Another 150 blocks in the wall.

What a record day today! We were minus Jim, but plus Paul, and Paul threw himself (and us) at the wall with an unprecedented vigour. Well, when we say 'himself' it means Paul stood on the wall and we all had to jump to it. Poor old Maxie could hardly keep up.

You've all done very well - now work faster!

Whereas Jim would carefully trowel on a measured up amount of mortar and delicately place a concrete block upon it, Paul decided things weren't going fast enough. We have a building to put up, not a platform wall!

Paul stood on the blocks and shovelled the mortar on in great dollops, so that Neil, who was laying, could hardly keep up. In fact the whole supply line had difficulty keeping up.

First of all we had to get more concrete blocks to the coal face. We're beginning to run short here, and in fact at the end of the day there were none left.

This last pile of 80 was carefully carried over to the trolley by Dave in the Telehandler. Unfortunately Dave suffered from Telehandler driver's disease today.

Oooooops....

This manifests itself when they fail to observe the banksman's signals, because up there in the rarified atmosphere of their cabin they know better.

As a result the pile of 80 blocks promptly collapsed on being lowered on to the trolley.

We tried to tell you it wasn't on straight!

Never mind, it was just a small hiccough and no harm done. We just had to pick most of them up off the deck and back on to the trolley.

This was then pushed along the siding, where Paul was already spreading out the muck as fast as he could shovel it.

The wreckage of the block pile was lifted straight on to the wall, which began to rise with considerable speed. Paul stood on top and waved his arms about.

Then it started to drizzle, and the drops slowly became larger until, if we're honest, it was just plain raining.

Paul stood on top of the blocks and railed against the weather gods.

Gargle with this water, Maxie.

Maxie was under pressure as the mortar was being used twice as fast as normal. She had to be dragged out of her corrugated iron hut at a very early hour and then pushed, bumpety-bump, down the yard to the pallet pile where she liked to sit. 'Don't PUSH me', she exclaimed, but we had to to get her there somehow. She had a bit of a sore throat from last time but we gave a her a bucket of water to rinse with, and then she chuntered away happily, making all the mortar we needed.

Happy birthday, John! Many happy returns!

Lunch was taken in the mess coach nearby, and we all produced our salads. Sadly it was John's birthday, so that dietary plan was ruined by a goodly supply of chocolate cake and Swiss roll. They went down so well with the strong tea we like.

After lunch Dave had a second go at placing a pile of concrete blocks, with success this time. John told him just where to put it on the trolley.

The wall progressed nicely, and after lunch it reached the level of the first section last week, which was level 6 out of 11.

Further down the yard the PWay team today had returned from Toddington with some trolleys recovered from the winter work site there.

These were taken off the trailer and parked in a row on the trolley siding for future use.

We had two trains out today. Although it wasn't the gala any more they were still reasonably full as, we suppose, people hoped (correctly) that the B1 would still be out and about.

Here's the Bulleid Pacific just accelerating away from a signal stop.

It takes a fair bit of skill to lift the train from an almost standing start round the curve into the station, uphill and with wet rails. Today 35006 didn't slip, although we have seen her go when just running round, light engine.

The opposite train at Winchcombe was indeed hauled by the B1, still with lots of faces by the windows. Here too some skill is required by the driver to get the loco over the S curve at the end of the loop and then on to the main line, in the wet and on a curve. It all went swimmingly though.

Once clear of the pointwork the B1 could accelerate down towards Chicken Curve.

Paul's commanding position on the lofty height of the stretch of wall being built today got higher and higher. There are 4 courses, all laid today, underneath his boots!

The wall can now be seen from behind, here in the picture taken from the spot where the Usk building is going to go up. In the background the B1 came back from Broadway, but we're too busy working to give it much of a look.

Here's where we got to at the end of the day. We laid 5 rows of blocks on this section, a record for the Usk platform wall project. The top row is row 7 of the 11 we need to lay. Other sections to the left of course have far less to show for, so we still have a little to go. But that said, we reckon we laid 150 blocks today, almost 2 pallets worth and this means we are now out of them and need to order another shipment of 400. That will be our third already.

