Slowly the goods platform rises

Just the 5 ' Usketeers' on the job today. Other members of the group were active at Toddington, where a start was made on spot resleepering the main line south of the new turnout in the direction of Didbrook. This was interrupted by heavy rain in the afternoon.

The little gang of 5 is seen here from the other side of the tracks, strung out along the line of the new platform. The self seeded oak tree will be pretty much in the middle of it, with the Usk weighbridge building to be sited to the left of it.

Why a picture form the far side of the tracks? Well, 2807 was on its way with the first train south of the day. It had a rather authentic clank to it, which was nice. Old freight engines often had that.

So here is us, with two people laying (Neil and Peter), one guiding (Jim), one bringing blocks (John) and one muck maker (ahem).

It's a lovely sunny day, and we were quite hot after a while.

The BBC forecast said there would be increasing chances of light rain, rising from 5% to 10% to 15% right up to about 40% at the end of the day.

We could live with that.

Neal was laying blocks at the northern end, and Jim's guidance meant that interim measurements should be taken to make sure we are laying the correct distance from the track, and that we are not too high.

Distance from the track was fine (see picture) but height became a problem as Neil found himself laying on a rising row of blocks underneath, which wasn't right. The answer was to use really thin layers of mortar, and try to recover the excess layer by layer.

Last week we used almost all of the first lot of concrete blocks we had on site, so today we were looking round anxiously to see if any more were being delivered.

Luckily the cavalry came just in time - Fairview came with another 400 blocks, which this time were dropped in close proximity to the job, not on the far side of the tracks as last time.



It turned out that their driver and our Jonathan (in the picture) had gone to school together. It's a small county, Gloucestershire.

John was delighted with the delivery (the block layers less so) and soon had the big barrow out, with which he ran blocks down the siding track up to where Neil and Peter were laying.

2807 then came back from CRC with the first load of happy passengers.

Scattered about in the foreground are some of the wooden stillages filled with Usk materials, which we will be using once the platform is finished.

Outside the C&W shed was this delightful little branch line goods train, the whole in perfect condition. It is really nice to see the work of our wagon restoration team.

Of course the main C&W team are not exactly idle either. Just look at this coach here, parked outside the shed. It's like new.

It's quite an interesting coach as it's a BCK. While not really rare, there are fewer of these than your regular Mk1, in fact just 276 were built, while other series numbered in their thousands.

Looking at the windows, left to right, we have a luggage compartment, a guards compartment, a toilet, two first class compartments and then three second class ones, followed by another toilet. Quite an unusual combination. That makes it a BCK - Brake, Corridor, Composite (both first and second class). Well, one C became a K in the designation, OK.

The other thing that makes this coach unusual is that during its life time as a preserved coach two of the second class compartments had the dividing wall removed, so turning them into one large one. This makes it rather attractive for small groups or families. Certainly unique on our railway. As a brake vehicle it is also particularly useful. It will replace a (non-seat) BG, so provide extra capacity, as well as giving us a spare brake coach, should something crop up with one of the others.

Hope we got all this right. We grilled a high ranking member of the C&W team, but took no notes...

Further up the yard (the sliding gate that divides the public station forecourt from the locked operating yard is on the left, end on) we can see the new building that the railway is buying. It's the one with the 4 gable ends, and a very useful yard to the left with covered hard standing. It's not had much publicity, but is a major positive step for the railway. It will give the S&T and C&M departments better workshop space than currently (S&T housed in an old carriage, C&M in an ancient temporary site hut) and will offer office space for several of our office staff that are currently housed in temporary Portacabins at Toddington.

And of course we are buying back a bit of our original yard,  a bit which was hived off in the 1980s when we first moved into Winchcombe. So good news all round.

Today the new visitor centre could be seen end on, without the usual carriage parked in front. The arrangement of the northern facade is now clearer, and the odd way in which the fake bricked up rail entrance was sited off line to the tracks leading up to it. A real goods shed would have the doors for the tracks to one side, so that goods could be off loaded on to road vehicles on the other.

We carried on laying the blocks (the intermittent demand for muck allowing your blogger to stray a little from time to time) and here is Peter with the start of the fourth row.

It's so much easier now that the level on which he is laying is well off the ground. It's really hard having to lay them right down on to the deck. But we are (mostly) past that stage now.

Peter has also made himself a nice seat from which to spread the muck.

Here's an overall view of the goods platform site. Good progress is being made at the far end, where both block layers have reached level 4.

The gap in the foreground still needs filling. Unfortunately we are currently one block layer short, due to  - we hope temporary - health issues.

Then the slight rain forecast on the BBC website first thing started to materialise. We re-checked the forecast, and it now said that the likelihood was 98%! What a rapid change from this morning's 5 - 10%. We carried on in the rain for as long as possible, but there came a point where it became unbearable, everything was getting really soaked.

We sought succour in the good old tin hut, just the same as last week, with the rain drops pattering away on the roof.

Trains of course kept on running, but we had to sit it out until the rain had reduced to more bearable levels.

And it is from within the tin hut that we bid you farewell for this week. The atmosphere inside was damp, and we sat on sacks of cement for seats. Morale nonetheless was high, as we had laid a fair number of blocks in the morning, and raised the level from three courses to four, on the bit on which we were working.

From inside the lamp hut John, Jim, Peter and yours truly bid you fare-thee-well until the next time.

Post Scriptum:

Two of us treated ourselves to tea in the Coffeepot, which allowed us to witness the class 26 pull out of Winchcombe, with that unmistakable Sulzer splutter. We liked the sound of that.

You can hear it on the video here:

https://youtu.be/Ivv8GQNTIuM