A busy week

Saturday with the Pway gang

A breezy, cloudy day, with 8 volunteers - quite good.

Dave spent the day repairing the blue Landie (failed tensioner wheel bearing), and the others set out for Didbrook to continue a spot resleepering job there.

Before you go spot resleepering, take your replacement sleepers!

We have very few spares left, as you can see.

In the white Landie we didn't even make it as far as Didbrook before we met 35006 coming down round the curve at Hayles. That means parking up, and watching it steam past.

We parked at Didbrook 1 bridge (the older one), and waited for the others to arrive (some parked at Toddington, some under the bridge (one spot) and one walked up from Hayles).

Then we split into two groups, the diggers (foreground) and the sleeper draggers (rear).

Again we paused to let a train by, this time 4270 with the first train out of Cheltenham. We were a bit far down in the ballast to see how full it was though, the train towered above us.

Here are Pete and Adam fitting the chairs back on to the replacement sleeper, watched by Bert.

The second sleeper on site was a very old one, it must date back to the 1980s and would have been second hand even then - it was a GWR throughbolter, and we never fitted those consciously, only used sleepers already equipped with them.

You can't unscrew these, they spin round and round, and in this case the bolts were loose too. The only way to remove them is to smash either the sleeper, or the cast iron chair.

Once you have go the sleeper out -  quite a job, as the through bolts stuck into the ground and prevented the sleeper from being dragged - you can drag in the new one, here one of a pair we did.

Afterwards you shovel or rake in some ballast scavenged from around, and then the new Robels get to work. They are fantastic! No more digging, or hacking with ballast picks. They do all the backbreaking work, beautifully consolidating the ballast beneath the new sleepers. They're not only easier, but also do a better job than the old manual way.

There is still a bit of hard manual labour, even with the Robels we take it in turns. At lunch time we laid them on the ground, and retired gratefully on our stack of new sleepers for a bite and a coffee. Unfortunately we forgot to bring the leftover doughnuts from first thing, so no pudding for the gang  this time.

We have to time our work and rest carefully, as we are obliged to ask for a line block if we want to work. But there are trains running, so a lot of the time we just sit there and wait. We are less productive than in the past, when we worked pretty much non-stop, pausing only briefly to let a train pass. Today we replaced 4 sleepers, the new norm.

The rests have one big advantage, in that we can watch the trains at leisure. Here is P&O heading out of Toddington, now with the reduced rake of 7 (due to the shorter platform length at Toddington).

The other job we did on Saturday was to iron out some dropped joints and dips. Here Bert crouching down is eyeing in Leigh and Nick on the pan jacks, while Adam confirms the heights with the cross level.

Once the jacks are set up and the right level achieved, the offending rail is packed with the Robels.

This stretch, between the two Didbrook bridges, is a regular 'customer'. Every year we have to return to pack the Cotswolds side, which has dropped down a few mm. Our suspicions fall on the lack of proper drainage at the foot of the Cotswolds side embankment, which is somewhat boggy here. Perhaps a new ditch at the toe of the embankment would cure the problem?

The canopy gang at Broadway

With the final part of the canopy complete, there is one more job to do - dress the bare end of the building.

This is what it currently looks like, with a window placed in the middle that wasn't there originally.

 

Below is the famous August 1904 picture, showing the residents of Broadway village queueing up to take an excursion train to Stratford on Avon.

Look under the canopy on the left, and you will see two quad royal poster boards, one on top of the other. We're in the process of making those, but will fit them side by side, to allow for the window that is there now. We have found 4 older style posters for them.

Under the canopy itself - apparently a hit on social media, we are told - we have fitted the WAY OUT board, with that lovely pointing hand.

A similar one has been made for the other side - 'WAY OUT, OVER FOOT BRIDGE'.

Now to build P2. The canopy gang is keen to do this.

Stop Press:

We had a well known visitor today!

Apparently, t h e place to stop for an interview at Broadway is now under our completed canopy extension, by the big hexagonal lamp and under the new WAY OUT sign!

Tuesday at Broadway.

A day of good progress, on the hand rails, painting steps and cutting them to size.

It was a day of GWR engines, with 4903 taking the first rake into Broadway. In the foreground is our step stripes painting station.

A bit further down the same platform is the steps cutting to size station.

As we don't want a friendly nudge from a Hall we stand to one side and let it pass.

