Gi's a fag.

Monday at Broadway

A drizzly day, but no matter, we were up on the footbridge, in a container, and under the canopy. Nice and dry.




Neal was involved in a P2 site meeting first thing, then spent the afternoon trimming the treads that touched the corners of the upper landing, where they still wobbled on the gussets.

All is stable now, the treads are nice and tight on the centre span.











Painting of the underside of the centre span roof is finally completed.

This picture shows the final effect, after 3 coats of paint on everything. Light stone corrugated sheets, and dark stone supporting roof hoops.

Afterwards Neal and Dave allowed themselves a few minutes looking out over the site and chewing the cud.

Dave has been making more wooden leaflet holders for the booking office. We managed to replace almost all of the plastic ones with replica wooden ones of a GWR type, but more plastic ones have appeared.

While yours truly gave the 20 timbers prepared by C&W a second coat of primer during the day, John and new recruit Ian attacked the timbers prepared by the joiner in Willersey.

They set up a small production area under the canopy, where during the day all these timbers received a first coat of preservative. Only 2 more coats to go, keep plugging away! Then it's two coats of primer....





Wednesday on the Usk weighbridge.

Track walkers and ballast sweepers were out today along our railway, while a small handful of Usketeers studied the block wall of the platform, and tried to work out why the courses of our little brick towers last week were not at the height they should have been.

Last week we had measured the spacing for the courses from below, and this week Paul devised an alternative, where we measured the spacings for the bricks from above, using a fixed post with each line of bricks marked off on it.

The posts then were suspended from above.
Behind Paul you can see a line of them, as the last one is screwed to the blocks at the southern end of the platform.

Dave supervised...

With the posts and their markings for each course of bricks in place, Paul was able to start again and we see him here laying a corner of bricks.

The others moved on ahead and laid out a dry first course, along which Paul could work with mortar.

'It was this big, at least. Maybe bigger'.    'Oh really?'

Jules entertained us from time to time with tales from the financial world, in which he used to work. Credit margins were this big, he seems to say, but not everyone swallowed that tale.

The Winchcombe site was very busy today, with lots of large lorries coming and going.
This one delivered 20T of 20mm to nil ballast, which is destined to be used at Toddington.

It's an easy life, up there in the cab, you don't even have to get out. Rob signed off the delivery sheet.

Elsewhere, a similar lorry delivered stone ballast destined to fill the gabions being used to stabilise the banks of the Isbourne. This work is being done by contractors, and will be subject to a separate blog report when there's a decent bit to say about it.

The infill delivered by the lorry was then dumpered down to the site by the river itself, a tricky drive along a very muddy and rutted track.

The recent heavy rainfall is not doing the contractor any favours, as the ruts are so deep in places the differentials on the dumper are scraping along the ground. But they are tough all-terrain vehicles, so every load did arrive down there on the site beside the river.

A short while later, with both lorries gone again, the Telehandler took a bite out of the new pile of 20mm ballast, and emptied it on to the C&M truck. Pete then drove it to Toddington, where part of the gang was rebuilding the pavement and kerbs along the drive, to cure the flooding that would occur there in times of heavy rain.

We hope to have a C&M blog update soon, perhaps after the weekend. Things have been a bit hectic for the authors, the railway is not the only thing in their life.

Meanwhile, back on the Usk project... the new posts with the markings for the courses revealed that it was the bottom row of blocks that was incorrect. Even with a fat bed of mortar, we were not going to be able to make up the shortfall, at least not at this end.

It was reluctantly decided to strip out about 10 of the bottom row of blocks, and relay them on a thicker, very dry bed.

Jules' efforts to prise the last one loose caused some merriment. We had fixed it down well.

We then put all the blocks back, and now, finally, the height was correct. When we lay the bricks next week, they will start off from the correct level, and will arrive at the correct level at the top.

The level problem at the northern end was traced to a last minute dip in the concrete foundations as they stopped at the end. We have now compensated for that.

