The new siding

Another full house today, thanks to the return of Jim and Paul. We found Steve already at work on the siding relay as we arrived, but he did consent to a brief pause in the mess coach where he knew of tea and doughnuts.


A correspondent of this blog snapped this picture of Steve yesterday, when he was seen adjusting the last track panel that was to remain in situ, but which had to be moved over a little to start off the straight line to the stop block..

The builder's line marks where it should go, so Steve here is pulling it back a little.

First thing this morning then Steve was already at work levelling out the track of the new siding with some spent ballast from the Winchcombe relay a couple of years ago.

We should be able to lay track on here quite easily.

All the earth and mud dug out has been heaped to the left.

To work out where the sleepers have to go Steve has secured a line. As the track here is going to be straight, we just have to follow this with our sleeper laying.

Want a doughnut, my friend? It will cost you......

But first, the early morning tea. We can talk through the day's work then, and try to consume some of the doughnuts.  Martin here however has cornered the market in doughnuts, no doubt inspired by the Hunt brothers, who also tried to corner the market in silver in 1980.

Eventually we got our a**es into gear, and here we see Peter on the Telehandler with a first supply of sleepers.

We are using old GWR throughbolters here, which are of no use on the main line, and which are free to use.

The line of chaired up sleepers soon grew.

As we were laying out the old throughbolters, Dinmore Manor came through with the first train south of the day. Sirens sounded in the background, as herds of children were ushered about for their wartime reenactment experience in Winchcombe station.

After laying out enough sleepers for a 60ft rail, Steve went to fetch one to drop in for us. We are not using the rail that was found in the siding here as it was all odd lengths and some bits even had parts of turnouts still attached, so we decided to use some of the rail retrieved for scrap that in the event was still better than what we found here. Steve made sure that it wasn't 'too good' though - just good enough to bear the weight of some wagons on a siding. Strangely enough rail does wear down.

To get the rail in we had to poke the sleepers this way and that until it suddenly fell into place in the row of chairs. Very satisfying, that.

Although Peter was Telehandler driver of the day today, he did muck in and helped carry the sleepers - extra heavy, with chairs still attached, mind - with Martin to be dropped in ready for the second length of rail.

At the buffer stop end the first rail was bolted on. Well, very nearly, as we got one fishplate bolt on, but the second wouldn't go through. Just typical, with this old stuff.

Problem solved by drilling a new hole, but what a faff.

Back at the business end of the relay we had laid out nearly all the necessary sleepers to meet the track still in situ, but the to-ing and fro-ing of vehicles accessing the trackbed had seemed to bring mud with it so that the last few sleepers were too high.

Steve here then dug out the last few yards of trackbed.

The digging drew a small crowd. Well, we weren't that numerous at Winchcombe, as a group had gone to Stanton to continue rectifying track faults (carrying on from where we left off last week) and others ran round in the second Landie delivering machinery here and there.

Approaching lunch time, the siding was starting to look like it again. All the sleepers were in; two more lengths of rail were wanted and we hunted everywhere for a long tape measure to work out where to cut them to size, but found none.

In the meantime Steve gathered up the short lengths taken out of the original siding and took them to the scrap pile.

The first of the last two rails has been cut to size - using a piece of string in the end to measure its length - and it's gone in.

As we celebrate, our Ops Manager draws by with a long train. It's our third set, taken out of the siding next to the mess coach.

It will probably be used this weekend during the Food & Drink fair. This is very popular and was a great idea. Your blogger is going with his family - hope you are going too.

Then it's time for the last rail, which Steve has fetched from the scrap pile and is about to drop into the four foot here for cutting to size.

Now how long has it got to be? This time, Steve has brought his own tape measure.

The rail to be cut has been dropped into a temporary chair to hold it upright for the rail saw.

It was Neil who volunteered to do the cutting, with ear muffs and goggles, it's a noisy dirty job, but someone has to do it. Paul supervises....

Right on the edge of the picture a member of the old Broadway gang has arrived to see what we are doing. The new platform wall will be built by some of their brick layers.

As we are using the redundant GWR throughbolters the chairs are being secured by chair screws. That's not quite the idea but it works for us and it enables us to recycle the fixings.

It does mean that we can screw the chairs down by hand, which Paul here is doing. Back in the 1980s when some of this track went in, all the chairs were screwed down by hand.

Hard times, those.

Mid afternoon the last rail had been cut to size and laid in. That siding is now pretty much in its new place, although more work is needed on it.

At the end of the day Steve leapt into his JCB had started to level out the spoil that was excavated from the bed of the siding in its original location.

Steve loaded up big bucket fulls from the end here, which he then spread about the site.

The siding has been moved across by about 6 feet, making a much wider area for buildings here. It was a bit cramped before. The height is already about right.

What can we do with this newly widened area?