The siding complete

A strong team of 20 assembled at Winchcombe today, hopeful of being included in one of the three sub groups that would go out today.

We were of good cheer, and thought: better inside than out. Outside we had just walked over frozen puddles and there was a nasty nip in the air, if you weren't standing in the sun. Inside there was a fug.

Walking to the mess coach, we came across this buffet car parked in a prominent place. It was a bit green round the edges.

Discreet enquiries with some C&W members mooching about revealed that it was not railway owned but private, and that it was coming in for an assessment after some years out of use.



Group one then went to Stanton to try and complete the rectifications that they had been busy with previously, see if they can get that job done.

Group two responded to a call from 2807 for more chairs for boot scrapers. They really have a prodigeous output, these fund raising guys, you have to doff your hat at them. £40 a pop too, that's £4000 raised in a year for this venerable loco if they sell only two a week. We were certainly willing to help, as we are still coming across a lot of 'useless' (to us) GWR throughbolt chairs.

We've got a big bucket full for them here, which is being laid out across the rear of the second Landie. It drove up to Toddy, and returned with half a dozen strong new pallets.

A second trip with chairs was undertaken in the afternoon. We even came across an ancient LB&SCR one, with 4 nails instead of bolts.

It was the last day of this season's running. Here is Dinmore Manor, with a well filled train from CRC. It was paired on the timetable with the DMU, which itself was also well filled. Great !

We now have a month of non-running, before the Santa trains start. The job we had penciled in for this rare period free of trains this year was unfortunately cancelled as it clashed with another department, so it looks like fishplate greasing for a month. The  main winter works are still on schedule, and will involve resleepering the track between Toddington signal box and the new turnout we laid earlier this year. We'll do that in January and February.

Group 3 did the heritage bit, to wit, finish ballasting the siding we moved at Winchcombe. Here we are filling a trolley with a bucket of ballast, to be dispersed further along.

We completed the relaid area of the siding, then threw some ballast under the stop block, but not too much.It is quite possible that the platform wall to be built will have a return here behind the stop block, and we don't want to compromise that with lots of ballast thrown in for nothing.

In the absence of further suggestions, it looks like a GWR stop block is black all over then. Well, that saves on paint and washing brushes.

After lunch in the mess coach the newly relaid siding looked like this. We left the Malvern side without ballast as, again, this is where the wall will be built and foundations need to be dug out. Stevie will do that for us.


We patted ourselves on the back with this result. We did the whole job with scrap rail we had in house, and third hand sleepers that were lying about. Only the ballast is new, from a current stockpile. It should keep the sleepers drier so that they last longer.

During the day odd hands (are you an odd hand?) pottered about the yard and collected bits of wood that sort of accumulate in a yard like this.

We also noted a short but fat comms cable that was in the way, but which had been ignored for years.

Dave lifted away one of the stillages so that we could pull it out and examine it further.

The advice from an electrician on site was to check neither of the two ends were connected and if not, it could go. Dave had a go at yanking it. The cable fought back.

With the stillage removed we found the other end. It turned out to be just a short length of thin core cabling that no one had dealt with yet. S&T are now using much longer, new cable to open the route to Broadway.

Eventually it was dropped in the skip here.








We think there will be a short (we hope) planning period on the Usk building now, to prepare a drawing for the foundations and to open a dialogue with the council. After that we are ready to start. We have a modest budget agreed and a friendly building supplies supplier.

The where, how long and how much of the platform is still being discussed, but it's all part of an amicable process and we should see daylight very soon.

Towards the end of the day the light got rather magical (it looked like we were about to get a downpour, but Winchcombe still had sun), so we were able to watch Dinmore head to Broadway in fine style.