point upwards to the gable, instead of downwards through the window. As we build up the gable end, we will need to incorporate it, until it will get its own chimney in engineering blues, somewhere towards the middle.

Having levelled the previous course with a few snecks, Dave asked for a few more chunky blocks, and after some debate we decided on a row of 7 inch ones.

Here Dave is bedding down the first. A second followed soon after.

 

 

 

Elsewhere on the site the chaps from Construction and Maintenance continued with back filling and shaping the site.

More earth was found opposite - a pile that has been there for years - and that was deposited on the northern end, where a slope down to a gully was shaped. That was then vibrated down with Broadway's roller.

The other side of the yard has several dumpy bags of random and broken bricks (with which we can't do much) and the Telehandler was used to bring some of these over. It then drove across the front of the Usk hut to drop off a bag full of bricks, which were spread out as part of the fill.

Paul's handiwork - the official start to the gable end. One small little triangular bit of stone. A landmark. Note how the angle of the stone reflects the angle of the line. While sorting out the many dressed stones into piles, we separated out any that appeared to have some sort of an angle to them, for just this purpose. Let's hope we can find enough of them.

Lunch time was taken 'al fresco', but under the tree as it was cooler there.

John, Paul, Dave and Jules are enjoying a large 'birthday cake' chunk of brownie, made by Mrs. Blogger. We had 8 pieces, and managed to put away 6 of them, given that John also had hot cross buns on offer, while John R, who dropped in later, brought a bag of doughnuts. Embarras de richesse...

John is also looking ahead, as we see him here with the original Usk hut door, which has finally come out of 4 years' storage in a GWR goods van. 

Our friendly carpenter repaired the frame earlier, and at the same time made the door fit the slightly amended height. However, the paint scheme was still a totally crazed chocolate brown.

With the dry summer months now upon us, this is a good time to do the woodwork restoration, even if we won't be fitting the door just yet.

Here is a mid afternoon shot of the gable end. Dave is pointing his work on the left, while Paul has been working on the corner on the right, where a certain elevation can be seen. That's the start of the gable slope.

As Paul was cleaning his spot at the end of the day, the Telehandler came by again across the front of the building, this time with a bucket of earth. This was spread out over the bricks that you can see.

The Usk team finish at 3pm, given the early start, and then head off to the Coffeepot to have tea and ice cream with their mates from the PWay gang.

Here's the hut at the end of the day, with the Telehandler having a rest under the tree. A C&M volunteer has spent two working days cleaning all the brickwork on our wall of excess mortar. Hope you can see that - or at least appreciate his effort in the unrelenting sun.

Here's the Usk hut at the end of the day, with the Hessian applied in two layers, to protect the mortar from the unrelenting sun. We put a black tarp over the top too, the mortar likes a bit of a fug underneath to go off properly.

You can sort of see the shape of the chimney now. We'll cut off the end of the flue pipe, once we know how long it has to be.

In the foreground is the earth that the Telehandler brought, now raked over into a new layer. Those are Usk hut stones, but more or less all that there is left now. We're steering it so that the last ones to be laid on the gable ends will be the 5 and 6 inch blocks, which are lighter to lift to those heights. Very few 8 and 9 inch blocks remain now.

Not so good news on the heritage front.

We learned today that it has been decided to fit loudspeakers (!) to our heritage 1904 Broadway station. This on top of the CCTV cameras, and after 4 years of operating perfectly well without any loudspeakers. The reason is that they are said to be 'for the benefit of the customers'. 

Currently the station has a hand held loud hailer, which was seen in use occasionally during the gala. On a normal operating day it is not required. Broadway is a simple station, with just the one train on the one platform.

Despite assurances to the contrary, these loudspeakers will be intrusive, as they already are on our other stations. They will not only be intrusive visually like the CCTV cameras, but also in another dimension, i.e. accoustically. The peace of our rural Victorian bywater will be disturbed by the braying announcements of where the next train is going, and of lost rucksacks.

Here is what the loudspeakers on our other stations look like:

Loudspeaker at Winchcombe

Loudspeaker on a stick, at Winchcombe

Loudspeaker on a gable end, at Cheltenham Race Course

Loudspeaker inside the Victorian canopy, at Toddington

A second loudspeaker, inside the original canopy at Toddington.

 Cabling everywhere.

Unfortunately the railway's Heritage Group was not consulted about these plans, and pleas to respect our Victorian heritage were waved away after a fait accompli. The GWR Trust ('to create and maintain a railway museum for the benefit of the public'), we learned today, has agreed to fund the purchase cost. 

