Getting ready for the lift.

Thursday at Toddington.

On the way to Toddington to paint steels, we paused at Broadway for a small job.

 

Our eyes caught the trolley under the steps. This was completely refurbished, and then donated to us.

Someone then stored bags of salt on it, which started the rusting process on the metal strips.

The steel milk churns are also rusting (they did that before, tbh). The rust here is so deep set that even shot blasting does not completely cure it. What we need are some aluminium milk churns. 

Are there any offers out there? 

 

 

Once at Toddington, we found that Neal had prepared two of the six purlins on trestles, ready for painting in undercoat.

 

 

 

First they needed cleaning. They look weatherbeaten, with fly blown sand, sawdust, cutting oil residue and rusty drilling remnants over any surface that was on top.

We spent an hour cleaning the two purlins 

 

 

 

 

 There was hammering in the distance...

This was from the builders next door, putting up a housing estate next to us. For a while we rented them a space to park their vans, which was useful extra income. That has now come to an end, and the hammering was a chap putting the fence back up.

 

Coincidentally, this clears the way to moving the approach road to its final position down alongside the fence. Work has already started, with clearance done at the top. The temporary Heras fencing gates will be replaced by something more suitable for a Heritage Railway.

 

If someone is interested in the green turnstile on the right, drop us a note. 

As we were painting, this large articulated lorry entered our car park, did a U turn, and parked up. The driver got out, and walked off in the direction of the Pheasant.

 

Could the new roadway impede this sort of behaviour? 

After degreasing, cleaning, and a Cappuccino in the cafe, we were able to paint the visible parts of the two purlins. There are two more dirty ones on the ground, then there's the other sides to do. Will there be time enough before the big lift?

 

The big lift and assembly of the Broadway waiting room canopy is for later this month. All the steelwork will be carried on a bogie flat, currently in the parlour road. Two wagons will take the woodwork. A crane is arranged, and so is scaffolding around the building. As the latter is the start of an expensive rental period, we will be under pressure to do the rivetting, painting and woodwork assembly as quickly as possible. And not forgetting the roofing sheets and glass panels.

Lunch was on the platform at Toddington station.

The 'Bubble Car' was doing shuttles between here and Winchcombe, to take people to the room filled with very playable toy trains in the visitor centre.

Shortly afterwards the Peak rolled in from Broadway. Both the Peak and the Bubble carried teddies in the front window.

Friday at Broadway.

 

STEVIE was due at Broadway, with bags of demolition rubble from the Toddington platform extension. Broadway can use these to back fill various things, while Toddington benefit from having its rubble removed free of charge. Friday being a non-running day, we had the opportunity of a PWay track possession.

 

 

 

STEVIE came up not only with bags of rubble, but also with rubber pads for a crossing, which David and Andy intended to instal at Stanton, where the RRV could go off rail thanks to the crossing. Some of the crossing parts were off loaded first, to get access to the rubble bags underneath.

 

STEVIE then rolled forwards a bit, for 8 bags of demolition rubble to be unloaded. These bags included quite a few blues from the Toddington platform, which we are going to have to clean and save for future use.

 

 

 

 

After unloading the 8 bags, Neal asked the crew to move some of our stuff about, to tidy up the site, and make it ready for back filling and, eventually, tarmaccing.

 

We have several pallets of plain bricks left over. These were loaded on to the RRV trolley, and taken down to the very northern end of P2. It's not a satisfactory final site, but a lot neater than now.

 

 

After the RRV left to go to Stanton. Neal and Yours Truly went to Toddington to reposition the purlins for more painting. Some need turning over, to expose the underside for cleaning and painting, and some needed lifting on to trestles for the first side to be painted. Still a lot to do then.

 

After talking to Neal, it would seem that with the big lift approaching, not all of the steelwork will be fully undercoated before the lift. That means more painting work on site. Do-able, but not as easy as lying flat on trestles. 

 

 

 

 

 

Also on the PWay.

Pictures by Paul, working with a small gang on Friday.

 

 

 

In conjunction with moving the drive, we need to clear the site near the Toddington fence of materials in temporary storage. A lot has already been taken to Winchcombe or Stanton, but more sleepers and in particular a pile of chairs removed from rotten sleepers taken out of siding 2 need to be moved.

 

 

This is where they went - into the garden centre site. They still need to be moved away from there too, but at least they are now clear of the route for the new road. There's also material here recovered from MOD Bicester, which still has to find a final home.