This end of day picture shows the row of blocks back in place, with the marker posts also ready, and a symbolic diamond pattern coper on top, which will be the finished surface level.

Finally we took delivery of 4 replica GWR platform lamp posts, which are destined for a fellow GWR railway. 



The GWSR has a pattern for these, and can supply more of the same if required. We do not supply the tops, as there is a large variety and choice on the market. But we can do the castings. If interested, drop a line to breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk.

The railway also needs 3 of these, and we have an expression of interest from another railway for a further two. We have an original, which we lend to the foundry to make more.

If anyone else wants to join in the purchase, let us know.





For the uninitiated, these are the cast iron finials that go on top of the running in board posts, and Gents' modesty screen posts. It's not something you see at auction, or, to our knowledge, something you can usually buy, so this is an opportunity to get something rare for your GWR station.




The Usk hut door.


The Willersey joiner dealing with the Usk weighbridge door took it off its hinges in order to repair the frame. What he found underneath the hinges was a little surprise, and very interesting too.

Front

He said that when he was an apprentice, people used to joke that if you wanted to adjust the hinges of a door, you needed to be a smoker. And in the 1950s, when the door was (re-)packed, that carpenter certainly was.

We carefully prised all the packings apart again, and this is what we found.




The front of the cigarette packet (above) had a sailor on it, surrounded by a lifebelt. You can't quite make out the sailor on the picture. There were two sailing ships L and R of him. Medium Cut was the most popular of three varieties, the others being Mild and Gold Leaf.

Back

The back of the packet shows Nottingham castle at the top. John Player and Sons was founded in Nottingham in 1877. Navy Cut is supposed to refer to the habit of sailors of binding different tobacco leaves together tightly, and then slicing off a 'cut'.

This is the front and back of a small packet of 10 Woodbines, folded open and then cut down the middle - in the picture the cut halves have been reunited. The cigarettes were also available in packets of 5, and 20.

Woodbines was a cheap brand and the name refers to a type of flower, such as Honeysuckle and Virginia creeper. Stylistic images of the flowers appear over the packet. The cigarette was strong and unfiltered, and was popular in the trenches in WW1. The style of packet remained unchanged until the 1960s.

In popular parlance strong cigarettes were known as 'Gaspers' and this one no doubt qualified as one of them.






Sometimes our 1950s joiner fancied a little luxury, as the two halves of this packet demonstrate:

This was a packet of 'Senior Service', or 'The Perfection of Cigarette Luxury' as the slogan at the bottom proclaims. The name refers to the nickname of the royal navy, and on the front is a sailing ship with a crown above it. In the picture the narrow packet of 10 was opened out, then sliced crossways to suit the width of the hinge. An advertising slogan of the company, which had its factory in Hyde near Manchester, was 'Senior Service satisfy' - remember that?

Lifting the second hinge, things got more interesting still. After splitting everything apart again (there were several layers of packing) we found two parts of of a label sent with articles for exchange.

It's not a practice we had heard of before, perhaps someone can say more about it?

The BR-WR suggests a time in the early 1950s and it's clearly from Usk, a station which closed well before Dr. Beeching, in 1955.

The articles in question (see below) were sent to Newport, and there is a serrated edge at the bottom of the label. Would this be related to the next item, pictured below, which also has a serrated edge?






This label, also pieced together from two bits of packing, reveals a rather charming, bucolic character of the little Welsh railway line between Monmouth Troy (of course the source of our station building at Winchcombe) and Pontypool. People must have had a lot of time in those days, to fill in forms for minor stuff such as this.

It looks like a request form to central stores for bits in daily use at a station that wear out. A sentence in capitals along the side requires the numbers to be expressed in words, so we have:

Burners. Cones, Disc lamp: ONE

...and a little further down, that essential station cleaning item:

Brooms:  Bass  ONE

The bass broom (we had to look this up) is yer classic broom with rough bristles made from a palm tree. This is clearly quite separate from your platform brush, which had apparently not yet worn out, but down in the goods yard at Usk there was no platform to sweep. Maybe the station building, across the river Usk, had its own requisitioning.

