A roofer at Broadway.

Friday PWay gang.

Five of us last Friday. The greater idea was to continue clearing the garden centre site of PWay's temporary storage, and take these to Stanton yard, where space needed to be cleared for some second hand turnouts available at an attractive price.

First things first, we needed to meet a contractor who wanted to measure up a stretch of track near the slip site for possible welding of joints.

The slip site was looking increasingly filled, Friday morning. Good progress is being made. 

 

 

The stretch between Gotherington loop and the breather at Bishops Cleeve has already been partly welded (pairs of 60ft rails into one of 120ft)

This was for the second half. The welded joints will reduce broken fishplates, reduce the amount of fishplate greasing, and finally eliminate half of the pounding of the track here, where two slips have already occured. 

 

 

 

 

A second site for welding was inspected in the latter half of the morning, this time at JJ Farms bridge, where BH rail transitions to FB, and a very expensive and increasingly rare fishplate is used. If that breaks, it's a big bill. 

 

 

Defective BH rail.

 

 

 

 

 

On the same site a defective BH rail had also been identified, some time ago, and a pair of new, replacement rails positioned. 

The defect has probably been there since the rail was laid in the 1990s. 

We will incorporate the welding and rail replacement into one job. 

 

 

 

With that done, we could get on with the actual job for the day, movement of PWay materials from the greenhouse site. 

 

We picked up both Transits at Winchcombe, where we found the class 122 in an unusual spot. It's ready for the Cab a Loco event.

Then, on arrival with the truck at Toddington, we found this 08 on the unloading road. We haven't had an 08 at Toddington for many years. It is thought to have come for the diesel gala.

With both our trucks parked up, in line for easy loading, by the old garden centre, we started lifting on pallets of 4 crossing pads. These are quite heavy, so we prudently loaded only 3 per truck, instead of the possible 4 that would have fitted on.

Here is the first load, six pallets in all.

We then set off for Stanton yard, which is only about a mile away down the B4632.

Here we found Dave, David and Sam loading bags of ballast, and making room in the yard above for the two sets of turnouts that we are thinking of getting. The opportunity is too good to refuse, we're helping out a fellow railway, and we have a use for them too. 

At Stanton the pallets of crossing pads - which we got for free - were neatly stacked down the side.

We made three runs altogether during the afternoon, so that's 18 pallets moved away from Toddington, or about half of what was there. Another day like this should see them all cleared.

 

 

 

Monday and Tuesday at Broadway.

Two similar days of laying bricks along the platform side and painting. But on Tuesday the roofer came, at last. He had to call off twice, due to a nasty bout of Gastro-Enteritis, after eating a curry.

 

 

 

This was the brickwork situation on Monday, where John had built 5 of the 8 columns between the doors and windows - over half way.

The tower scaffold is opposite the centre of the building (columns 4 and 5) 

 

 

 

 

Monday was May bank holiday, so there were a fair few folk around. The Monday canopy team was also able to enjoy a Cappuccino in the cafe, which was open (not normally on a Monday)

BETTON GRANGE came to visit. Unfortunately we didn't notice the second engine of the day, as we were too busy.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday saw John do column 6 out of the 8, and a new phenomenon: wooden arch inserts, which allowed him to build around them and so make up the launching stones (cut at an angle) for the arch itself.

 

 

 

 

 Going round the site, we were a bit disappointed to see that more notices have been thought necessary.

 

The little GWR ground marker is now struggling to create atmosphere, being somewhat overwhelmed by two modern notices. One even appears twice; it warns that cars are parked at the risk of the owner. Whereas there is not actually any customer parking there at all, with the exception of a couple of disabled bays. Two new notices for that, plus a second 'No E-Scooters' at the bottom of the drive, next to the one screwed to the heritage building.

 

 

 

 

Along the replica spearhead fencing plastic flowerpots have been hung.

They weren't around in 1904 either. 

 

But back to Tuesday. The roofer came at last !

We are getting a glass fibre and resin roof covering over the new store room. Originally this was open; we are hiding this roof a few inches below the wall, so that the appearance of the Gents is still the same, but inside should be a useful workshop, so that some of the still remaining builder's containers can be cleared from the site.

This was the (sunken) roof, as prepared by Neal. The brick wall surrounding it will be topped by concrete patio slabs (previously: carved stone slabs.)

