The yard lamps go in

Good progress with the two yard lamps for Toddington today.

Both posts have been taken to their respective sites now. One by the water tower, the other nearer the throat of the yard.

Early in the morning Nigel was pulling through a heavy duty cable to feed the lamp top that is due to go on it.

A short while later Peter came in the Telehandler, with which (after a bit of wriggling) we hoped to be able to get the post into the hole.

The second post, near the yard throat, was placed there on Wednesday.

After juggling with the exact placing of the straps, we wriggled the end into the hole, making sure that the supply cable faced the right way. That also ensures that the ladder bars at the top are facing in the right direction.

And then it was up! Here the loco dept,. gang are securing the post with guy ropes, which will hold it in place until the concrete comes. It was booked for the afternoon.

A little wait for that then, so a look round the loco shed, which is always interesting.

Here are the two ladders for the posts. They're just being painted. In the foreground is the shorter original (the posts are of different lengths) and in the background the somewhat longer copy that we made.




Deeper into the shed, and the King has come. King Edward II rests serenely next to Foremarke Hall.

The blue and gold has something special about it, and so does this bogie and valve arrangement.


In the afternoon, and after carefully avoiding the Stanton bridge weight restriction, our friendly concrete mixer lorry arrived.

So where do you want the 5 tons of concrete?

The lorry reversed up to the side of the shed, so that the Telehandler, now equipped with a bucket, could park behind it for a helping of instant concrete.

You've surely seen these machines about on the road, but did you know how they work? The big container on the back houses two bunkers of sand and ballast, which are transported backwards by a conveyor belt underneath. The concrete isn't made until it comes out of the chute at the back, where the water and cement are added at the last minute.

With its bucket full of concrete the little Telehandler cautiously made its way to the furthest post, still held upright by its guy ropes.

The contents of the bucket were then shovelled down the hole by these two gentlemen, plus your blogger.

Although the bucket was big, we did the job without too much difficulty. It did need half of a second bucket though, and this picture was taken after we had finished.

Now don't lean on that post too hard, Tim!

While we shovelled, the mixer lorry - from Honeybourne, how fitting for us - reversed to the wood store behind the diesel shed. The store is getting a new body - a container - and this needs deep foundations, as it sits on the edge of made up ground. The container is the former oil store, the new oil store is parked where the new mess room will be built, so with this job we are advancing the cause of the new mess room. Cause and effect, as it were.

Then it was the turn of the second lamp post, the one by the water tower. Again we had to shovel, as the Telehandler bucket is far too wide to be tipped into the hole.

The sky was rather spectacular, but the rain held off. We were very lucky.

Here is the second hole almost full. We had to go back for a refill here, but the job is now done and the concrete is going off as you read this.

A last bit of the mix-as-you-go concrete was delivered to the top of this pit cover here. It has brick sides but to stop vehicles damaging the tops of the bricks we gave it a concrete ring all round.

That brown container will become the new wood store, if we picked this up right, and the new one will move into its place and make room for the goods shed extension / new mess room.

Our final picture shows both lamp posts in situ. The second is at the rear, in front of the water tower. Notice how tall the posts are. The GWR took an existing, classic, 8ft lamp post design and stuck it on top of a fluted extension piece, which you can see here quite clearly.

The ladder bar is not for the ladder (that would be too simple) but for the handrail of the platform at the top of the ladder. This is fixed to the post with bolts. We remembered to have the ladder bars facing the right way too, before setting the whole caboodle in concrete.

We have a design for the two lanterns on top. These will be reached by standing on the platform at the end of the ladder, so no messing about wobbling on top of a ladder. The lamp is bigger than a platform one, and has 6 sides rather than four.

A decision on how to fund the two tops, costing £3000 together, still has to be reached.