Thursday, a special train arrives at Broadway.
On Thursday last week a special train arrived from Toddington, with 20 or so experts from the Birmingham University Centre for Railway Research and Education, and representatives from Network Rail on board.
The train was hauled by brand new BETTON GRANGE, with a happy Steve greeting us from the footplate. This was one of the Race Trains, and with a 4+ hours layover at Toddington and an engine in steam, there was time for a quick trip to Broadway and back with railway guests.
These seats were occupied just 3 hours ago by race goers - how do we know?
The drinks menu, still open on the table, revealed quite reasonable prices - almost all (alcoholic) drinks were £6. There was even Champagne. (not £6....)
A quick search on the net revealed that the Race Course charges around £7.50 for drinks, and Champagne £85, or more. So our prices are attractive.
The guests in our one off special heard a presentation at Toddington, then came to Broadway for nibbles in our cafe.
As almost all of our RCS staff was on the race trains (rather more important for sales) the cafe was open only as a function room, with outside caterers providing nibbles.
More detail about the exact purpose of the visit will be revealed in the next blog. It's nothing dramatic, but an interesting opportunity.
Saturday, out with the gang.
A cold, bright day. Difficult to dress for it, as it was icy cold first thing, then quite hot by mid day. We had our winter coat on, and wished we hadn't.
It was an early season combination of trains on Saturday - 3850 with a rake of carriages first.
We had been tasked with eliminating a whole series of dropped joints beyond Bishops Cleeve, in the cutting and by the sports field.
It's our least popular area, because of all the human detritus. Footballs on the track, beer bottles, dog bags with faeces dropped from two hedges bridge. Even a mobile phone on the track, and today - a tattered rainbow flag.
Our neighbours have advanced their gardens to hard up against the cutting side.
First with timid stock fences ...
... then with increasingly durable property demarcations, such as this new fence, right on the edge, with concrete panels.
Whatever happened to our strip of land with the crest drain? There is still one on the other side.
One neighbour spoke to us, and immediately lodged a complaint. When were we going to deal with a tree on the opposite side of the cutting, as he could no longer see Cleeve Hill. A bit rich, coming from our own strip of land.
We had all 4 Robels out, divided into two gangs that leapfrogged each other. Robels, jacks, handles, shovels, rakes, site boards et al were manhandled, bit by bit, down a half mile stretch during the day.
For those on the shovels it was a tough day. This area was one of several where a cheaper grade of ballast had been tried out years ago. In exchange for larger lumps of stone we received a discount on the price. Very attractive when you are on a tight budget.
Look at the size of the lumps though, when compared to normal ballast (as we buy today). They are impossible to shovel, you can't get the shovel in between.
When you make a famous mistake on the PWay, your name goes on that mistake. Hence we have - Dave's rail, Andy's crossing, Nick's corner, Graham's signal post, Lamming's slip, and - Geoff's boulders. There's even a blogger's ballast pile... 'nuff said about that one !
On Saturday we were also graced by the visit of the Bubble Car, reasonably well filled when it returned from CRC. It now seems to be in regular service, at last.
During the day, one of our Robel obstruction free jacks developed a fault. Dave gave it a long, hard, Paddington stare. It turned out not to be broken, but a grub screw had come adrift. Easily fixed, if you have a set of Allen keys with you. We didn't.
We also spotted a curious drainage issue. The drainage gang have devoted a lot of effort in this area, we know, and you can see this freshly dug drain from the crest to the catch pit below. But strangely there was water appearing out of a hole in the grass alongside. And the catch pit below was working overtime, we heard the sound of plenty of runnig water down there too.
Then we had a conflicting movement - a cat walking along a rail of the down line, but travelling in an up direction. It skipped by us, despite our pleas of Puss Puss Puss.
Shortly after that 3850 came past again, this time with more sun on it, to make this fine picture possible.
We had three vehicles out with us on Saturday - one for the tools, one for 5 of the crew, and one loaded with garden quality sleepers for CRC.
One of the pan jacks also gave us a bit of trouble. The handle wouldn't go all the way in. The diagnosis (another Paddington stare) was a small stone in the bottom of the hole for the handle.
It was eventually poked out with a pocket knife, after trying several other instruments.
The rail next to this joint is down for changing, hence the blind fishplate by a suspect squat. A job for a non-running day.
At 3 o'clock we were tired, and retreated to the Coffeepot, our first retreat there this season.
It allowed us to see the Bubble Car cautiously entering Winchcombe. It's nice to have a bit of change on the railway.
Manston next !
Back at Winchcombe, we noticed that the FoWS had now fixed a lamp top to the post erected by the Usketeers a few months back.
That completes this little embellishment. Another step on the road to a better heritage railway.
The post was donated to us by a well wisher, one of a pair from a garden near Frome.
