Help!

Most of us are now sitting at home and obeying instructions not to socialise. However a few key workers are continuing with the repair to our landslip at Gotherington, as, if we stop now, it will not only get worse, but we will have to pay extra later on. It's better to get the repair done, stop the deterioration, and then be ready to run again as soon as we get the government green light.

The slip repair was j-u-s-t about do-able with what we had in the bank, and a donation from the trust. However, the timing could not have been worse, as it hit us at the end of the non running season with its seasonal negative cash flow, and just when we got started again and money began to flow in once more, we had to stop running. That killed off the opportunity to earn our way out of the cost of the slip repair.

Hence there is now an urgent appeal from the plc, which we repeat below. Please help us pay for the slip!

The full story of the slip can be read here, so that you can see the magnitude of the task:

Gotherington slip repair works

You can help this cause by donating to us either:

- By Bank Transfer to Sort Code 30-90-89 Account 47638368 using the reference ‘LANDSLIP’ plus your membership number (if applicable)

or 

 - By sending your cheque payable to GWRT to The Chairman, GWRT, Churchward House, Winchcombe Railway Station, Winchcombe, Glos GL54 5LD.

In either case, if you are a UK taxpayer and feel able to download, complete, scan and e-mail our Gift Aid form to trust.chairman@gwsr.com we will be able to claim 25% Gift Aid. Alternatively, you can print, complete and return it to the above address.

In the meantime we have all had to stop volunteering. Firstly those with a customer facing role, then all the rest, following government instructions to stay at home and avoid social contact. PWay, the rebuild of the Usk weighbridge and associated goods platform, and the rebuilding of the Broadway footbridge steps and canopy overhang are all on hold. It's a weird, unsettling experience, the diary is suddenly wiped completely clean. No volunteering and the merry discussions over doughnuts, but also no eye appointment, PSA test, B&B break to visit the Swanage railway, the 1975 best man's own wedding (finally!) is off, sons and grandchildren barred from the house, nothing. The diary is a complete blank.

We are allowed a daily walk, otherwise we'll get complete muscle wastage with all the sitting around at home.

This view from the Cotswolds edge not only shows some first born lambs, but also the Weston Subedge industrial estate, which lies adjacent to the Honeybourne extension. If you know where to look, you can follow the line of trees where the trackbed runs.

Not everyone is pleased to see walkers. This sign has nothing to do with the current virus epidemic, it's just a grumpy farmer fed up with people asking the way. Well, if you can't read a map....







We'll keep this blog going say once a week with items of interest, and perhaps it will offer a chance for dialogue as well to those that read it.

A couple of items of interest might be these, from the John Lees collection (not yet on the Flickr site):

In the summer of 2010 this rather dramatic slip occurred on the loop at Gotherington. Here too it was on the Malvern side, but as we have double track at this point, the sleepers went down with it.

We fixed that, but shortly afterwards, in January 2011...

.... came the chicken curve slip, which was much more serious. We fixed that too, but now had to appeal nationwide for help. The Heritage railway movement rose magnificently to our aid, and helped us sort out the problem. John Lees' photographs show that shortly afterwards they were already laying new track at Laverton, so we were on the springboard to Broadway.

Meanwhile there is a bit of work we can do from home. In the picture you can see a dozen timbers for the footbridge steps, which have just received a second undercoat and, as soon as we are allowed, will be assembled to form the sides of the staircases.

In the background is a pair of WAY OUT boards almost competed, and several kits of parts for replica poster boards. Some will replace temporary boards made of plywood in time for opening, and some are destined for the P2 building, when that gets the go ahead. We have to order the woodwork for all this in one go, can't do it in bits and drabs.

And there's a motorbike in hibernation. But not any more! The slip appeal coincided with a return to warmer and drier weather, so the 'Diva' (she is Italian...) was fired up to deliver the very first cheque to the trust HQ at Winchcombe.

An urgent courrier delivery for the GWRT appeal.

Sadly it's not for the full amount, but a humble contribution, and we are fervently hoping that you too will help with what you can give, to help us survive. We need you!

