The trusses go up.

Saturday with the gang.

A good summer's day on Saturday, warm and windy. Instructions were to replace a timber under the Broadway CWR breather, using the spare we dropped off 2 weeks ago.

Tony and Bert Ferrule making a 'plan de campagne' for the day.

 

 

 

We took two Landies to the Little Buckland entrance, where we met P&O on its way to Broadway with the ECS for the first train of the day.

 

With the train ahead of us, we drove up the trackbed to the breather, then allowed the train to return and took a possession for half an hour - all that was available - to change the timber.

P&O runs back down from Broadway with the first train of the day. On the left is the sewage station, but the ash trees are now so high you can no longer see it. But you can still smell it!

Digging out the defective timber under the breather.

 

 

The defective timber was slid out, confirming the decision to change it, as it was all mushy inside. It was second hand when it went in back in 2017. That said, the replacement is also second hand - hope it lasts a bit longer this time.

 

We managed to change the timber and tamp it with a Robel just inside the 30 minutes we were allowed - that made us feel pretty good, as it was hard work.

Giving up the possession again, we watched Foremarke Hall take the second train into Broadway.

 

 

 

 

 

We followed the train to Broadway, where we parked on the top of the wide embankment there. The 'plan de campagne' allowed for tea and a bun in the Broadway cafe as a reward for completing the first job.

7903 Foremarke Hall pauses during its run round at Broadway. Rods down too !

 

 

 

After hard labour came the relaxation, as we availed ourselves of some concessionary mugs of tea, although the cakes were full price. The railway has to make some money somewhere.

 

After the tea came even harder labour - shovelling ballast. It was reported that the shoulders at Laverton Bridge could be better supported, but on the occasion of a passing train we also noticed some pumping immediately north of the bridge - a traditional spot for a dip - and we decided to address that straight away, even if not on our list.

Loading ballast into a barrow at Laverton, scraping it from wherever it was available.

When P&O came by again from Broadway it was a magnificent sight, seen here from the Laverton approach road. After slowing down for the worksite, the driver had just cracked the regulator open again.

In the later afternoon our intention was to empty the Elk bogie flat of the remaining ex Toddington pointwork, but Dave D, our resident Telehandler driver, was involved in a conundrum.

How to put back the spring in the pull cord of one of our machines? This puzzled him for a very long time, and then there was no more time to deal with the unloading. And the spring is still out ! The advice of a fellow ganger was sought, and we are hopeful for a solution on Wednesday.

A planned rail replacement exercise on Monday has had to be cancelled due to a lack of volunteers registering, which is a shame.

Sunday with a family from Kyiv.

A young family of 6 from Kyiv arrived in our village 3 weeks ago. They lived in a block of flats on the eastern side of the river. As Soviet troops neared the capital, they fled to Poland in the first instance.

The father showed us a video of what happened next. A neighbour filmed it - a cruise missile ploughed right slap bang into the middle of the adjoining block of flats. 

To cheer them up a bit, and to give them some human contact in our village, yours truly went round and volunteered his 2022 free shareholder tickets. The offer of a day out on the railway was gratefully accepted.

Setting off from Toddington, and waved goodbye by a well known stationmaster.

At CRC, in front of our 3 cylinder Pacific (OK, not as big as a broad gauge P36 locomotive, but still) and the children happy after a Magnum each. The proof is in the gold wrapper!

The idea of a (largely) volunteer run steam railway was completely unknown to them, but they loved it. Broadway, they felt, gave off a very antique atmosphere. We count that as a win.

Tuesday at Broadway.

More finishing off work on the P2 side of the footbridge, while we wait for progress on 3 other jobs that we have in mind. Yours truly put a top coat on one side of the boarding on P2, Neal completed the joints of the P2 handrails, while John was at Toddington finishing off the ladder on the recently erected yard lamp.

Business was good today, but outside it was a car park rodeo. Because a neighbour is building an extension there are builders' vehicles everywhere, and our car park (intended only for those GWSR staff who are working at Broadway) was full. Three cars from the garage were parked on the double yellow line at the start of the drive, another car was occupying the turn in intended for visiting coaches.

And yes, we had visiting coaches. Two of them in fact. Where were they to go? One was parked with two wheels on the footpath. This has a number of conduits, with lightweight covers designed for foot traffic only. Half a coach axle is....3.5 tons!