 

 

It was interesting to see how the waterproofing of our smallish roof was being built. The chap told us that previously he'd done a church in Evesham, to replace lead that used to be there.

The covering is of a heavy grade glass fibre mat, fixed in place and made waterproof by resin rolled into it. This is is very durable, and flexible. It will last for many years. 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture shows the half way stage on Tuesday (he'll be back to complete the job with a topcoat on Wednesday). The MDF panels were coupled together, and the seal was very tough, demonstrated by jumping up and down on it.

We were convinced.... 

 

 

 

This was the job at the end of Tuesday. Still to come is the top coat, and wrapping over the brick edge. The flat roof has a slight slope to it, towards the camera, where the gutter will be (again, out of sight).

With this in place, we now have dry storage directly on site, and not 100 yds away in a container. Yours truly spent a lot of the day painting undercoat on door and window frames, as well as the three doors of the building. They must be of excellent quality, as those doors were extremely heavy to move during painting !

 

 

 

On Tuesday John worked to complete column 7, and then started on the last one, column 8.

There was a lot of brick cutting required - few bricks now fit just like that. There are always 'headers' to be cut - stretchers, cut in half. Every other row is made of headers, so bit by bit we are cutting thousands of them.

It's very dirty work, the brick dust gets everywhere. 

 

 

While crossing the footbridge to put some builders rubbish in the Grundon, we took this snapshot downwards to give you an updated overview of the site.

As you can see the front is getting close to completion. Arches are still due to go in, another couple of courses on top, and 4 courses of specials to finish off with.

We also took this shot to show the panel forms which represent the arches to go in. The bricks L and R of them all needed to be cut at the appropriate angle.

 

 

 

This was a bit of a special moment, as Neal is holding the last special brick (one of the extra ones we had to order) which will complete the last circular brick column on the RH end of the building.

 

 

 

 

 

A small PS to Broadway, a couple of days ago a fuel truck pulled up short before the bridge, decided to go up our station approach (barred by two signs to people other than staff or residents), go right to the end, and try to do a three point turn in the narrow car park in front of the station. In doing so, it knocked over the Cotswolds stone wall, and two of the 'staff only' car parking signs. Advice by a resident to use the turning area was ignored.

Our entrance canopy, unprotected by bollards, was lucky to survive. 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Three of us today, with a welcome return of Dave, and Jules off on a sailing holiday to ... er... Scotland. Hope it's not too windy up there, Jules!

 

 

Today we really wanted to move the 6 corrugated iron sheets up to the tunnel site, but how? The FoWS cart was too small. Our hearts gladdened when we saw STEVIE arrive at the platform, but it turned out he was going the opposite way.

A tip off from Jim suggested C&W, and there we were lucky, they were kind enough to lend us one of theirs, which was big enough. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a bit of a struggle nonetheless, and at the bottom of the slope to the trackbed it fell over. It was a bit top heavy, what with a bucket of sand on it as well.

But we got there. Here are the sheets, stacked and ready for use. All sides now have some sort of black coating on them, and another will be applied, once they are in situ.

 

 

The PWay gang was working just inside Greet tunnel today, and we got numerous walking visitors who stopped for a chat.

 

 

 

Douggie here admired our handiwork, one of several. Most wanted to know when they could sit in it, especially as the first 100yds of the tunnel are wet, and they don't want to shelter there.

 

 

 

 

As some of the gang members milled around the site and asked questions, lights appeared in the tunnel. This was another team walking through, having been told that the work was at the other end. Talk about right hand and left hand... 

Having got the sheets up there we got on with flaunching the chimney, adding brackets to the inside to hold the structure together, while Yours Truly was on the outside putting on the last of the battens to make the hut draughtproof.

Lunch was taken in the good company of Jim, who preferred to sit with us, rather than in the damp tunnel mouth.

 

 

 

It was Dave who did the flaunching, and some pointing remaining from last week, when we ran out of 'muck'. Check out the base of the chimney pot. Isn't it neat? Battens still have to be fixed to this end (came later in the day)

Paul and Dave discuss strategy.

 

 

 

 

At the end of the day we caught Paul and Dave discussing the next step. 

We still have to fit the joists in their final places, then the roof sheets can go on. 

Another job is to fit brackets to the bottoms of the sleepers, to stop them moving around (a very unlikely event, according to Paul, due to their collective weight, but you never know.) 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the day we had the best part - half an hour with your mates on the picnic tables next to the Coffeepot.