And without the railway there wouldn't be any blogs...

Still here

Friday at Toddington.

Work continues at a modest level, with just two volunteers today.

The first job was to go and collect the refurbished GWR bench from Blockley, and store it in the container at Broadway. Here it will be sanded down, graffiti filled in, and given a fresh coat of paint.

Note to users: Please do not carry the bench using the arms, they are a weak point. Lift the bench by its frame underneath. If abused, the arms will come off.







With the same van we went to pick up this 'quad royal' poster board, which has just been completed using original style mouldings.

It's parked here in the paint shop at C&W, where Alex has kindly agreed to letter it in red: 

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.

This is where it will go, between the two double royal poster boards. When we put these up, we left that space for it.

Two more quad royal poster boards are in the production line. They will replace two temporary plywood notice boards put up at the time the station opened, one platform side, and one in the booking office (a varnished one).

Returning the van to its base at Winchcombe, we stopped to examine the two original cast iron canopy overhang posts that we recovered during early excavations at Broadway. Sadly they are unusable as during demolition in 1963 they were snapped off at ground level.

But they do serve a useful role as models. We can't afford replica posts in cast iron, so are using two big box sections, with the embellishments still to be added being pointed out by Neal in the picture. That will give the same look.

Here are the two ex-Broadway posts, the LH one showing the top with the angled truss supports, and the RH showing the bottom, at ground level, where it snapped at the level of the downpipe inspection hatch, the weakest point.

Also found at Broadway, somewhat later, is the other half that remained in situ at ground level.

Neal is pointing to the remains of the bottom end of the stringer which marks the start of the steps.

Another find from Broadway that we still have - out of nostalgia, we can't use it - is this carved stone which sat on top of the station building wall and served to support a truss. The two holes on top held long bars which were anchored way down inside the walls. On the right the stone is carved to reflect the moulded brickwork on the top of the front of the original building.






Due to the requirement to insulate the new building we now have cavity walls at Broadway, and these are too weak to support heavy things like stone blocks and trusses.

The canopy today sits on top of a steel frame behind the outer brick skin.

Delivery jobs done, we went on to Toddington to continue with the canopy overhang structure.

Lost something? Yes, my boiler, has anyone seen it?

In the yard was a lonely loco, stripped bare.

 Further investigation revealed it to be 2807, the boiler is off, they work quickly, those guys.

Inside the shed we found that 37215, which formed the backdrop to our work on Monday, had gone and there was a large free space instead. Great! We can flex our muscles, get a bit more room, not so cramped one on top of the other.

Sad reality sank in as it soon became clear that free shedspace soon fills up, and we were politely asked to move back and make way for 4270.

We did tidy up those big jacks for them, parked them neatly at the end of the shed.

Neal then continued with drilling holes for the curved truss supports. He's now on the other side, the holes drilled on Wednesday are underneath in the picture.

The end of the day saw him trial fitting the truss support brackets, and working out the exact location of the cap that will sit on top of the box section, between the angles.








It was icy cold on Friday, so a warming cup of tea cheered us up.

Strange colour it was, if you can believe the photograph. The same colour as the cutting paste in the tin behind, but we swear there is no connection.

The last picture is actually of the cylinder block for 3850. You have to admire the work of the Dinmore Manor gang here. It's a completely new cylinder block, and of course new valves (just inserted in the picture) plus new studs.

No doubt some part of 3850 is still original....

Tumbleweed...

Monday at Toddington

Just two of us on Monday, John had another (railway) hat on.

Yours truly continued painting the trusses and fascia boards in dark stone undercoat.



Neal busied himself with the canopy overhang posts. Where the angled brackets will be bolted on he needed to provide extra meat on the inside of the columns. The way he did this is to weld on strips on the inside. Of course you can't weld on the inside of the columns, so what he did was drill holes through (picture), clamp the strips on the inside, and weld them on through the holes, then fill the holes back up with weld and grind the whole thing flat again.