 

 

 

This is the former storage site at the end of the day - almost everything has gone. Behind the camera is clear too - that is where the builders parked their vans.

 

 

Paul and his team then went to Stanton, where they met Andy and David with STEVIE, back from Broadway. 

The sharp eyed among you will have noticed that not everything was unloaded at Broadway. And thus STEVIE returned to Stanton with an additional cargo of rubber crossing elements. We have quite a few of these, so one good use for them would be crossing places made to allow the robo flail to cross the line, or, as here, to allow the RRV to rail up/derail.

 

Picture by Sam.

 

 The cargo of crossing elements was first unloaded.

 

 

Picture by Sam.

STEVIE could then lift them into the four foot one by one. The rubber mats are surprisingly heavy, hence the use of a crane, and bars to nudge them into place.

 

 

Just lifting the final one into the four foot.

Here the last one is just being nudged along, to fit in with the others already laid.

And here is the new rail up/de-railing pad, all nice and neat. Slowly we are building a better railway. 

 

 

 

Sunday - final painting opportunity.

 

Four of the six purlins had one side painted on Sunday. It was hot, and we excaped into the Cotswolds Halt for a little reward...

 

 Two more purlin sides need cleaning and painting, but it's too late now, as on...

 

 

 

 

Monday at Toddington.

 

... loading of the roof components started. It's really happening!

 

 

 

 

The larger elements of the roof canopy were carefully extracted from under the greenhouse using the small electric fork lift, and then transferred by Telehandler to the car park, where 3 wagons had been placed for us on the unloading road.

 

 

 

 

 Here are the four trusses, loaded on the bogie flat wagon. Next were the purlins.

 

 

With some difficulty we extracted these too from under the greenhouse roof. The purlins are over 7m long, and the roof is held up by poles just a feet apart, so some delicate wriggling with the forklift was required.

We then laid them out on the deck, so that the Telehandler could do the journey over the car park. This was because it soon became apparent that the electric forklift was running out of battery. (purlin anxiety...)

 

 

While waiting for the Telehandler to return we took this picture for our readers of the path that the new road will take, looking south this time. This is the former builders-from-next-door car park area, now cleaned and levelled. Right foreground is the turnstile that is surplus to requirements.

 

 

Next to the trusses we put the purlins, followed by one fascia board. Space now looks a bit tight on this wagon, but we still have the other 3 fascia boards to go, and the curved ridge purlins, next to all the smaller stuff that will go in the wagons. It was hot and mid afternoon, and looking round we suddenly realised that everyone else had gone home - ours were the only cars left. So we called it a day at 16.00, intending to return on Friday, the next non-running day, with a clear car park to pass through with wide loads.

 

 

 

 

 

On the way home we called in at Broadway, to see how far the scaffolders had got. The scaffolding is needed for when we crane in the roof, as well as for rivetting and painting, and fitting the woodwork. It does not extend over the edge onto the loop road, as this is the high running season.

 

 

The scaffolders reckoned it was a two day job, so this was it for Monday. They will return on Friday as well.

Did you smell the smoke in Gloucestershire on Sunday evening? Apparently a wildfire in S Wales near Caerphilly. We actually thought that a garden a few fields away must have been ablaze, but it was much further away than that.

 

So we were surprised to see what looked like a Canadair 215 fly from E to W over Toddington on Monday. 10 mins later it flew back again. It was blue and yellow (? It flew quite high) and we could see the floats and the two radial engines.

 

Anybody know what we saw? A Canadair in the UK seems a bit unlikely.

 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers. 

 

 A sad day today, as we said Goodbye to our last project, but Hello to our newest one. Time marches on.

 

 

 

 This is where we are going to work next. Recognise the place? 

 

 

Looking the other way (on hearing the rumble of the Peak) we got this image. Know where we are going to work then?

 

 

 

 

This is our next project, at - you guessed it, know your railway - at Gotherington. The object of our interest is the little groundframe hut.

 

 

 

 

It has a little lean on it, an inclination, you might say. Bryan asked for help from the PWay gang, as he is concerned it might go further. So today was an exploratory visit, as we didn't really know what was leaning which way where.

Bryan thought it was an attack of burrowing animals. Looking at where the shoe of the downpipe ends, we think it could also be just a rotten corner post.

 

Action: Return next week with digging tools and a level, to expose the foundations and see what is going on. It's fixable, anyway. 