Coach half parked on the pavement on the drive.

The second coach was parked outside the station entrance. The 'WAY IN' sign survived by a miracle - how long will it be before someone hits it?

 

Coach half parked on the pavement outside the station.

In order not to block the road to the B&B at the end, the coach also parked with two wheels on the pavement. In fact, it was the second vehicle to park on the pavement today, an MPV earlier did the same. Here too there are plastic conduits below ground.

The answer to parking on the pavement, and protecting the 'WAY IN ' sign we suggest, is the placing of cast iron bollards along the edge of the pavement. The traditional design with half a cannonball on the end would be fine; they are commercially available.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

The first hottie of the summer! A fair 23 degrees in the air, but with a relentless sun today it felt really warm. Except for those working under the oak tree of course. We even had a PWayer come over gasping, to sit in our shade.

On the way to work this morning we met a very Cotswolds phenomenon:

The pack of the North Cotswolds hunt, being driven from one village to another by four men in brown dust coats (think: Open All Hours) riding bicycles and equipped with whips. They are known as 'whipper-ins'. Not that they needed whipping, those dogs were clearly having great fun. The one on the right lolloped through the long grass to overtake his mates.

On to serious business. Today we were going to fit the trusses on top of our stone walls.

John saws the first bolt to size.

There were a couple of last minute jobs to do, such as sawing off the excess bolt lengths that stuck out.

As we didn't have a metal saw, we went cap in hand to C&W across the track, and there we were very generously lent a hacksaw, which did the job. They even gave us one with a new blade. You couldn't ask for more. One department helping another.

Our pile of trusses, all ready to go.

 

 

John and yours truly shared the job of sawing, as it was quite hard work.

Each truss had three of these bolts, and there were 13 trusses to do, all in all.

Here is our little stock, with more to come from Paul, who was mid-way through knocking up the last two.

 

 

 

 

When all was ready, we started bringing them round.

We'd been giving the erection of the trusses some thought as to the modus operandi, but in the end thought we should be able to do it the same way as it was done in 1853. That is to say, reach them up by hand. There was no Telehandler during Victorian times, no crane.

Our grand plans were interupted by trains of course, such as Foremarke Hall coming in with a train from Broadway.

We got the impression that the trains were slightly better filled than before the gala, when there were a couple of very dire days.

 

We had Dave and Paul at the Cotswolds end, and Jules at the Malvern end. Yours truly was deputised to help lift each truss up to Dave and Paul, then race inside the building, where a long plank with a 'V' cut out at one end would be used to support the far end of each truss as it as passed across the void.

It worked perfectly.

 

Soon we had several trusses lined up across the building.

The trusses even looked pretty parallel - surely not so quickly? Probably just lucky.

An overview of the trusses being erected, about half way through the operation.

Once about half the trusses were up, Paul laid a straight edge across them to see how they were lining up. Not a lot to do here really, they were fine.

Note the row of 'Bird's Mouth' openings, with which the trusses sit on the wall plate.

See also the stonework between the truss ends, which was placed by Dave last week, leaving gaps for each leg.

 

 

 

Half way through we had our break, with a choice of three cakes. They needed careful planning, so that we ate them spread across the day. It was 8 hours long, after all. We start early at 8am, mainly because we all wake up naturally with these early dawns we have been getting of late.

The team acknowledges the supportive waves we get from passengers in each train.

Elsewhere on site the PWay team was unloading the 'ELK' bogie of its turnout components, left over from the professional track replacement by contractors at Toddington during the closed season.

It's getting a wee bit crowded in the PWay yard now, after stocking all those concrete sleepers, and the trackwork from Toddington.

 

 

 

Towards the end of the day the trusses were starting to look really good.

There was a whole row of them to see, giving the Usk building its final outline, but for the chimney. That liner pipe still has to go somewhere.

With the trusses up, Paul, Dave and Jules spent the afternoon bedding each individual one down, so that it sat nicely on its bird's mouth, and fitted in with the edge of the wall.

Trains kept on running.

 

 

Then suddenly there was a crescendo roar, we rushed to open our camera, and there went a C130 Hercules.

The giant plane seemed to use our station as a turning point from the Vale of Evesham, banking steeply up the valley past Sudeley castle. It banked at almost 45 degrees, just a few hundred feet above the ground.

Marvelous.

