Ready for concrete

Monday at Broadway

We continued painting the footbridge centre span, a very slow job with its intricate ironwork and the three coats of paint required.






























The drudgery of painting above your head was pleasantly interrupted by a rumble below, which turned out to be the unexpected arrival of a train hauled by our visitor class 50.





From what we heard, this unusual Monday working was for the benefit of the locomotive's owner group, so they afforded themselves a couple of return journeys up and down the line.

The class 50 was soon back in front of its train again, there was no waiting for passengers as the station was locked and it was a small closed group.

Here is ARK ROYAL ready for the off again.

Upstairs we continued with the painting, and after lunch the rain came down again, as predicted. Soon, everything was wet again, this time from the north.

We took a close up of where the water sits when it rains in, which it does as soon as there is a little wind. The groove in the picture is caused by the two angles clasping the vertical steel panel that makes up part of the sides. Despite the shotblasting a few years back now and subsequent high quality paint job, this is where the rust is starting to show now.

The angle on the left used to support a row of windows, and the hole for one of the bolts can be seen on the left.







Wednesday at Winchcombe.

The prize for the neatest Permaquip trolley goes to this one.

Usually the tools are flung on and off we go, but the stacking of this one has had some thought behind it, and no doubt the track work executed later was equally neat. Well done, that man!

Two PWay gangs were out today, one at Toddington adjacent to the loco shed to fix a siding defect, the other gang was at Winchcombe here, where they changed a rotten sleeper for a better one, including swapping the wartime economy S2 chairs for proper AS1 examples.

The first down train rolled in from Toddington, and it was the sole steamer out today. It's partner was the DMU, which we noticed was exceptionally full. It seems that there were several parties around today, and an above average influx at Broadway. (according to our spy there)

On the Usketeers side we were preparing for that concrete pour, so long awaited. It has now been booked for next Wednesday morning, first thing.

Work today then centred around making the pit ready for the 12m3 of concrete that are going to be poured into it. Here Jules is just reinforcing the sides, in case the concrete pressure tries to overwhelm them.

Neil a few yards further along was nailing down an extra inch of battens all round, as the rebars inside are a touch too high for them to be well covered by the concrete. The extra inch shouldn't be noticeable in the greater scheme of things.

View north from Churchward House.

Yours truly had a quick word with one of the C&M guys working in Churchward house across on the other side of the forecourt. Having cleared the yard of years of accumulated builder's tat, they have now switched attention to the inside, where the place is being rejigged to suit our own personnel requirements, and it is getting redecorated as well. The moving date is projected for the end of January.

We were invited to take a look around, it certainly offers exactly what we need to replace the leaky Portacabins at Toddington - lots of offices, a kitchen, central heating, even some air conditioning, a meeting room and reception area.

View out of the rear

The rear view shows the higher storage area created by the previous owner by conduiting the stream at the back and placing a concrete cap on it. The yard is spic and span now.

Next to a covered area (a sort of car port) there is this excellent workshop, with a big door. One of the attractions of the purchase of Churchward House and its yard is this workshop, as we were going to spend money anyway on workshops at the back end of the C&W yard to rehouse both S&T and C&M, in order to make space for the proposed carriage shed (see the view north above).

An unusual view is this one, from one of the upper offices.

Between the two Bradstone buildings you can see Foremarke Hall gliding into the station.

Here is the same train just leaving from platform 2. We're getting the slightly colder autumn weather now, which leads to lots of visible steam.

Unfortunately there was also a bit of wind, so that put paid to this expected plume of steam.

Back 'in the pit' attention was now turned on how to deal with the concrete once it's in.

We made ourselves a tamper out of two scaffolding boards, and these will be see-sawed across the pour to get a nice level surface.

To manoeuvre the two planks Paul made two rudimentary handles, which were nailed to the ends. Very basic, but effective.

We then did a dry run, sawing back and forth, and this exposed a problem in that something was catching each end with every stroke. It turned out to be the metal strips protecting the ends of the scaffolding boards, so we removed these. Now all is ready.

Well, not quite yet, as we had to think about how the big cement mixer was going to get to the site.

We have it planned to go through the PWay yard and through under the oak tree. Question: How high is a mixer lorry? We phoned the company, then checked with the laser level to see if it fitted under. We think it will, but there is a plan B, which is to shuttle the stuff in with the Telehandler bucket. The things you have to think of...

Finally we got Martin to move aside some of the baskets of Usk stones, to ensure an easy passage for the lorry.

So next Wednesday is the big day! After that there is a two week delay to let the concrete go off, before we can think about starting the build itself. Immediately on top of the concrete will be a course of concrete blocks, then the damp course, and then we start with the Usk sandstone, both inside and out.