The Usketeers got special treatment -  their own china teapot, and a slice of cake.

 

Heaven ! 

 

Drone, drone, drone.

Drone, drone, drone.

It was the Friday gang, surveying the PWay yard pointwork. We needed an aerial photograph of the layout, in order to help plan the location of a replacement turnout that we want to instal there.

 

 

We engaged the services of local supporter Chris to make us some bird's eye shots of the PWay yard layout.

You can see the pictures that he took further down. 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a problem with the pointwork in the yard leading to the three sidings. C&W find it difficult to use the centre one, as there is a nasty kink in a sharp point leading up to it, which causes the buckeyes to disconnect.

How could we ease that? 

The kink from the opposite direction.

 

Our solution to easing the kink is to replace the turnout with the easier one that we recovered from CRC south. However, this one would go in the through road (to the RH siding) and have a LH spur, which could meet up very nicely with the centre road straightening from the curve.

To test if this would work we took the two switches and the crossing from the CRC turnout and placed them in their approximate future positions. 

That looked very workable. To confirm it, Paul invited supporter Chris (with thanks for his pictures) to take a number of drone shots from above.

 

This one here shows the two switches in the centre of the image, with the crossing a bit further to the right.

The tight turnout just above the switches would be plain lined, and lead to the third (mostly goods wagons) siding. This new arrangement would eliminate the reverse curves that are the problem for the buckeyes. 

Just as we had set out the switches and crossing the phone rang from the Bishops Cleeve slip site. The ballast drop wasn't going as intended, and could our gang (i.e. the three of us) urgently fit 4 crossing pads in the four foot opposite the slip? Luckily we were joined at the last minute by Andy, making four of us to handle the heavy pads.

We got to the site just north of Bishops Cleeve to find the contractor and our infrastructure manager (!) shovelling away a pile of ballast that had not dropped away to the side, but right into the middle of the tracks. The excavator below was finding it difficult to scoop away the excess out of the four foot, a problem that would be overcome if we filled it with crossing pads.

 

 

 

 

We brought STEVIE and the trolley with us. This had the refurbished parapet on it, so we left that on board, and added 4 crossing pads. In the picture the first pad has just been fitted.

 

 

 

The other three were soon fitted, making a raised platform for any further spillages towards the centre of the tracks.

 

 

 

In order to limit costs on the slip - we don't have the money, and it is being covered using the Trust's precious heritage funds - We opted not to hire in expensive equipment for discharging the ballast fill, but to use our own Dogfish, and fabricate a side shute to direct the flow of emptying ballast further away and into the hole. 

However, on the day a small part of the shute didn't fit, and further cutting/welding was required. It was expected to resume on Monday.

 

The Trust would be grateful if readers could replenish the funds spent on the landslip, which could otherwise have been used to support the museum that we would like to build at Toddington, or a carriage storage shed at Winchcombe.

 

How to donate is here:

 

https://www.gwrt.org.uk/donate/how-to-donate 

 

 

 

 

That was pretty much the end of Friday. On the way back we dropped off the parapet at Stanley Pontlarge.

It's now just waiting for an actual installation date, on a non-running day.

Back at Winchcombe, we put the CRC switches and the crossing back into store. 

The ballast train with the fill intended for the slip then arrived, still full. At least it's ready to go now, first thing on Monday.

 

 

 

Monday at Broadway.

Three of us on the building on Monday, including Neal, who was still coughing and clearly not yet right. But he's determined to soldier on.

 

 First thing, a buggy arrived with some contractors. The Pway have just obtained a buggy, but that's not it.

 This one was for weed killing the line (you can just see the mist).

 

 

Over on P2 we moved the tower scaffold along one window, allowing John to build up the third column - there are eight in total. It's slow work, with all the measuring and sorting out the right specials, but we are steadily moving along, every week a little bit further.

Someone with time to spare could work out how many bricks (approximately) John will have laid when the brickwork is done... There are also the blocks, on the inside.

 

 

 

 

Neal came to help, in particular with the inside of the window frames, and removal of the arch formers.

 

 

 

 

 

With the intricate brickwork around the windows we are currently only doing one mix per day, which takes us to early afternoon. It was also very hot, certainly for April. In fact it was unpleasant, cutting bricks with all the pink dust, overalls on, dust mask, ear and eye protection, gloves. Unfortunately there is nothing to stop the pink dust going in our hair. It also went around our coffee flask and in the mobile phone, there's no stopping the damned stuff.