Also available were stove polishing brushes, deck scrubbing brushes, shunting sticks, and lamps, including one for the stop block. If an item of wear, perhaps it was often crushed by a rough shunt in the yard.


The last chitty we found was still firmly attached to the hinge and would not be removed, hence the finger in the picture holding it up against the other half.

This is also labelled BR-WR and the date is pre-printed for the 1950s. USK-WR is added with an inked stamp, and the chitty is from the Traffic Dept, one supposes in Newport.

The advice is to check the article (Broom: ONE) on receipt.

At the bottom is a neat hand written note in cursive style, in ink, requesting that the article (Broom: ONE) is put in the weighbridge for Usk Zonal.




As a post scriptum, the back of this strip from a Woodbine packet mentions the 'Weighbridge Door & frame' with a reference number. It's not clear what the meaning of that is though.

Hope you enjoyed this little bit of the Usk weighbridge hut history, all extracted from under a couple of hinges.

Two steps forward

Monday at Broadway

A cold but bright day, so time for some exterior painting, in readiness for Friday's return of the timber from the joiner.

The set of 3 original bench ends, scripted and with pierced ends, is now ready for assembly, so was moved out of the painting shed and under platform, with its future brothers and sisters.

Now all we need is the wood for it.

We had hardly finished moving the bench ends and made a cup of tea, when the delivery van came with the new wood.

Such timing!

Here are the lengths of Sapele, cut to the right width, but still with sharp edges.

We puzzled a bit about the short length, until John passed and tossed over his shoulder the comment that it was the three feet in one length.

Ah!

The hazards of wood working - a splinter !

Neal was in a P2 planning meeting during the morning. In the afternoon we caught him on the P2 top landing, where he was about to fit the last tread.

Then it's down the stairs. Unless the wood arrives on Friday, from the joiner.

While Dave got the reamer out and rounded off all the edges (it's quite painful to sit on a bench with sharp edged planks) we had a go at applying the knotting compound to the 20 pieces of timber already cut and moulded by C&W.

They've had an amazing 4 coats of wood preservative applied. 3 on purpose, and one by accident... didn't realise someone else had already done the 3rd application. Oh well, it can't do any harm.

The (anti-) knotting compound goes off really quickly, so in the afternoon we were able to start on the long job of primering the same wood.

Here are the timbers, outside during a brief burst of evening sun. When that went down, it suddenly got bitterly cold.






Never mind, that sunset must offer some interesting photo-opportunities, mustn't it?

An empty Broadway station, alone in the winter evening sunlight.

Everything from along the platforms has been stacked under the generous canopy, to be kept dry during the winter.

Winter sunset over Winchcombe

Pick your favourite one...

This scene just needs a steam locomotive and train, then photographed from P2 to catch the golden glint. Unfortunately this low sun occurs only during the non-running season. Dang. Maybe one day.





Wednesday at Winchcombe.

A bitterly cold day, not so much because of the temperature, but because of the biting wind that came with it.

We started well enough.

It was nice and warm in the mess coach - lots of bods, and some steaming kettles. Robert made a speech, which went down very well, while Steve is just having another look to see if a doughnut hasn't by any chance materialised.

'Fraid not, there were none today.

Following the speech, the track gang split into two. One group did ballast sweeping, starting from where they left off last week at Chicken Curve. That was even colder, high up there over the road.

Luckily they soon swept their way into the Defford straight, which is a long cutting and which today was free of wind.

What with the physical effort, the gang was actually quite warm.

These three pictures are by our correspondent John M, whose camera seems to have become steamed up in the excitement.

John was kind enough to provide a 'before' and 'after' photograph of the sweeping.

