Bad news - Good news

Saturday with the gang.

A small gang today - people must have read on Doodle that Bert was going to be late, and that means no doughnuts...

With trains now running 5 days a week, there is less opportunity for us to do major works, so on Saturday we had several small jobs.

One was to fit a number of tie bars to a stretch of track near Didbrook.

Here we are freshening up the threads on the tie bars. This solves a lot of potential problems during fitting.

Then we took them on site. It's on a stretch of line just round the bend from Toddington, where in the 1980s we laid what materials we had, and the sleepers here are becoming life expired. In particular the issue is that the (concrete) sleepers here are lightweight ex military, really intended to save materials and to be used in lightly used lines. They have two hollow areas in the middle, and several are showing cracks in this area.

We put the tie bars on, then watched Dinmore Manor steam out of Toddington and gather speed towards Hayles.

Whoa - have we run over Dave? Are you alright down there?

Waiting for our line block to become confirmed, Dave decided to have a look under the white Landie to see if he could ascertain the reason why the fuel gauge never sinks below 1/4 full. The gauge stops sinking; sadly the fuel level does not stop sinking, and twice now someone has been caught out with an empty tank, while the gauge still showed 1/4 full.

2-8-0 tank 4270 was the other loco out and about today, and we see it here coming back north over Didbrook 2 bridge.

Our second job was to fit an end post to this insulated joint at the entrance to Toddington. The previous example had worn itself away. It appeared that the rail end was roughly cut at some point, and that slowly destroyed the original post.

Problem solved - although not the scratchy rail end.

We got the new end post in after a bit of s struggle, and here you can see Dave on the impact wrench doing up the nuts on the fishplate.

Job No. 2 done, now on to lunch.

Job No.3 would have been to unload the train that came from Toddington with the timbers from the crossing replacement.

That job was frustrated by the absence of the Telehandler. We ascertained that it had been put in for a service on Wednesday, was ready, but still in the dealer's yard, which was locked up on a Saturday. Well, we were willing.

4270 chugging out of Winchcombe, seen through a dirty lens. Well, in our line of work you get dirty hands, so some of that dirt seems to have got transferred. Sorry about that.

 

The next job would have been some sleeper replacement, but Bert's late arrival, a long chat with the chairman on a walkabout and the non appearance of the Telehandler meant that it was too late.

We had a better idea - tea and a chocolate brownie in the Coffeepot!

Here's one we saw earlier - the Peak on a diesel driver experience, seen at Toddington on Friday. Non-running day, eh?

 

 

On the same day we saw Neal trying to weigh the bracket from the Winchcombe entrance canopy. This has now been needle gunned clean, and is ready to go to a foundry to be copied. But one foundry wanted to know how much metal was in it, before quoting. Well, how much does a canopy bracket weigh?

Although there are several weighing machines in the Toddington station area, none of these worked, so Neal brought down his personal bathroom scales. They went up to 150Kg. Enough, we thought. And it was - the bracket came out at 95 Kg. Now for the quote.

Finally, a quickie at Broadway, on an earlier day. This year is your chance to get a picture of 4270, before it is withdrawn from service on the expiry of its ticket. We're not sure what happens after that.

Here is the big GWR tank coming into Broadway, with steam on.

Enjoy!

Rail replacement service

No, it's not a bus, we were replacing rails on Monday!

A special one off call out, and as a result only a small crew, as it wasn't one of the days we come out regularly.

We had three locations to do, and had hired in some 'ironmen' to help with the lifting.

The first location was Toddington south, where we parked the two vehicles with the kit.

We had a full possession, so ignore those signals that seem to be 'off'.

Normally the ironmen sit on the track, but of course you can't do that if one of the rails has to be changed, so they can also work standing off the track, as here.

The defective rail has already been lifted off the chairs, and the replacement is in the air being lifted in.

The next job was about a mile further down the line, in the Defford straight. Here we had to pick up the replacement rail and move it along, as it had been off loaded further down, where there was more room for the Telehandler.

The actual work site was here, at Old Farmer's bridge. Not sure if the farmer was old, or his bridge. Strange how these places get their names. On the KESR we had a PWay hut called 'Pope's cottage' - didn't know he had left the Vatican for a small holiday on the KESR?