 

 

At the end of Monday John had done the third column (LH side) and made a start of the twin 4th and 5th columns in the middle. Almost every brick has to be cut, certainly with these short runs.

 

John also raised the interior blockwork to match the bricks laid at this end so far. Once all the columns are filled it, it's the turn of the arches along here.

During the day an electrical contractor was working on the main station building. The work involved a lot of electrical conduits.  The work, we heard, was at the request of the users of the station, who say that on certain days it is too dark to see their way back to their cars on the forecourt. Some sort of a switch with a timer was proposed. 

 

 

You can see the grey switch here, together with the black plastic conduit that has been laid up to it.

It's not as bad as a big yellow box, but part of the slow watering down of our mission to give a 1904 experience to our customers, and to attract filming contracts. 

Also in the picture, a second key safe has been attached to the building, while earlier, an aluminium Baby Changing notice was glued to the door. 

The door itself has seen the Victorian doorknob removed, and replaced with a modern handle, and also a modern steel lock.

Each addition is a case of 'OK, if you must' but incrementally the 'living museum' experience is being spoiled. 

 

 

Tuesday, discharging and measuring.

 

It was meant to be a quickie job at Toddington to measure up the timbers required for a turnout at the yard throat, but as so often in this business, when we got to Churchward house it was something completely different. Oh well.

 

 

 

 

At Bishops Cleeve nursery entrance we were just in time to guide the propelling train across the foot crossing. We then joined Mark on the footplate, and continued to the slip site about a mile further along.

 

 

 

 

On site two excavators readied to help empty the 4 Dogfish, as the hoppers were pushed along in turn to the discharge site, where last Friday we had placed the 4 crossing pads.

 

 

 

 

The ballast material was somewhat reluctant to pour out as intended (there were many fines, and it was a damp day) so the upper excavator had to stomp around inside the discharging Dogfish to push the ballast down, aided by someone poking the chute with a shovel from underneath.

 

We got there OK, but it was intially slow going. 

 

 

 

 

Once the discharged pile was big enough, the lower excavator was able to position the fill to where it was actually needed.

 

 

The filling scene from below. Note the top excavator rummaging around in the Dogfish, while nothing comes out below.

 

 

 

 Here's a video of the goings on at Cleeve:

 

 https://youtu.be/To6V7Sfm0J8

 

 

Four trains, totalling 11 Dogfish were discharged that day.

Having assisted with the propelling move and one of the discharges, we moved on to the actual inteneded job for the day, which was measuring up the timbers required to reverse a turnout in the Toddington yard. 

 

 

 

On the way there we spotted the new sign at the top of the drive, warning drivers of high vehicles (over 3.00m) to use the old drive. This measure has been put in place to protect the high pressure gas main that runs under the new drive.

 

The sign was made by Alex of C&W, one of his many talents. 

 

 

The turnout that we intend to reverse is on siding 2, and leads into siding 3. When it was laid back in the 1980s we did not have a LH turnout, so used a RH one instead, and laid it back to front.  You can't do this on your model railway, but on a real railway, it is possible - of a sort. The result is not very correct, but do-able at very slow speed.

As we still want to finish the relay with concrete sleepers from Didbrook of siding two (now cleared and available to us) we will combine the two jobs. 

 

On the way back we saw the class 22 on its way to Winchcombe.

As it's mid week and the southern end of the railway is under a possession (see above) our services are curtailed mid week. Sad to say, the trains were almost empty, as was the Toddington car park.

 

As from the gala at the end of the month the full length of the line will be available again, for every service, not just weekends, as at the moment.

 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Three of us today, with Dave still not very well at home. Get well soon, Dave ! 

Yours truly spent (most of) the day cleaning the underneath of two of the corrugated iron sheets. Two more were done, making three completely done now, and three more with one side done.

 

 

This is an example of the sheets being treated. Completed sheets at the back, and 'bottoms up' at the front, half cleaned, as well as one on the trestle, already cleaned and primered.

It's a very noisy process, so we keep an eye open for coaches, when we stop to let people on/off in peace. 

 

 

 

 

 

By the weighbridge we are in a front line position, so it's the first stop for people who want to know something.

This lorry was bringing 2x 20 foot containers for the PWay, a long awaited facility, that was finally made possible by means of an anonymous donation.