The other GWR steamer on Tuesday was 4270. Doesn't it look fantastic! We spoke to one of our new department heads, and he couldn't believe the station was not a restoration, but completely new from the ground up.

It was fairly hot and sunny on Tuesday, so we broke the ice (as it were) and had our first Magnum of the season.

Neal concentrated on the hand rails. This row is now up, but not yet finally. Always a bit of fettling to do. When he's signed it off we'll give it a few coats of varnish, and it will look all luxurious.

This is the top end. Will you leave it like that, Neal, or will you finish the end off with something pretty?

So this is what he did at the bottom.

38 out of 48 step covers have had their modern yellow stripe replaced by more traditional white so far - 10 more to go.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A day without Dave, our chief block layer. He's allowed a day's holiday, isn't he? But we filled the day well, after an annoying start. It's Maxie again...

 

 

This time she wouldn't reel back her pull cord. Something wrong with the return spring inside apparently. It was a bit unfortunate, as normally Dave is the master of the pull cord, and of course Maxie pulled the trick on the day he wasn't there. 

Paul had a go, got the mechanism off, reeled in the cord, put the mechanism back on. No good though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then Steve came ambling by. Big mistake!

'Steve', we pleaded, 'can you fix Maxie's pull cord for us, please?' 

It was our lucky day, and thanks to Dr. Steve the mechanism was reset and we were able to go.

While Steve got his fingers all greasy for us, we decided to take down the formers under the new arch. Here is the big window with its blue brick arch - all is revealed. And it stayed up! (a small worry....)

The inside is a bit more impressive, and here the bricks seem to float in the air.

Outside is big tank 4270 waiting for the inbound Foremarke Hall.

 

 

 

A short distance away our colleagues from the Construction and Maintenance department resumed laying bricks around the buffer stop, and today made a start on the diamond pattern blocks that will go round the end.

 

 

 

With Maxie operational again at last, we were able to start a normal day's work - Paul on making up trusses, John on cleaning up the wood for Paul, yours truly on selecting blocks and making mortar, and Jules below laying undressed blocks behind the outer row that Dave put down last week.

Jules on backing up the Malvern side along its full length.

 

Outside the big window the site is now looking quite tidy, with the formers removed and the site levelled (mostly by John, a few weeks back) so that it is now safe to walk around.

 

Paul then spent the day making up trusses. That's a slow job, the three pieces of 4x2 have to be jointed together at the right angle, and of course each one has to be the same as the other.

And then you have to wave to passing trains. That takes a fair chunk out of your day, but passengers love it.

John spent the whole day pulling out nails, and sawing the timber into usable lengths.

The stack of clean timber on the left allows Paul to make a selection for the next truss.

 

At the end of the day, after allowing for a much delayed start because of the pull cord problem, Paul had completed the second truss, and had started on the third.

Jules was 'on top' of things - here working close to wall plate level around the chimney. The liner pipe now needs to start bending away from over the fireplace, and make its way to the middle of the gable end (to be) on the right.

The PWay dept. was also at work today. A group went up to Peasebrook to iron out a (rather) small twist, while Martin and Doug stayed behind to continue the long job of bringing all the 400 or so concrete sleepers from one side of the tracks to the other. 

They did pretty well - a quick peep at the end of the day showed that only 10-20% of the stacks remained to be collected.

 

 

Mid afternoon Julian had to go, and this is an overview below of what he achieved.

It's a layer of undressed stone along the inside, running from the fireplace, across the lintel to the far side on the right. That pretty much backed up Dave's work from last week, so next time Dave can start again, and complete the run that brings that side up to wall plate level.

The job around the buffer stop also did well today - look at those neat diamond pattern blocks they laid! 

The space in which they are standing is due to be back filled afterwards, and this will allow vehicular traffic to pass this point, without the danger that used to lurk here, of tipping into a dip in the weeds.

Finally for today, a quick shot of the gable end. This shows how Jules has pushed the chimney liner upwards at a 45 degree angle, and then built around it to keep it in place (currently on a wobbly support of bricks and bits of wood).

To close, a sample of the photographs we'll be publishing on the Flickr site in a couple of weeks or so:

It's life in Dnepropetrovsk, that unpronouncable place which has now been shortened to Dnipro! Where do you sit, if there are no benches left in the shade?

Ukranian locos have two types of horn - a gentle pheep, and a loud blast. These passengers will no doubt get that little pheep, before the EMU moves off. Life is relaxed there. We liked that.