Thank you sir, and as you can see, we do take good care of your posts. More posts of this design would be very welcome.
Monday, another special train arrives.
Monday was a dull, cold and normal brick laying day. Minding our own business, making mortar, laying on bricks.
Suddenly we noticed a tightly packed group of passengers. You couldn't get a cigarette paper between them. What is this? Economy measures, passengers to stand in a group and use one carriage only?
They stared intensely at ... no, not your blogger, but...
... 3850, running round their economy train. Just like the 1820s, freight wagons to stand in.
They stirred nervously, as their train arrived along the other platform.
This was the object of their desire - their own private freight train. Accomodation was a Toad and a Queen Mary brake behind.
They got some lovely photo opportunities, at Broadway station, over the road bridge, by the goods shed, out of Greet tunnel. All for £125 pp.
There were 30 attendees - we make that a gross income of £3.750, less the cost of chartering the loco from the owners.
A really good initiative, we thought.
John carried on laying bricks, unperturbed. As a reward, we received some nice compliments from the photographers. They really meant it too.
So where are we now with brick laying?
We're working on the central bit of the facade, going as high as we can without incurring costs. The top five rows are the ones laid on Monday.
If you look closely, you can see that almost all of the bricks are either specials, or ordinary bricks cut to fit. That means that a large percentage of the bricks need to be cut, hence the more moderate pace at the moment.
This is the alternative view from the inside. Soon we'll have to lays some blocks here, to keep up with the progress outside
Last thing on Monday was the arrival of a tower scaffold, with which we can now do the upper brick courses.
This scaffold was very kindly lent to us by the owners of the Bubble Car.
How we all help each other.
Wednesday with the Usketeers.
The warmest day of the year so far - 19 degrees noted in the tunnel approach cutting.
We sat in the coolness of the weighbridge hut.
There was a cornucopia of cakes this morning. Everyone brought a bit, some two lots!
The wife says: Men ! Why don't you coordinate the cake bringing? But that would be too simple, and there might be less...
With every trip to the tunnel mouth we try to take some building material with us (except sleepers...). This time it was some scrap 3x4s that Dave found in a skip. Just what we needed! We managed to get 4 on a wheelbarrow, and still push it, sort of.
Today was a big day for us, as the first of the 34 sleepers was due to go up. The chimney isn't finished yet, it's currently paused at the height of the tallest sleepers, at the back.
We started with a corner one, as it has to overhang the paver underneath by 1 inch both sides.
As these are softwood sleepers, they are not as heavy as you might think, although we did deputise our youngest volunteer to lift one all by himself. Go Julian !
A beep-beep in the distance alerted us to the passage of the RRV. Dave D at the wheel. Boom carefully lowered, to fit the tunnel. They were off to the Gotherington loop with the rest of the gang, to give it a final tamp before the main season is upon us.
After two on the end, we put three along the side, out of our kit of sleepers sawn to size by Martin last week. They were all numbered - ' Give me No. 9 now please'.
That leaves the first one still to fit, by the chimney.
With the first corner established, we went to the other side of the chimney. Due to the size of the pad on which this hut will stand, we are having three sleepers on one side of the chimney, and two on the other. On the drawing it was 3 + 3.
The two sleepers on the left fitted perfectly, so now we went for the missing first sleeper on the right. It was a bit tight at the top. We chopped out the top two bricks, gave it a tap, and it went in.
Up to that point we were working with temporary fixings, but that 3x4 top right here is permanent. It is holding the sleeper ends together with chunky 200 x 10mm bolts. A similar one will run along the bottom, as our sleepers cannot be buried in the ground.
The final action of the day was to place a couple of sleepers along the left, so that we ended up with a sort of U shaped surround around the chimney. The tally for the day therefore was 11 sleepers placed, about a third of the total.
Note the post on the right - this holds the 3x4 in place, at the correct roof angle. Remember when we did a dry run of this a couple of weeks ago?
This is the end of the day shot, with the new camera. It takes pictures OK, but is not brilliant with contrast, as you can see.
This, more colourful picture, was taken with the slightly foggy phone camera. It shows the timbers up well.
Next week - more timbers, and some joists, to keep it all together.
And finally, a historic picture:
Recognise the Winchcombe weighbridge hut?
It's actually the same one, but at Weston Sub Edge station, as was. The weighing table is gone, and so are any ironworks. Just the brick building remains. It has an intact lintel though (the Winchcombe one is broken, due to the subsidence).
Speaking to someone on site, we got a feeling that the site was under a bit of a cloud. CRH (who used to rent Broadway its big dumpers) got taken over, and no longer rents out dumpers, we heard.
If anyone is more up to speed than we are, we'd like to hear. Possibly there is some rescuing to do here? There are also two original GWR cast iron gate posts here.