 

 

After a pleasurable meeting with a grateful Bryan and Savita, we returned to the lineside hut, one last time. We'll be back next week.

 

 

 

 

The little lineside hut is just about complete now. We dealt with a few odd jobs, like killing off the last remaining brambles in its immediate vicinity, or attaching an additional fixing ring to the downpipe, to stabilise it.

 

After that, in agreement with our PWay manager, we took all the remaining planks, bricks, trestles, buckets etc etc to a point just inside the home signal, where STEVIE will pick them up, within station limits. We left a clean and tidy site. Photography may now begin.

 

The finished lineside hut.

 

 

 

 

 We took one last photograph of it, with a train just leaving the tunnel.

 

 

Here it is, with the class 45 just passing by, and two wheelbarrows of kit ready to go home.

The hut has two padlocks on it, and a sturdy door, with only a small window. Bryan told us that when he took over Gotherington station there were 4 lineside huts left, but they were all torched. Presumably that was in a time when people thought the line was abandoned, but we are making sure that ours will be difficult to vandalise.

A last look inside, without tools and construction remains. Two benches, a fireplace, and a bucket marked 'BR' for fireside fuel. The fireplace remains untested, and may well continue like that, as this hut is mainly for photography.

 

Back at Winchcombe the station was busy with trains crossing. There were quite a few people about, with face painting in the Bradstone visitor centre, and kids for a quid enticing families in.

The PWay gang had found themselves a shady place to work besides the C&W shed. Here there is a programme of sleeper replacement - wood from the 1980s for economy sleepers from Didbrook.

After scraping the trackbed with STEVIE the sleepers, carried on his trolley, were laid out one by one.

The sleepers were then back filled and packed with the material from the track scraping. Not ideal material, mainly ash and bricks, but hey - it's a siding!

 

On the way home we stopped at Broadway for some watering duties, and found Neal preparing the steelwork for some extra hole drilling when the big lift takes place.

The scaffolding is about halfway there, and the scaffolders will return on Friday - cooler then - to complete the job.

 

Once the building is up and connected to the grid, we would hope that these temporary power supply arrangements from the P1 building can be removed. Grass is being mown/strimmed around this cable lying on the ground, which is not at all ideal. A temporary builder's arrangement which has now been there for 10 years.

 

 

Canopy preparations.

Thursday on the cushions.

A quick trip on a diesel hauled train to CRC with visiting friends.

On our return to Toddington, we had a quick look at the state of the canopy steelwork, behind the fence.

Neal, with some assistance from the loco dept, has painted three of the four trusses in dark stone undercoat. A fourth truss has weather damage, and needs a bit more treatment first. 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides the 4 big trusses, there is plenty of other steel and woodwork to paint.

 

Here we are looking at the fascia boards.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was interesting to see that Neal had annotated some of these, to help with the assembly on site, later in August. The day is drawing near!

 

 

 

We took the car to Broadway (for logistical reasons) and were in time to see D6948 arrive with its train.

We were delighted to see that the trains were pretty busy. Some days rather less so, there seems to be no logic to it.

D6948 about to set off.

 

We took a short video of the Growler setting off, having explained to our visitor why the big diesel had that name. After a wink to the driver we heard the reason too...

 

 https://youtu.be/VuxoMZtsuPY

 

 

Friday in the yard at Winchcombe

A few photographs by Paul of the delicate operation to move a site container from one part of Winchcombe yard to another.

 

 

 

Here it is being removed by STEVIE from its original position by the gate. It was in use as a store room.

Prior to that - some readers might recognise this - it was the site mess room for when we rebuilt P2 at CRC.

That was a long time ago ! 

 

 

 

 

A new container is believed to be coming to replace it.

Here it is, half way down the yard to its new destination.

Two vehicles had to be involved in moving it, as a couple of nasty turns were involved. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new location is the gardening centre behind the old Building & Services shed. 

Going out with out of town visitors on Thursday, it struck us how beautiful the Cotswolds are, and why many people chose to travel on the nearby 'Cotswolds Line' GWSR.

 

 

This is the 13th C wool Church of St. James in Chipping Campden. A peal of bells was going as we passed, with some difficulty - 8 bells are harder to ring than the usual 6.

 

On  the left are the alms houses, with their famous 2-in-1 doors. In the middle distance the lovely pepperpot gate houses, marking the entrance to the site of Campden House. Only one wall of it remains, sadly, as it was deliberately burned to the ground in 1645 to prevent its use by the advancing Roundheads.