Thank you ! The railway has its hands full with the landslip, so there's no money for luxuries like better storage.  

 

Down where those two containers are going we weren't quite ready. The lorry driver had to wait (Chris kindly sponsored him a mug of tea) while we put in the last two bearer concrete sleepers. They keep the metal container off the deck.

In the afternoon the two containers finally went down. 

Our pride and joy, at last, two containers for our heavy tools, at ground level.

 

 

We had one happy lorry driver, after a successful delivery and placing (and mug of tea).

Now we have 2 empty 20 footers, and would like to install all our PWay material in them. PWay material is heavy, so does anyone have any spare heavy duty racking that we could have? Send us a blogger contact form if you can help.

 

Meanwhile, the two remaining Usketeers walked up to the hut, and got to work with the build. 

 

Paul had brought a number of straps, which will be used to keep the sleepers in position (as they aren't buried in the ground)

Paul also had a good go at completing the chimney.

 

He raised it two more courses in red, then added a crown of blues. As far as bricks are concerned, that's it now. We just need a bit more pointing, but ran out of mortar today to do that.

 

We decided to give the chimney a traditional chimney pot, made out of an old clay drain pipe, just like the gangers used to do. It had a broken end (we almost always use second hand materials) so cutting it to size solved that problem.

 

Mid morning the RRV passed the hut, pausing briefly for a chat with Paul. They went to 3 Arch Bridge to swap out another rail, part of a longer programme to remove all rails with squat defects.

 

This was the defect cured today - a squat on top of a welded rail joint. OK at the moment, but has potential to break here.

We are getting better every day,  in every way.

 

Old and new rail can be seen here, thanks to RRV driver Walt, who took the pictures. It was hot today, but in the wrong place (where it was windy) it was cold. A strange weather day.

 

While Paul built up the chimney, Jules spent the day at the back, fitting all the strips that cover the gaps between the sleepers. Those strips are the only thing we have had to buy so far, and even then, we bought gravel boards, which we sliced down the middle to double the numbers.

 

At the end of the Usketeering day, the chimney was fully built up (bar some pointing) and the chimney pot fitted and part flaunched. It looked really good, we thought. It was a nice idea of Pauls to build the top part of blues, in a different colour. 

 

As we were painting the second of the corrugated iron sheets in bitumen paint, Paul and Jules returned from the tunnel mouth, and we treated ourselves to a cup of tea under the Winchcombe canopy. 

Just as Walt returned with STEVIE, the rail swap job being completed. 

 

On the way back home we called in at Toddington, following a report that the Toddington roundabout was blocked by a large, dirty locomotive. That had to be MANSTON ! 

And indeed it was. It's here for the May gala and then for several more weeks. Don't miss it!

For sale: A Western hydraulic cab door! 

PWay member Chris has this Western door for sale. It's from D1069, WESTERN VANGUARD. 

Here's a picture of the loco in question:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/RTDieselHydraulics/posts/3059646450893567/

 

 

He's given it into the care of GC Railwayana Auctions, and we think it's going into the next one that they are running, on 6th June. (check this though)

The number is stamped on the door frame.

Why should we publicise this? Well, it's because Chris very kindly offered to donate the sale proceeds to the GWSR tool fund, and, even better, GCR auctions have been very kind and offered to cancel their usual commission. That's very nice of them.

So, if you want a genuine piece of a Western Hydraulic loco, why not put in a bid? If you win, then so will the GWSR. Everyone's a winner.

 

 

 

Chris's drone photos of Winchcombe can be see here:

In the centre here is the Bradstone built visitor centre, and along the bottom (L to R) the forklift company's yard and workshop, the 4 gable ends of Churchward House, and on the right, the full width of the original yard resumes, with containers for catering, C&M and lineside clearance.

The Usk hut can be seen peeping out from under the oak tree, top right. 

Looking north, showing Chicken Curve, up- and downside sidings, and the housing estate built up against the station yard on the left. The famous derailment occurred at this end of the curve, spilling over into the yard.

 

The station approach area has changed a lot since we bought the line over 40 years ago.Two additional houses and a garage have been built on a tiny plot of land that we sold (the diagonal ones, centre left).We also sold the wider area on the left, now occupied by a forklift company (blue flatbed) and indeed the yard and building of Churchward house, which we then re-purchased about 5 years ago, to form our plc Headquarters. (just below the picture)