Then he placed the brackets made up last week near the top of the columns. A 90 degree curved piece still needs to be made up (by an outside contractor) to connect the two ends of the bracket.





With the brackets clamped into the position to which they will be bolted, Neal then drilled holes through the brackets into the post, and through the strips inside.

Here are the two brackets in their place, with a spacer in between, and each with two holes drilled right through to the strips.

This is the end on which the truss will sit; it will run from top to bottom, so you can see how the brackets would give extra support to the truss.






We then had a bit of an interlude. A lorry turned up with 5 pallets of floor and skirting tiles for the goods shed mess room extension, work on which is continuing for the moment. Neal was asked to take the pallets off the truck.

As he did this, a rather noisy yellow helicopter flew by slowly, no doubt on a job verifying the power lines here. Better than a man with a bicycle and a ladder, no doubt.

We had hardly started again when another request came, this time to move the 5 pallets into the actual building. Oh, the drawbacks of being multi-talented.... Neal, can you just do this.....?

Then, finally, back to painting and drilling. Here are the two purlins in undercoat. Starting to look like a canopy overhang!

Back with his drilling, Neal here has taken the brackets off again, and can be seen cutting threads into the holes, including the strips now safely secured from the inside.

That tin of Trefolex looks like a trusty product that has been in use for generations.







At the end of the day, we had the two purlins in undercoat, and one of the two canopy support posts with bolt holes and bolts, ready to go.

There's lots more work due on the posts though. they need tops and bottoms welded on, and decorative panels in the lower half, to give them the appearance of cast iron.









Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Well, this is a fine kettle of fish.

The corona virus situation has obliged the railway to cease running until further notice, and our wartime in the Cotswolds event is cancelled. Many other railways are doing the same.

Tumbleweed....

 The Winchcombe car park was empty this morning, never seen anything like it.  It was like a western ghost town, with tumbleweed rolling down the main street.

A few volunteers did trickle in eventually, enough for a PWay party to go ballast shovelling at Stanway, and for a brickie and his mate to carry on with the Usk platform.







Railway policy now is that non-customer facing areas may continue if they wish, within government guidelines. It is appreciated that some of us might not like to be marooned at home, and that was certainly the sentiment of some who turned up today. Our wives do not appreciate living with someone who is stir crazy, pacing up and down and looking out of the window..

We had a lengthy meeting in the mess coach to start with, but sat some distance from each other, and washed hands when we could.

It was also felt that an outdoor activity like brick laying was not too risky. Numbers are low, and we are at some distance from each other, by the nature of the work.

Starting with 2 volunteers, we were soon joined by Jim and later still by Dave, who had however texted first thing to say he wasn't coming due to family pressure.

There's another one who was pacing up and down at home... No doubt another case of 'Go on then, gerrout of here'







The forecast was OK-ish at the start of the day, with increasing chance for drizzle in the afternoon. Jim and Paul did a great job at the stop block end and laid 3 rows and so bringing that end to the full height required.

Project leader Dave came just before lunch time, laid just two bricks (he says) but redeemed himself by bringing a box of 12 fairy cakes.

Munching these, we soon forgot about his late arrival.

As you can see from this photograph, the sky darkened and the low cloud hid the usual view of Cleeve Hill. That bode no good for further brick laying.

It then started to rain with a very insistent drizzle. We tried to tough it out, but everything was soaked. Great big drips plopped down from the branches of the oak tree above us. You can't lay bricks like this.

It was decided to use the remaining mortar on pointing the blocks around the bottom of the future hut rebuild, and with that exhausted, we washed our tools.

On the way back we stopped off at a DIY store to get some materials. It was busy there, more than usual. Probably a case of 'If I have to stay at home, what can I do?'

It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

GWR bench repaired

Friday at Willersey, Broadway and Toddington.

We met at Broadway, to hear the good news that Neal had slipped in on Wednesday and finished the last of the timberwork for the Cotswolds side steps.

We're not ready to fit them yet, as they all need preserving and painting, but we started that process  today.