This end of the day shot shows the line of 13 trusses, all now in place. It took a whole day, and no blocks were laid.

Next week should see us resume, further building up under the wall plates, and then our interest will turn towards the gable ends.

As we washed up to go home, we saw P&O set off from P2 and roll past the new, old little building. It already looks perfectly in place there.

A look over the fence - Helston Railway.

The Helston Railway is Britain's most southerly standard gauge preserved railway. It's right in the tip of Cornwall, not far from the Lizard, where it was originally intended to go, but was never completed.

The little preserved line currently operates over 1.25 miles on a stretch about 3/4 of the way along the original branch line, which started at Gwinear Road and was 8.5 miles long. All the track is having to be relaid. It runs from a temporary station Prospidnick to Trutthall Halt, a platform with a Pagoda that served a nearby house. Engineering facilities and a one road loco shed are in the middle, at Trevarno.

 

 

 

 

 

This photograph of a map in the Pagoda shows the extent of the current line, from top left (with a few more yards intended) to the start of a curve in the centre. That is Trutthall Halt, from where the trackbed describes an 'S' curve over a viaduct (in good condition, we learned) to the outskirts of Helston. That's as far as they can go; the original station approach at Helston is now covered by an industrial estate.

An extension in the direction of Gwinear Road is for the longer term.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On arrival at Prospidnick, we found this enormous enamel sign, formerly at the GWR junction, explaining the destinations possible when taking the branch line.

It fails to mention that only Helston is connected to the line, the other three destinations were all covered by horse buses at the time.

Interestingly, these early buses were the same (if not exactly the same) ones as those that ran between Winchcombe and Cheltenham in 1905, before our line was finished.

 

 

One of these early buses can be seen below:

So the Helston Railway and the GWSR have something in common.... (another thing we have in common is the care for authenticity with which we rebuilt our little halt).

The stretch of line with which the railway started 20 years ago didn't have an actual station to use (except for Trutthall Halt, completely rebuilt), so the other end from where trains start is at a spot called Prospidnick, where station facilities are being built as we write.

Part of the charm of this little country branch line is how to find it: It is well signposted on the B road from Helston to St Ives, and then you have to take a narrow little single track road which has a passing place straight away, leading you to realise: Aha, so this is going to get rural.

The bridge at Prospidnick

After a mile or so you end up under a very high bridge. Here you carry on through, but shortly afterwards there is a sharp bend to the right and here you go straight on up a private road. As the signs have swivelled a bit, head for the Trevarno Organic Skin Care shop! (it's not the left turn which would be more instinctive, but that leads to a private house)

Our doubts only increased as we drove up the little road, as this was at the top:

It was a farmyard, with a large lorry with lime that was being tipped into agricultural machinery, and distributed in a great white cloud on to an adjoining field.

The wrong address? No! Check out the signal post in the distance. You are on the right track. Keep going.

The signal post that shows the way - also the little post at the bottom.

The eagle eyed among you will look past the agricultural machinery at the end of the track, and glimpse the roof of a DMU. This is your destination.

Looking the other way down the same track, you realise that these farm outbuildings all house a collection of early railway preservation project bits.

That said, they do include a RRV, mini digger and large dumper, some quite impressive kit. There's also a boiler in there, somewhere.

 

 

This is Prospidnick. It's not one of the original stations along the line, but the current terminus northwards, and main access point for passengers.

 

This stationary train, headed by a diesel shunter, comprises a shop and ticket office in the GUV, and a very nice cafe in a two unit DMU behind. We ate in the cafe twice - it had better cakes than the cafes along the harbour in nearby St. Ives!

The big white post in the picture is one of two now being placed. They will form the new entrance to the site from the road (in future, some hundred yards before the bridge) and hence avoid driving through the farmyard. They are believed to come from a L/C at Gwinear Road.

The view north, towards Gwinear Road. Cutting infilled....

The line ran in a short cutting here and that was infilled. The big 360 in the top RH corner of the picture above and the fresh earth show that removing the infill has been going on, and we learned that the idea is to dig out enough to move up the DMU and GUV, so as to leave enough room by the big white L/C post for the trains to start from there. Going further north is not in the current plan, and there are various obstructions (but nothing is impossible). See also the summary at the end of this report.

The former St. Austell GWR footbridge.

 

Also on the Prospidnick site is the GWR latticework footbridge from St. Austell.