Meet the Squats - here's a pair of them. Caused by diesel engines pulling away, we were told.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you were wondering why we are replacing certain rails, it's because of the survey we had a few months back, which revealed that we had a number of 'squats' (which we knew) and that some of them had hidden cracks below them (which we didn't know, but now that we do, we have to do something about them)

The replacement rail has to be cut to length, and then drilled at one end. the other usually has holes already.

Here is Chris doing up the refitted fishplates, watched by Peter.

 

 

 

 

That was rail No.2. Now for the third...

 

That was some distance away, back up north, at the far end of Stanway viaduct. You get on at Stanton, drive down for a bit, then turn round and reverse a fair bit, until the track gets very narrow as the single line swings over to cross the viaduct in the middle.

Those ironmen can take a ton-and-a-half, so they are quite robust and pretty heavy. Today we manhandled them on and off the truck three times. (sigh).

Once at the viaduct, we pushed the contraptions over, and into Toddington cutting. To our frustration, the site was filled with large slabs of thick polystyrene, once again. This is the second time we have been blessed with these. They almost certainly come from the building site on the edge of the cutting (see previous blog), and they are accompanied by various plastic bags and wrappers from snacks etc.

This job in the cutting was a bit more complicated, as the replacement rails were not where they needed to be, and also too long. They had been dropped in the cess, a bit out of reach of the iron men, so a lot of barring was required to get them near enough to be lifted, and eventually rolled away as in the picture.

After a lot of huffing and puffing we got both rails loaded up. The ironmen can take up to two rails, one in a special cradle on the side, the other on the cross bar below. Then its a case of pushing about half a mile.

To make things easier for next time, we also cut them roughly to size. Unfortunately we ran out of time to actually place them this time, so that's 2 1/2 jobs done.

Two of our brave volunteers are starting to look a bit weary, as they watch Walt cut the longer rail into two shorter bits.

Despite the howl of the rail saw, we did hear an approaching roar, and with the camera already out, we were able to take this snapshot of a low flying Hercules cross over the viaduct.

We then pushed the ironmen back to the trucks, carrying the final rail to its destined place somewhere north of the viaduct.

Below, a small drama was playing out as a group of ewes and their lambs escaped down the farm track and out on to the B4632.

 

The whole farming family was on the job, in two quad bikes. The escapees were herded back into the field below the viaduct, watched by another group of ewes and their lambs, thinking they were missing out on something. Even sheep get FOMO.

It's all go in the Cotswolds!

Hand rails

Monday - a day of fetching and carrying, and musing over some new ideas.

The footbridge still has a few more outstanding jobs to do, but it occurred to us that we could tick these off in time for our gala. That might encourage people to come and look. 

The biggest outstanding job is fitting the hand rails. The originals were burned at Broadway - no doubt due to old age - so we have had to have new ones made.

One piece had been kept as an example (the blue bit) and it also showed the angle at which the handrails change direction around the half way platform.

 

Our carpenter (who has already done excellent work for us) has now done the hand rails, and on Tuesday we went to pick them up.

Here is a big pile of them, 40m worth, plus the pieces with the angles in, one set concave and one set convex.

 

 

The hand rails are in Sapele and have a lovely feel. They were not cheap, but it's quality wood and will last.

We had a large timber left over - the carpenter was able to get out more of the angles than originally thought - and we took this down to our woodworking dept. in the Carriage & Wagon works, where it was gratefully received.

After putting the handrails into store - the ends now need work in order to make them all fit together - we watched the next train steam into Broadway.

This one looked quite busy, which is very pleasing (for one whose job once was to peruse profit & loss accounts and criticise them).

A couple of housekeeping items:

A gentleman contacted the office with a GWR corrugated iron hut in his garden from Patney & Chirton. We seem to have lost contact, as he didn't leave his details. Would he get in touch again (or through the blog: breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk)

Secondly, there is a lovely article about Hayles Abbey Halt in the latest edition of Trackside magazine. This blog gets a special mention - we're famous! Do go and read it, it captures what we are about very well.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

An interesting day, with bad news and good news. What is it that Groucho Marx once said?

''I got bad news and I got good news.

The bad news is: there is no good news.