Friday was also the final of the 4 days where we run race specials to CRC. It was also a special day, as it is the only day on which we run a train from Broadway. An external company runs the Northern Belle charter train from Paddington to Evesham, where the luxurious passengers are bused to GWSR Broadway station (our Honeybourne link still being a gleam in our eye).

At Broadway an 8 coach steam hauled special awaited them, with refreshments on board. The Broadway loco was Foremarke Hall today, and the two Toddington trains were hauled by P&O and Dinmore Manor, with the 9466 pannier in light steam as reserve.

The special headboard for the occasion was
 'AT THE RACES'.

Once the buses arrived at the bottom of the drive a large number of happy punters streamed up to the station, and several had themselves photographed in front of the gleaming GWR loco.

One young lady was offered a quick view of the cab, and on leaving she informed the astonished canopy gang that she had never seen a steam engine in her life before.

How the other half lives...

Then, with a 10 minute late start due to stragglers, the train with the happy punters pulled away, pleasingly in vigourous style to your correspondent's ear.

Broadway then fell silent again....

But we had exciting news: Our wooden 10ft bench was ready, all repaired by our friendly carpenter in Willersey.

In the foreground some 4'' bodging screws, and a 6 inch nail extracted from the woodwork.

All three of us drove over there to see what Steve had managed to do with what was pretty much a ruin that we rescued from a wet bus shelter in Paxford. Given the proximity of the OWW line, we think the bench most likely came from Blockley station round the corner. This was closed by BR in 1966, and as the station building was a very basic wooden one, with no canopy, it is quite possible that this bench spent much of its life outdoors. Transfer to the bus shelter at Paxford did not help its condition, as the floor of the shelter was wet and when we found the bench the legs were partly rotted away and one was missing altogether.

Here is the bench, as now repaired. Steve explained to us what he had done. The nearest end is almost completely new, and all of the legs have had little hardwood extensions fitted to them to bring them back to their original length, and the bench to its correct seat height. (17'')

Note that the seat is made of a single plank, something that would be hard to find today.

Here's carpenter Steve with the bench end that he made for us. The old one (in his hands) only had one leg, and before putting it into the 9'6'' bus shelter someone had cut 6ins out of the 10ft GWR bench, and crudely nailed the cut off end back on. Steve fixed this with proper mortice and tenon joints.

On the right is the remaining leg with its rotten foot.

We will now rub down the bench and fill in the teenage graffiti that was carved into the back. As the bench is a local affair, we even discovered who the teenagers were. One told us that he often sat on the bench waiting for the school bus, and that it seemed very low. Now we know why!




We will pick the bench up next week. It is earmarked for under the P2 canopy, when that is built.

Having done what we could for the day at Broadway, we proceeded to Toddington, where yours truly applied dark stone undercoat to the two fascia boards, while Neal and John continued to cut and weld steel for the brackets for the two posts.

Canopy progress

Monday/Tuesday at Toddington

Two days of painting steelwork in the shed. We've made good progress on the fabrication, which is almost done except for the posts and the brackets attached to them.

As the shape of the structure, not symmetrical because of the incorrect alignment between footbridge and station, was not clear to yours truly, Neal was kind enough to offer to show us all a layout drawing of what the section under the footbridge end truss will look like.

Here it is then. The view is south, from the steps.

Neal explains: 'The thin posts are the frame on the steps; the top cross member is fixed to the underside of the truss. The tread of the steps will be near the bottom of the thin uprights 39" above the ground, these sit on the strings. The truss goes half way up the bottom half of the steps'.

Had the steps and building been aligned correctly then the RH thin post would be in line with the bigger post in the centre (which is in line with the corner of the building) and the LH bigger post would be in line with the LH thinner post.

As the distance between the steps and the building is also rather closer than the original, the truss is not located at the bottom of the steps, but, as Neal says, half way up the bottom half. This hybrid arrangement allows us to have a canopy overhang that is almost as long as the original, instead of just over half as long. Moving the footbridge back was not an option.

Hope you got all that.

