Wash and brush up

The Hayles gang had a reunion today - well most of them meet on Wednesdays as part of the PWay gang anyway, but this time it was at Hayles Abbey halt. We decided to give our little halt a spring clean, and remember the good old days when we sat on the terrace in the sun with a bacon roll.

Here we are again, happy as can be.....

(Maitre d') Paul, Rick, Tim, Jules and Jim share an appalling joke - so that hasn't changed then.

Unfortunately a few things have changed - the terrace has gone, and so has the sun. It rained pitter - patter on the roof as we sat in the former Usk shelter.

One thing hat hasn't changed is Lucky the Dalmatian.

We'd only been there a few moments, just the time to open a packet of doughnuts, when he appeared on the other side of the fence.

Each one of us was sniffed in turn for goodies.

We learned that Lucky is 11 human years old, and will some time this year get a new Dalmatian puppy in the house. That we want to see!


We felt that the halt looked pretty good, after nearly a year of use. The selective weedkiller on the grass has worked well, and it can now be mown relatively easily as John is doing below. Other gang members are dotted about the site doing this and that to give a bit of care to the old place.

The mower came in the back of John's car and in due course we will have a tin hut to store it in. We have negotiated with the Broadway group to take over their (former railway) corrugated iron shed, currently used to store cement during the build. This used to stand in an orchard in Breedon, and was recovered by your blogger a few years back.


Someone else who was mowing was the contractor with the remote controlled flail, here getting a bit of TLC after a morning's use, coincidentally right next to the halt.

We last met him half a mile away last Wednesday. The machine does an excellent job.

Above Lucky is being led away, after once again being naughty and refusing to give up sniffing for goodies among us.

Jules got out the white paint, your blogger the black. We each had our job, and did not meet, luckily.

Here Jules is painting an extra white line to show how far passengers may walk along the platform (to the top of the slope).

Rick had the strimmer out and did the steeper parts of the grass.

He seemed to have a wide range of power tools in the back of the car, because here he is with a hedge trimmer giving the brambles a light trim.

The 'wooden' platform got a topping up with creosote by John and Jim, with Tim at the other end. No trains at all today, alas.

We then held a whip round to buy John a new belt for his trousers.

Is that even legal, John?

Paul gave the roof of the shelter another coat of black, just to make it more presentable.

Rain stopped play at about 2 o'clock, but by that time we had done pretty much what we set out to do. The halt now looks very neat. The timetables have been topped up, the notices are up to date, and all the woodwork has had a lick of creosote.

Over the past months the Hayles gang has looked at a number of other projects, but it is strange how difficult it is to get one off the ground. Something always seems to get in the way of a good idea. We shall keep looking, this useful and motivated little team with building skills.