From speaking to volunteers on site we doubt if it will ever be used. It was hoped that it would come with a little dowry to have it repaired and installed, but that did not happen. It now needs money and labour, which are in short supply, as you can imagine.

You wonder also how a footbridge would be necessary on a single track railway.

 

 

 

The ticket office / shop housed in the GUV has a very nice GWR interior bench. This comes from Gwinear Road station, which is closed of course.

 

Once you have bought your ticket you have a little adventurous walk in front of you.

You need to cross that big bridge that we saw on the way here. It's OK, no trains run along this bit, so it's a little adventure and a view through the trees.

 

 

You pass by a brake van that serves as a stop block, and the actual platform and your train are on the other side in the distance. There's also an interesting little museum in that grey Mink just visible behind the van.

 

 

Here then is the actual Prospidnick platform, until they've dug out enough of the infilled cutting to move everything to the other side, where you parked.

 

The platform is made of panels of grilles resting on stacks of sleepers.

The track curves away uphill through a cutting lined with Rhododendrons.

 

Your actual train consists of a DMU trailer and an 0-6-0 Peckett shoving from behind. That has a certain charm, and it reminded us of the early operations of the GWSR, when Cadbury No.1 pushed a Mk.1 driving trailer back from Didbrook. We can assure you though that here both sides of the DMU trailer have been painted the same colour....

Visiting Peckett 2000 about to set off at Prospidnick.

 

This is the front end of the train. 

We asked very nicely, and after the application of some orange we were allowed to film the Peckett pushing its DMU up the 1 in 70 hill.

 

You can see the resulting film of that departure here:

https://youtu.be/qHWQhjdgPHs

Looking back past the pushing Peckett at Trevarno, towards Prospidnick.

 

Once on board you soon reach the mid section site of Trevarno, where the loco shed is.

Trevarno loco shed.

The little loco shed had something convincing about it, even though no passengers will alight here now, since the line was extended to Trutthall Halt.

Not long afterwards you reach the little halt of Trutthall ( a nearby Manor), which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but that is why it is so beautiful.

There are lovely views here. The halt has been rebuilt with admirable care, including the platelayers' hut just up the line.

The colourful view north from the end of Trutthall halt. Everything is immaculate.

Inside the little corrugated iron Pagoda there is a small museum. The train doesn't run round though, so you'll have to be quick, or drive there on a non running (but working) day and take your time, as we did.

We had to go back a second time, as the first running day didn't happen, due to a certification issue with one of the staff. No matter though, we found plenty to see, and the cafe was worth a second visit.

This then is the timetable for that bus to the Lizard in the picture outside Winchcombe.

It replaced a number of private horse buses. The (rather intermittent) Helston Railway magazine tells of a man who was in a hurry to get from Helston to the Lizard. He asked for the fastest of the horse drawn buses, and on advice, sat in the 'Fairy'. 'Are we all there?', asked the coachman. A voice then explained that Mrs. So-and-so was busy shopping, and Mr. So-and-so was having his hair cut at the barber's!

Roll on the train, with its timetable. But the extension down the Lizard peninsula was never built.

The bucolic view of Trutthall halt, from the road bridge. Is this beautiful, or what?

The currently reinstated track stops immediately after the halt, under the road bridge.

Looking south from the road bridge. Helston is across the valley in the distance.

There seem to be no major impediments to returning at least to the outskirts of Helston, except agreements from land owners. The 6 arch Cober (or Lowertown) viaduct is reportedly in good condition. In fact we noticed how many of the stone buildings in Cornwall looked very robust. The nearby Porthleven clocktower for example, although appearing in numerous photographs and battered when storms hit the Cornwall coast, looked remarkably solid to us when we saw it.

Readers might be interested in the current state of the stations along the Helston branch (info from their museum):

Helston: Station site developed into a sheltered housing complex. The goods shed still exists as a community centre, together with part of the platform; the trackbed has been swallowed up into an industrial estate.

Trutthall Halt: Rebuilt to original condition.

Nancegollen: Also developed into an industrial estate, but part of the platform remains. This is the next one north of Prospidnick.

Praze: Girder bridge removed, and a house built on the station site.

Gwinear Road: Trackbed ploughed under, but branch line platform, stationmaster's house and cattle dock remain.

Do pay the Helston Railway a visit when you're down there, it has a certain charm to it. And the nearby scenery is stunning.