We all got rather damp today, without actually being soaked, but it was cold and wet all day long.

We reckoned we deserved a hot tea to warm us up, with Neil opting for a bottle of Rail Ale as a special treat.

Behind us we heard a rumble, and the class 45, the traditional diesel heading the final train south, glided majestically into platform 1.

At the controls was one of our own, Richard. No wonder it was our largest diesel that came out...


Back in a small workshop near Broadway, a cast iron sign was being prepared for the footbridge steps.

Can you see what it is yet? The sign was offered to us by a well wisher from his collection, following an appeal on the blog. They are quite rare, so were were very grateful, and thanks to this little act of  kindness, we now have the two we need for the Broadway footbridge steps.

The sign has been shot blasted and zinc coated. While that freshens up the tired and crumbly paint it had, it does mean that all the little letters have to be picked out in white again. It's very fiddly, this old font with its seriphs.

We got there in the end. This will be the P2 sign, so it will now go into storage for a little while.

Another block in the wall.

Just 3 of us on the goods platform wall at Winchcombe today. The others were spread about the railway, track walking, removing chairs from redundant sleepers, or sorting out fishplates.

There was also another delivery of concrete BH sleepers.

Another 96 arrived from the NYMR, and this makes around 800 that we now have. Some are destined for the main line, and lower quality ones, still usable, for sidings that we have/are planning.

This is what the stockpile looked like later in the day.

We had to be quick in the mess coach this morning, because the doughnuts soon ran out. Luckily some more turned up in a second wave, and these contained the gold nugget - a packet of custard doughnuts! Hmmmmmm....

A voice ventured that with the money spent on doughnuts we could have paid for bridge 8 - as a minimum. It has the ring of truth, alas.

Clive and Paul spent the day sorting out fishplates. These are scattered about the site and need identifying, as we are regular users of them.

Waiting for Maxie...

Yours truly tangled with Maxie again. She ran fine, but was in a spitting mood (no, not feathers, bits of mortar)  so it was best to stand some distance away.

Take your medicine, Maxie!

To cure the spitting, Dr. Hansons recommended a large spoonful of cement.

This was swallowed without complaint, and after that Maxie chuntered away contentedly and your blogger was able to work without little blobs of muck flying about his person.

Our small team of 3 spent the day at the northern end of the platform. Neil did most of the hard work, while Jim gave us the benefit of his experience in the trade. That trolley had a whole pallet on it first thing, and by lunch time it had been distributed along the site, and much of it used already.

This is the bit Neil and Jim worked on today. Here they are laying row 5 out of 11.

There was a bit of manoeuvering around Winchcombe today.

The first candidate was the class 73, which hauled the third set out of the yard, ran round, and then took it to Toddington.

We are getting ready for the gala.

One of our volunteers was seen sporting not one but two Ian Allan Locospotters club badges. One was enamel and the other plastic. He couldn't say why one was more luxurious than the other, maybe someone can enlighten him? The badges seemed to come in the same colours as the different BR regions, making our volunteer - gasp! - a southern man! Noooo.....

He's making a bit of a hash of it, isn't he?

For a while we were joined by Jonathan, who volunteered to split some of the blocks for us.

It took him quite a few attempts, evident from the growing pile of failures here.

Ah well, just take another block from the pile.

Jonathan was persistent, we must concede, and here is a nice pile of concrete blocks split down the middle, the sort of shape we need at the end of a row of headers.

Thanks, Jonathan.

While Jonathan was beavering away with his lump hammer and bolster, Neil carried on lifting in blocks on to beds of mortar, and in this picture we see him at the end of the first row of two he laid today.

So that's what these towers are for?

After a light lunch in the mess coach, with lots of tea and fluid in view of the heat, we resumed and as mortar has to be made afresh Neil decided to await the coming of the brimming barrow seated on a tower in the shade of a handy tree.

Dinmore and P&O were out today, with well filled trains.

P&O is just pulling out of Winchcombe here, as the scrap lorry came to take our skip away.