What to do?

 

Round to the gable end.

Saturday along the line.

Not a good day, frankly. We wasted a lot of time on wild goose chases. On top of that it rained in buckets, whereas 'light rain' was forecast. Crossing Cleeve Hill in the Landie was incredible - we were in low cloud, with little visibility and a full tropical rainstorm around us. Poor little Landrover windscreen wipers. They tried.

 

We loaded up two Landies, and Dinmore Manor sighed to a stop by the bracket signal.

A few moments later one arm clattered down, and the Manor set off with deep exhaust beats into a damp sky.

Stirring stuff!

 

The crossing train was headed by the Ivatt, and to photograph that one we sought out a new angle.

Ivatt 46521 leaving Winchcombe on Saturday July 2nd.

Hope you like it !

Then we headed for the foot crossing at 'RDA' (Riders for the Disabled), which is probably our most remote part of the railway. To get there we have to drive over Cleeve Hill, into Prestbury, across to Swindon Lane roundabout, into the race course, and all the way back through the race course grounds almost to Southam Lane. There is a road entrance there, but it is barred to traffic with concrete blocks.

We went to this particular spot on receiving a report of a potential flaw in a rail, which would need to be clamped. We took clamps with us.

On site however the description puzzled 6 grown men. Where was it exactly? We scratched our heads over that one for quite some time.

 

 

 

 

 

It took so long that we almost missed lunch, getting back to the mess coach way beyond our usual time. That was just as well it turned out, as rain rattled furiously on the tin roof of the coach as we munched our sandwiches. 

Wait for the signal, Dave, wait for it, wait for it......

 

 

Shortly afterwards the rain was gone again, so we proceeded to the second and third of our reports of suspected flaws. 

These next two were sighted (as it were) in Greet tunnel.

 

After calling the signalman we were given one hour (!) to fix the problems and make it back to base.

 

 

 

We set off for the tunnel at a fine trot, with three of us already in it, forewarned to bring torches, as that tunnel is a dark one. There's a bend at the Gretton end, so no light comes in. 

Any lights at the end of this tunnel will be a speeding train....

Dave doggedly pushed that trolley uphill, followed by the rest of the gang trying to keep up.

Once several hundred yards into the tunnel we found the first of the two reported faults -  a cracked fishplate.

 

Identifying the plate in question, and the fault.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got the bolts off double quick (the clock is ticking....).

Bert Ferrule is standing ready to whack the set of plates, which will cause the nearest on to fall off. It had been marked in yellow paint to indicate an issue.

Fitting the replacement plate proved difficult, due to the spacing of the holes, and not all the bolts would go in.

Our fishplate expert Dave (for it is he) then examined the crack more closely. The apparent crack was in fact a ridge from the foundry, so not crack present after all. In that case, we thought, we'll put the old plate straight back on, and that fitted perfectly again. On to the other reported fault.

Why won't the new plates fit? Working in the dark...

Refitting the plates, helped by expert blows from a keying hammer.

After a short walk in total darkness, but armed with torches, we found the second fault reported. This time we got our expert Dave (for it is he again) on to confirm the crack straight away. Once again he sat up (possibly with a black nose now) to report: Not a crack at all, but a ridge from the time the plate was cast.

And already our time was up. We threw everything back on the trolley (including six lengths of bonding wire found on the haul road as we walked, bad for the tires of any vehicles) and trotted back down to Winchcombe.

We shunted the trolley back into its siding, stored the tools and treated ourselves to two pots of tea outside the Coffeepot.

Sadly, not a very constructive day, except that Jim turned up in the morning in a bit of a funk, but with some banter, teasing and risky jokes we soon had him laughing heartily again. So that was a win.

46521 accelerates away from CRC and enters the curve to Southam Road bridge.

We saved this shot of 46521 for the end of the PWay report, otherwise the last picture would have been in the dark, and we can't leave you like that, can we?

Tuesday in the loco shed.

A few hours in the loco shed, principally on manufacturing the sleeves for the posts at the bottom of the steps on P2 at Broadway. The posts currently supporting the roof of the steps are temporary RSJs.

 

 

 

These posts will be the same as those we made for P1. They are made of box section steel, with a sleeve on the bottom that will make the posts look as if they are of cast iron. That idea was very successful on P1.

In the picture Neal is grinding down the welds on the sides of the sleeves.