Idea: Why not restore the gardens, the site of which is still there? Surely a perfect volunteer project? 

 

Chipping Campden High street, on a quiet evening. The liveliest place is now the Italian restaurant, which - shock! - has installed tables on the pavement !

A quiet scene, with bustling traffic only a few feet away. Can readers guess where this is?

 

 

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the bubble car was out. It was performing a shuttle service between the two regular trains, between Winchcombe (childrens' train play area in the visitor centre) and Toddington (large car park).

 

 

 

Monday at Toddington.

A day with Neal, drilling and painting parts of the Broadway P2 canopy. The Hymek was waiting by the unloading road for road transport.

 

 

 

Painting the canopy parts in undercoat involved a lot of shuffling around. It's a small site, things are stacked together, and for a painter, unreachable.

Three of the trusses have been done, by the steam dept team. The fourth one needed finishing on Tuesday, then came 6 purlins to do.

Neal has one in the strops here. 

 

 

 

 

Here is the reason we can't just forge ahead and paint them just like that. After storage outdoors for some years now, they are covered in dust, wood shavings and drilling detritus.

Also, despite painting in primer, the driving rain has breached the coating in some places, and started some rust. Each moving of an item causes scratches and blistering back to bare metal.

 

 

 

 

After a morning at Broadway digging a hole into hard, dry ground, and painting half a truss, we were able to point to these two purlins painted on one side, and the two ends. The underside is still to go, then the other four, on the right.

 

 

 

 

The 47 cab nearby now sports this notice. So be patient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers. 

Three of us. The hut is nearly done, so we had a chat with the PWay lads in the mess coach to see what we could do next. We'll have a look at a suggestion next week.

 

We had a surprise last night - rain ! 

 

 

 

 

 This morning things were damp and humid. Let's hope the rain did some good.

 

 

It's still diesel days on the railway, due to the fire risk. Here's the class 20, bringing people from CRC. 

 

 

 

After discussions in the PWay mess coach we moved our kit up to the hut, and flopped down on the chairs. Time for a cuppa, we said. 

 

 

 

With Jules and Paul working away inside, we spent a couple of hours breaking up the broken concrete blocks on the site. We want to leave it nice and tidy. What we really need is a trip with STEVIE and his trolley, to take all our excess kit back.

 

 

 

 Growler 37 215 did the honours on the second train.

 

 

Will it fit my drawing room?

 

 We still had the second bench sleeper to go in. Paul had it measured, just to make sure.

 

 

 

 

 

Then they carried the sleeper inside. This will make the second bench. The sleeper comes from a re-sleepering job inside the tunnel, and is one of the better second hand examples.

 

 

 

Sitting on a raw wooden sleeper is a bit hard on the backside, so we accepted Dave's offer of a length of redundant carpet to sit on.

Here they are, cutting it to size. 

Now, what we need is a test sitting.... The grins say that it's OK to sit on.

The benches are removed a short distance from the wall, as it's not comfortable to sit right up against a hard wall. 

A drone's eye view of the hut, on the approach to Greet tunnel.

We have a joker among us - this hut is finished, and now for sale...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PWay on Wednesday.

 

Work at the siding alongside the C&W shed. It's another of the 1980s stretches of rail that we'd like to replace with some economy concrete sleepers, ex Didbrook.

 

 

 

We're talking about two panels here, so the two sets of rails have been dragged north and south. The far end is already in economy concrete sleepers.

 

 

 

 Rails removed here, but sleepers still in place.

 

 

 

 Sleepers being lifted out by Dave D in STEVIE, seen from the north, and then the south end.

 

 The redundant sleepers were lifted out on to the trolley behind STEVIE.

 

 

At the end of the morning that trolley was looking pretty full.

 

Subsequently the bed of the two panels was graded by STEVIE with a bucket, but with some difficulty, as it was from a track alongside, not on the bed itself.

Also, the bed of ash was peppered with old bricks and bits of broken concrete. Track laying in the 1980s was with whatever means you could find... 

 

 The camera was elsewhere when the grading took place. Rebuilding the two panels is now for the next time.

 

Our last picture shows the freshly graded trackbed (with all its lumps of concrete and brick) just as the class 20 was passing by with its train.

 

By the way, we've just put up another post of the Yeo Valley Lines blog, the one about the lower end of the Lynton & Barnstaple railway:

 https://yeovalleylines.blogspot.com/2026/08/july-update.html