It was interesting to see that the badge on the truck was a Foden. This must have been one of the last Foden trucks ever manufactured, as the name ceased to exist in 2006. The UK company was bought out of receivership by Paccar in 1980 and when Paccar bought DAF trucks in 1998 Fodens stopped making their own trucks, and instead used rebadged DAFs with various options for engines.

Also as part of the preparations for the gala this weekend the yard shunter pushed this short rake of 3 Mk1s into the platforms. D2182 - an old stalwart of the PWay relaying gang southwards - then ran round to push the rake into the yard to add another vehicle. This much shorter rake will be used by the Caledonian 4-4-0 No.419 that has already arrived, in place of the DMU that usually handles the shorter trains.

Mid afternoon our plucky team of just two block layers had just about reached the end from which they had started this morning, laying one row of blocks each way.

Here is an overview of where they worked today. It's the first section, which now has two further rows and which is now well over half way up. Many other sections are still to follow though!

Meanwhile a group of 4 PWay volunteers shuffled past on the main line, peering intensely at their feet. It's a group of track walkers, almost at the end of their long slog in the heat from Toddington to Wiinchcombe.

Arrived at the foot crossing with their rucksacks, red flags, clipboards and special spanners, they were happy to be recorded for posterity. It's thanks to them that our track is inspected regularly so that it remains in good condition.

Say 'hello' (and 'thank you') to Peter, Rob, Doug and Robert.

Shortly afterwards a double headed train arrived from the south. This unusual combination was prompted by the requirement to test Foremarke Hall after an adjustment to her valves, so she took over the train normally hauled by Dinmore Manor behind, running tender first.

Foremarke Hall did all the work, resulting in some nice sounding exhaust beats as she hauled the train out of Winchcombe alone.

You can see a video of that here:
 https://youtu.be/9yGqmKDyg-k

Foremarke Hall and Dinmore Manor were waiting for the arrival of the last train south of the day, here headed by a diesel as is usual. Today it was class 26 D5343 in charge, and you see the token exchange taking place with the signalman here.

After an errand at Toddington we took a look at the loco yard (yard lamp posts still up, but no further progress yet) and on the apron in front of the shed we found the Caledonian tank in its lovely coat of blue. It's not unlike the SECR H class tank, we thought.

In the diesel shed we found this unusual piece of kit, that you may not have seen before. It's a steam heating boiler from a diesel loco. Quite different from a steam engine boiler, isn't it? The boiler could be fuelled from a separate tank, or directly from the loco's own diesel fuel. The pressure generated depended on the length of the train to be heated, but would be lower than a steam loco boiler, say around 60psi. The second man usually looked after it.

Eat your heart out, Thomas.

Outside preparations were being made for a ninth, back up loco for the gala.

It seemed to be a lightweight model... will it be man enough for the job?









And finally, this interesting riding van was parked outside the loco shed.

It is new, and it's just been finished, with one of the two proud builders on the steps. It looks like a fine piece of kit, with a lovely verandah at the front. In truth it's an early sort of caravan, and the very first (horse drawn) caravan that is known of, the Wanderer, can be admired in our old goods shed at the caravan club site in Broadway.

We were allowed a privileged look inside. It looks really well made.

This van was built by cabinet maker Ant Davies and his business partner Sophie.

They would make you another, if you are interested. Check them out on their Facebook page, or have a chat this weekend.






Monday at Broadway

Here too a reduced number, as people start to take holidays or short breaks.

After finishing off the intermediate landing sheets with an extra coat of primer, we took an interest in doing some full sized sheets. They've already been given a coat of bitumen, and here we have turned them over to paint the underside - visible to the public - in light stone undercoat.

Dave from the Broadway maintenance gang was all but alone today, so came to give us a hand.

As it was a nice sunny day we left the sheets out in the sun to dry.

Neal's attention then turned towards the dagger boards already fitted, which we felt could do with a second coat of undercoat.

While doing the dagger boards a second time, Neal also did some of the roof hoops in light stone undercoat (although we believe they will end up in dark stone top coat)

Above him Dave helped us out with the painting, of which there is quite a lot.

We'll be back here on Friday, although still one person down. Will we have time to fit some roof sheets for the gala visitors to see?