Stevie gets the mini digger out

We had a day with Stevie today, who made himself useful in and around the Usk project.

We've had a bit of a kerfuffle with the type 1 ballast we put in the foundation pit last week. It's too large, but we didn't notice until it had been tipped, and now it's too late.

We decided to use it nonetheless, as additional drainage behind the platform, so Stevie came to dig a trench behind it.

You can also see the piles of engineering blues that will be used in front of the block wall.

Steve dug the trench very smartly, emptying the earth into the waiting bucket of the Telehandler, driven by Dave P.

While this was going on Paul and Jules finished off making the 4 shuttering pieces, and cutting stakes to size.

In the foreground some blocks have been put over the rebar, to show how the return will come together here.

Later in the day these blocks were actually laid, and no doubt there will be a C&M blog to show this and other stuff the gang did.

Stevie dug the trench for about half its distance, as this is the most we can fill with left over type 1 and ballast that we have spare.

Every now and then we paused to let the trains go past, and wave. Well, not Stevie, he had his hands in his pockets.

The trains were quite well filled. A bulletin from the chairman today confirmed that we are nicely on budget as far as passenger figures are concerned, which is good to hear.

Most of the rest of the gang today - non-Uskovites - went out to continue measuring up the track, today between Manor lane and Bishops Cleeve. While doing this a double broken fishplate was reported, and the same gang quickly changed this, so that services were not unduly interrupted. A possible villain is the King - a heavy locomotive - but this is leaving us at the end of the month.

Hellooooooo....

Paul, Dave P and Jules dropped tools as well, to wave to the passing trains. The passengers seem to like that.

What is it about waving, that people do it so easily? No doubt some inbuilt drive to communicate, to be sociable. It's one of the first things that little babes in arms learn too.

After digging the trench Stevie helped with the unwanted ballast in the pit, which Dave in the Telehandler then tipped into the gap a bit further along.

Between trips, Stevie 'nipped' over in the mini digger to level out what had already gone in.

Once the pit had been scraped more or less clean again, Paul and Jules measured the depth once more with the laser level, the base unit of which was parked way out of reach over by the platform end, so that the mini digger and Telehandler wouldn't knock it over.

If the reading didn't come out right, Stevie came over to scrape the bottom a bit more.

Jules found that the branches of the oak tree came down so low, he could leave the stick standing upright, caught in the leaves.

Hope they don't interfere with the roof of the building later.

In the middle of the day we heard a loud drone, and it was these two planes that flew over. One was a biplane, but we couldn't say what they were, nor what they were up to. They were following each other, which we hadn't seen before.

Once Paul was happy with the pit levels, we started hammering in pegs. The rumour that your blogger does some work between photographs turns out to be true, as he was caught in 'action' here by Jonathan. Well well.

Then it was Jonathan's turn to be caught by the camera, as he helped Jules set up the first length of shuttering.

This was held in place by stakes, until the corners had been nailed together.

No jokes please about 'you nod your head and I'll hit it' - we heard that one abundantly today, thank you.

It wasn't long before all 4 lengths of shuttering were up, some 5m by 5m long. This size base will give the hut to be rebuilt about a 6 inch space all the way round.

Getting the shuttering up wasn't as simple as it looks on this picture, in which the diagonal is being measured. Of course the two diagonals didn't match, and this resulted in much triangulation, geometry, and discussions on the merits (or relevance here) of Archimedes and Pythagoras. They pushed that box this way and that, we shall spare you the whole series of near identical pictures that would have produced.

Finally Paul was happy, the shuttering was in. The rebar mat etc for the inside is now on order, after quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing about from where, and how much. We do try very hard to keep costs down, that's why the actual placing of the order took so long. But we are rolling now.

A better truck load of type 1 has been ordered from a different supplier and it will come next week. However, everyone is allowed a holiday and so is this blog, which will be off line until mid September now. So you won't see it actually arrive.

Now you see it....

Now you - dang, this steel is tough!

During our rootling around in the bottom of the foundation pit a length of steel rodding emerged. This tuns out, we were told, to be the ground end of a telegraph pole stay. Of course the GWR pole route must have come through Winchcombe station, and it did indeed run along the Malvern side.

Dave P volunteered to cut the length off at ground level with a hacksaw. After all, the stay is designed not to be pulled out of the ground, there is a big plate underneath it.

Unfortunately the stay won, the hacksaw lost as the blade snapped half way in. Undaunted, Dave wrenched the half cut stay this way and that until it gave way, and he emerged from the pit with a big smile and holding aloft his prize.

Here's our end of the day shot. In the foreground good progress is being made with the concrete blocks across the end.

In the background is a huge discussion under way between the Usketeers. It broke up immediately when someone yelled 'Tea'!

We went to the Coffeepot, where the measuring gang was already installed.

Andy and his gang did 2/3 mile we heard, a commendable effort especially as time was taken off to change the broken fishplate.

It also started to rain, another reason for the parking of the tools for the night. It was forecast OK so we weren't too surprised when the rain did indeed come. But it was certainly wet, we only just stayed dry under Winchcombe's little canopy.

Back mid-September then, after a fortnight in better climes, delicious food, and a visit to the Moto Guzzi factory !

Ciao!