The first stone

Monday at Broadway.

A fine day, but a man down. Lots of condensation around, but thanks to the sun peeping through, the centre span roof panels soon warmed up. It's amazing how quickly they get warm.

The work painting the centre span ceiling is finally drawing to a close. Today, we painted the last panel with its third coat, topcoat light stone.

Staring up at the ceiling for extended periods is painful for the neck, so we were glad for a spot of lunch and a chat with the other Broadway lads in the cabin.

After lunch we continued with the last painting task remaining - the structural steel angles, which had been either rusting, or simply the wrong colour scheme.

You can see evidence of that in the above picture, where the middle of the angle around the rivets was painted in light stone when the whole things was put back together a few years ago now.



While we were staring at a sticky light stone ceiling, and flicking away occasional cluster flies that fell into you neck or up your sleeve, Neal concluded fitting the treads to the upper landing, and started on the treads in the bridge span itself.

Fitting these treads should be a bit faster, as they were never bolted down. They just need trimming, and seating properly to stop them moving when walking across.

Neil did the first half a dozen today. Another reason for doing them now is that the rolling scaffold is no longer being used on the ceiling panels, so can be pushed out of the way. It's now a few panels further along, dealing with the dark stone angle painting.








Wednesday at Winchcombe.

A good dry day, just right for cracking on with the weighbridge.

As these things happen on the railway, and wearing an Usk hat as well as a footbridge hat, yours truly was however asked to be at Winchcombe for a delivery of timber for Broadway.

This somewhat ruined the eagerly anticipated tea and several doughnuts usually consumed in the mess coach. Instead, the timber lorry arrived early at 08.25 and was keen to dispose of its load and move on.

Seven 4.50m lengths of 6x3 ins timbers were dropped off - these are for the footbridge and need shaping by a joiner.

The load up in the air is T&G for more replica signage and poster boards at Broadway, both for P1 and the future P2 building.


The T&G was taken north. Having made the first 4 poster boards already on Broadway station, we're now getting quite good at making these. Several more are in the pipeline, as well as two large double sided hanging signs with 'WAY OUT - Over The Footbridge' and one of those pointing hands in use 100 years ago. We have already secured the replica cast letters for them - planning ahead! We also have the WAITING ROOM V board, as well as the relative doorplate in store.

The Usketeers had no knowledge of all this, and simply started work. Maxie was got out and manhandled on to her high chair. She sprang into life without protest, despite the sleep of several months in the corrugated iron lamp hut.

The first block.

After some head scratching and a first delivery of 'muck' the first stone was laid on the Usk weighbridge building at Winchcombe.

Here is Paul with the first concrete block (above which we will use the original stone) and it has just been laid. The rebuild is now officially ON !

It's thataway round, can't you see?

There soon followed a debate - which apparently had simmered for several hours while yours truly was moving timber - about the orientation of the building, and what the 4 different corners were to be described as.

Paperwork and plans were consulted.

The plans gave the 4 corners names of the 4 points of the compass, but what would that be at Winchcombe?

It was decided to stick to the plan, even if the SE corner was actually the NE one in the present location. Simple, no?

A dab of mortar was put in each corner, and the compass points at Usk - so not the actual one, geddit - were inscribed in them.

Here Neil is inscribing NW in the SW corner. It's so logical, we shouldn't need to explain it all again here. Just bear with.




Sadly the subsequent rain after lunch and a few careless boots put paid to the lettering scheme on 3 out of the 4 dabs of mortar. But one remains, so we'll work from that.

No more trains now of course, but what is this? Is it a diesel hauled auto train being tested? The hire of the 14XX is so expensive....

Neil made the first load of mortar. However, filling Maxie with half a bucket of water as usual afterwards to keep the drum clean was a bad idea in this damp weather.

Without adding any more water at all, even 12 shovels of damp sand were unable to stiffen the slurry that resulted while making the second mix. Tricky, but we did get out of it in the end.

We were soon laying more blocks, with two block layers at work.

Here Paul and Peter are about to meet in the middle on the first side.

It's the West side, which is really the West, because we are putting the hut up facing the other way round. Are you still with us?

We also decided to move our pile of sand nearer to the building. This is possible now that the foundations are in, and the pit back filled, to give a more level site all round.

Dave brought the pile round to under the tree with the Telehandler, after first dealing with a puncture incurred last week.

This is going to be much easier with Maxie stationed here, right next to the building.

This picture, mid afternoon, shows the West side done, and a start being made by Peter on the, er, next side.

Some thick rubber sheets have been found to make the surrounding area a bit more mud free.

Next comes the East side (by the platform).

To resume: the building will have its door facing the tree, to keep the chimney away from under it.

The big window will be moved to the other side (from the door's point of view) so that it overlooks the platform.

Here the first two sides have had the damp proof layer laid out, although not yet fixed down with mortar. We'll do that next week.

Finally we made it to the South end (really the north) and started the return.

Here we ran out of concrete blocks. We only need a handful more, but don't have any at the moment.

In the background Dave is bringing the remaining bits and pieces to rebuild our mortar making station.

The a quick check with the tape measure across the end to see where the middle is, and where the temporary door frame will go.

We have the original door and it's quite chunky, but the bottom 6 inches have rotted. We need someone to repair that for us. C&W can't help with their joinery, as they are currently fully committed. We may have to go outside the railway.

At the end of the day we rebuilt Maxie's throne, nice and level, and right next to the pile of red sand we moved.

A nice little cameo was spotted too, as three burly men manhandled a reluctant Maxie back into the corrugated iron hut, rather roughly we felt. Too late for a photograph, dang. Better luck next time.

Next week we hope to set out the four corners with stone quoins.