There's been no loco blog for quite a few months now, but that doesn't mean that projects stand still. The 2800s have been shuffled around a bit, so what we see here is 3850 (formerly the place for 2807) with its new cylinders, and indeed a new smokebox. It has a face on it, which always makes us smile.

Also part of the 3850 kit are these two new steel castings that sit behind the buffer beam. It's amazing what a thorough job is being done with this loco, and the sort of stuff you can have cast these days. 

Brilliant!

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A lovely warm day - summer is here. But Jules wasn't... sadly, domestic issues intervened, and we hope to have him back next week. 

We got there at 08.15, but of course that was mid-morning to some of the gang. We wake up so early these days, and why lie around in bed and wait?

No, Dave hasn't taken up smoking, he's got a lollipop from Paul. Paul has a sweet tooth.

 

Dave started on the corner nearest the station, and filled in a big hole behind the corner. You can't see it, you'll have to take our word for it.

That wall plate is still floating here, so it needs some fill mortared in under it.

Paul was on the same side, but at the other end, and did a similar job - filling in the corner.

We want to be able to sign this entire side off today, and move the trestles round to another face.

 

Our friends from Construction and Maintenance were also active early.

They are helping the project by back filling behind the platform. We were going to do this, but after completing the building, so that certainly helps.

The C&M guys had the Telehandler out and used it to bring in buckets of fill, which previously was in a big pile at the back of the yard. So that kills two birds with one stone.

The Telehandler also brought dumpy bags of poor quality bricks to lay as a level.

These sundry type bricks, many of which were broken, have lingered on the C&W side of the yard for many years, so once again they are finding a useful new home, and we are again killing two birds with one stone - tidying up, and creating the platform surface.

Later on in the morning we snapped the corner on which Dave had been working. He's filled it in, but that wall plate still needs something under it. Next time perhaps.

Filling in the corner allowed us to start placing new blocks along the gable end. The first one is in position in this picture. It's also the first stone on top of the lintel. That lintel is thick, but it needs to be - that block weighed a ton, but two of us manhandled it up there OK. Slowly the blocks should get lighter, as we use up the heaviest ones.

Here's that new block from the outside, together with a smaller one and a sneck on top of it. A lot of creative block choosing, in order to stick to the levels and not make it too difficult to place the next row.

Have some cake - no, have some of mine first !

As the Telehandler was rather noisy and the weather warm and inviting we moved our chairs out from under the tree and sat in the sun.

Cakes today:

- Swiss Roll

- Mince pies with apple filling

- Mrs. Dave's extra special fruit loaf with extra brandy.

There's always a tussle with the cakes in the morning, who gets to share first. John had his apple filled mince pies and was first to offer, but he was trumped by Paul who claimed that his Swiss Roll was 'nearly out of date'. So we had to eat that one first.

Here's a little panorama view of the site during the afternoon. Almost all the C&M guys were busy here today. On the right you can see them back filling and rolling, another chap was cleaning the platform face of surplus mortar, some were digging a post hole off camera,  and in the foreground you can see a gate being cleaned up.

 

Rob's excellent blockwork was finally revealed in full today, with the protective covers taken off to show just how neatly and logically the diamond pattern blocks from Swanbourne have been fitted. They continue from the platform, around the stopblock, and into a little return in the foreground.

The back filling team on the platform wave to the train, with P&O blowing off steam in the background.

This picture shows the full extent of the infill brought and spread out by the C&M gang today.

This whole area used to be a dumping ground for spoil and broken bricks/concrete, but all that is now buried and nicely levelled.

It was also rolled, using the single cylinder roller used for the platforms at Broadway some years back.

 

After lunch we saw the platform face of the building completed, and spent quite a bit of time moving the trestles to the station gable end. 

 

The other trestle (on the right) will move to the opposite face next week.

That chimney liner is going to be in the way a bit. We laid out another row along the top here, over the lintel on the right. All heavy 8 inch high blocks, but from once having a big pile of them, there are hardly any left now. 

All used up, see?

 

Paul bedded down that big block two of us wrestled on from the inside, while Dave was on the opposite end, trying to work to a level (a bit tricky here) running off the quoin on the left.

Here again the end of the wall plate is still floating. Paul wants to do those ends last of all.

Finally for today, an overall view of the gable end as it was completed just before we put the Hessian over it.

Paul has laid two blocks on the right and is half way over the lintel, while Dave has laid three blocks from the left. 

That leaves three large-ish blocks to bed down in the middle. They are already there, but still loose.