So Monday and Tuesday were mainly painting days, and in this picture you can see John applying a coat of dark stone undercoat to one of the two fascia boards. A purlin is on the left

Meanwhile, Neal started work on the two posts that support the truss. Originally these were cast iron, but to save on costs we will make them of box section, with a bottom end embellished as the casting was. This will look very similar in the end.

Later we got the second fascia board out. This had accumulated some light rust from storage (we made it 2 years ago) so it was brushed down again and treated to a new coat of primer.

 Tuesday saw the first of the race specials, so we afforded ourselves a look at the departure of Foremarke Hall with one set, then P&O with the other. Dinmore Manor was lit up as a standby as, we heard, the contract with the charter company specifies steam, so no last minute diesel Thunderbird for us.

It was good to see that the 76077 team now have a notice board for the public to see. Let's hope this results in more shareholders, we need them. Do join us, if you can.
Support 76077 here

The first of the two charters to leave was headed by Foremarke Hall, here photographed by P&O stalwart Steve, who was keen to photograph P&O leave, showing its newly activated electric lights.




Yours truly also thought that this would make a great picture, so set up shop by the signal box crossing.

Alas...

Is P&O really in there?

Are its new lights really working?

We will never know.

How the signalman managed to hand over a token in that cloud is a mystery.

Back to work then. This time we see Neal with a set of angle iron pieces which he was cutting to shape to make the two brackets on the LH side of the drawing above.

Two pieces will need to be curved, and that will be done by a specialist company.

A last look on Tuesday in the yard, where there was much 'business' around our new yard lamp/water tower combination. Don't they look great together!

Finally, a question for readers. We got this cast iron plate as a gift from a supporter. Its best use will probably be a sale to someone to raise funds, but what is it? Is it even a railway item? Something to do with a water main perhaps? Or marking the supply pipe to a water tower? Any offers for it? All funds raised will go towards the canopy overhang completion.




Wednesday with the Usketeers.

No doughnuts today, we were delighted to see Mike Rose - our local man at Usk for the removal of the weighbridge - come to see our progress, and treat us to a fine breakfast offering of Bara Brith with raspberry jam.

Bara Brith a a Welsh delicacy, translated as 'speckled bread'. That's also what it looks like, odd that. Coincidence, or what?

It's traditional Welsh tea bread, typically made with raisins, currants, and candied peel. Mike made it himself back in his Welsh cottage, and spread it with home made jam. Mrs. Mike supervised the production process.

It went really well with our morning tea.

Due to the race specials we were two men down today, but nonetheless bricks were laid, here in the third stretch nearest the stop block. The picture shows the opening position.

Paul did most of the brick laying (our other chief 'layers' Dave and Jules wearing race train hats today) but here assisted by Jonathan, who was picking up some tips on pointing.

Soon afterwards Jonathan had crept into the corner behind the stop block, where he was pointing the row that Paul had just laid.

Jim, back from a couple of weeks of abstinence, also laid down a row, not easy if,
as Jim, you only have one arm. But Jim too made good progress.

Just after 11 the first race special came into view, here about to exchange tokens with the Winchcombe box signalman.

As soon as the first train is out of section the second, waiting at Toddington and also well filled with merry race goers, follows on behind.

The regulator is closed briefly to permit the exchange (at Toddington the regulator had remained open a crack, thus shrouding the loco in its own steam) and then it's quickly back to the box to release the section.

After lunch in the mess coach Paul was back to (almost) complete the tenth row in the third section of the wall. Only the top two courses of bricks remain to be laid now, and we are starting to think about resuming work on the building itself, now that the frost risk seems to have receded.

Neil washed up, one of those unsung jobs that does need doing. You have to keep your tools clean.

Maxie gets to gargle with a handful of bricks, and is always left with a sparkling clean drum.

Our second race special was caught accelerating through Winchcombe station from the road bridge. Of course this special train doesn't stop at any of the stations, but we did hear that one was stopped - by a flock of sheep.

Well, that's what you might expect on a rural railway. All part of the fun.