The good news is: That's all the bad news I got.''

 

Well, we had both today. But read on.

 

Five of us today, and good to see Jules again. He started the day by cleaning some of the non-dressed stone of its old lime wash.

Paul and Dave were busy with Maxie. With a new coil she now runs well, but rattles a lot (is it her age, we daren't ask?) and that was fixed with some self tapping screws. She was also given 'new legs' (we quote) i.e. bits of wood under the back legs were screwed in, as they kept vibrating out and without them she doesn't run right.

Jules had a go at cleaning a corner of dust and left over cement, just to see what it would look like. As found, the Usk hut was lime washed inside, but it looked damp and seedy. We think clean stone will look more attractive, rather than with a coat of something.

Down this hole, with the chimney liner

 A while back now we bought 5m of Copex chimney liner, but the large coil hung around the 'Welfare Facility' and made a nuisance of itself. Today we decided to fit it, as the chimney area was rising, after all. Paul had been building up around a similar sized hole, using an offcut of plastic drain pipe to keep the shape.

Then at last we stuck the liner tube down the hole. If you follow this unwieldy bit of tubing round, you will see that it disappears behind Paul, reappears for a bit, disappears again, and finally comes out above his head!

People keep asking us, are you going to use that fireplace. The immediate answer is no, but we do want to make it possible. A dummy fireplace without a proper chimney would be cynical.

Jules tangos with the Copex chimney liner tube - it looks like fun!

Finally we got the tube settled down. If we have too much, we'll just put a spiral in it, to perplex future chimney sweeps!

We then laid in the last window lintel, so now we are ready to lay stone all the way round, without the constant interruptions of doors and windows.

In this picture you can see the end of the tube hanging down. Bit by bit it will end up the other way up, rising inside the chimney that still has some way to go up. This is one of the gable ends.

Then we had the bad news. Paul revealed that he had been speaking to timber yards about sourcing the wood for the trusses, which he calculated would be 11 in number. The price of building products has skyrocketed, and continues to go up, also with long delivery times, we heard. The estimated cost for the 4x2s we need would be in the region of £800! Shock, horror. We nearly choked on one of Dave's Eccles cakes.

Then the good news (Napoleon once said he didn't just need good generals, he needed them to be lucky). We had a tip off that the remains of the garden centre, stacked into piles at Toddington, contained not only lots of scrap lengths of boarding, but also lengths of 4x2 which served as joists underneath. Our colleagues at Construction & Maintenance had already raided the piles, but there was said to be more. We hot footed it to Toddington in a van. 

C&M had first pick, but there was clearly enough left for all of us, so after sifting through the piles we loaded up with a goodly pile of second hand 4x2s. Many had woodworm, but we think we got enough to select some decent ones, and will buy some preservative to clean up any infestation.

Meanwhile, back at the farm... Pete and Rob resumed work on the brick end of the platform around the buffer stop. It looks like they will be on this for several sessions yet.

 

Loaded with 4x2s, we carefully reversed the truck over the barrow crossing and up to the Usk site.

Here we unloaded it all and piled it up to one side. It needs sifting through to see what is truly useable, or partially so, and then removing all the hundreds of nails that are in there. 

Paul has decided that we will have a wall plate, and that the ends of the truss will stand in the middle of the 16 inch wall.

 

 

Further down the yard the bogie flats from Toddington, loaded with the old timbers from the crossing replaced by the contractors were being unloaded.

In the picture they have unloaded one half of one of the bogies. It wasn't easy, as the timbers still had their cast iron chairs attached. These were taken off with the impact wrench as the day progressed. There is more to do.

Our last look today is at the wall where we placed the last lintel first thing. Dave didn't stand still while we were away fetching wood, and laid in a row of 5 inch blocks from the quoin on the corner here, right up to and partially over the new lintel.

Above this row will be one last one, then it's the wall plate. Paul marked this out with one timber from Toddington on two bricks, just to show what we are aiming at. The far corner for example needs a 13 inch lift to wall plate level. How do you get there? 8 inches, and 5? Seven and 6? Do we have any five inch quoins? Are they decent? These are the sort of ruminations we had during the day.

We left for home, once again with a great feeling of satisfaction, and kind of wishing it was next Wednesday again already.