On the right a cleaned track fixing (SHC clip) and on the left one with ballast on it. The regulator has a bit of a habit of dislodging these clips, and covering the result with ballast so that you can't see what it has done. Very sneaky.

Later John travelled up to Toddington yard, where the second team were just clearing up. Stevie had dragged a replacement rail along the trackbed from Winchcombe, cut it to size, and inserted it in the place of the longitudinally cracked rail discovered a couple of weeks ago.

In the picture Stevie is just back filling the trench.

Job done.

Four Usketeers remained at Winchcombe.

Today we started on plan B (Plan A, working with lime mortar, being in abeyance until warmer climes) where we complete the platform by building up the facing bricks.

A supply of them was loaded on to a trolley, to have a moving stockpile for the brick layer.

The first thing to do was to place a series of platform diamond cut copers, to establish a datum for the height.

Jules is holding the track gauge. It has a black line on it, coming off the rails, which establishes the top of the platform surface.

The coping brick is placed on a lump of mortar, and the level taken over to the track gauge tells us if we are too high, or whatever.

The trolley with the bricks was then found to be in the way, so a very determined group of Usketeers decided to push it out of the way. Very sternly.

We got Maxie out again.

Maxie was thirsty straight away, so we gave her a long drink of water from a bucket.

Then a bit of congestion became apparent in her throat, so that got a thorough poking with a shovel.

Very crude, we know, no way to treat a lady mixer, but it was effective.

 A bit more mixing in the barrow when the mortar arrived on the trackbed.

And here is Paul, building a little tower, from which the rest of the facing bricks will be infilled.

A second tower is built, below one of the copers we placed earlier.








Sadly the day on the goods platform ended with the little towers being taken down again, so a 'net nil' effect there for today. There were issues with the height of the courses, we're going to try a different approach next week.

At the end of the afternoon the Toddington gang returned in the blue Landie, rail replacement in the yard completed, so good job satisfaction among the crew here.

Robert was there to welcome them back, having himself just walked from the middle of the Defford straight. The light fails quickly now, mid afternoon, and no Coffeepot to retreat to.

Notice the green Christmas decoration on the corner of the cab - we are right up to speed here.


In other heritage news:

We went to Broadway to recover the original Broadway station safe. A little curiosity from the history of the Honeybourne line. It was offered to us for use in the ticket office, but that office was decorated in a completely modern style, so there was no place for it there.

Originally the little safe would have held some petty cash overnight, nothing spectacular. It came out of the stationmaster's house, and we even have the keys.

What to do with it now? We could try selling it at auction, but it is an original artifact from our line, one of the very few that exist.

In the end we preferred to keep it, and will incorporate it in the Usk building. This will become a goods office, and as such could conceivably have had a safe in it.

Something similar is this box we saw at KRM, just recently restored. It's a cash strong box, in which receipts would have been sent back to the regional head office.

It's a droll little box. You put the money in the top, shut the lid, re-open the lid, and it's gone!!!

Now you can only get the money out with a key held at Worcester Shrub Hill.

Presumably all stations had one of these to send the takings back. They are very rare now.



KRM were very kind and offered us an authentic window for the Usk (weighbridge) hut.

We went there last Thursday, the fateful day with all that rain.

This is the A449 dual carriageway. Because of a huge lake of indeterminate depth all the cars have squashed over to the right.

A lorry didn't need to do this, and drove through somewhat promptly. Also a Q7, which went so fast that the bow wave washed over the tops of the cars on the right.

This is what we recovered. It's an arched triple window, with a fixed centre panel, and two sliding windows left and right. It's in almost perfect condition, just needs a small bit of new wood in one of the corners.

This is also a weighbridge hut window, so it would be the big front one, through which the operator could observe the weighing activity.

The original Usk window was destroyed by decay and collapsed due to the weight of the stone above it.




The gifted replacement window has gone into storage now, pending return of the original doorway, currently with a joiner for repair.