Good news - and not so good.

Saturday at Gretton.

One of the first really hot days of the summer, and only 6 people. Perhaps the holidays are having an impact. Well, you missed a chocolate cake, it was somebody's birthday.

We started off with doughnuts, leaving the cake for lunch.

Sluing jacks being set up along the alignment fault.

 

We took two Landies out to Gretton, where an alignment fault had been reported.

We observed that this coincided with a very large row of Leylandii right next to the line. They were planted back in the 1990s when the line was relaid. Their roots affect the embankment through water retention (or not) and the result is track movement above.

Nick and Dave on the two Robels.

 

We managed to move the track a few mm, and then addressed another fault nearby, where the chairs were observed moving up and down on the sleepers.

The answer to this one was to tighten the bolts, which would lift the sleepers, and then to pack under the sleepers with the Robels.

The size of this Leylandi hedge can be seen in this picture. It's also very close to the track. When it was planted the little bushes seemed small, but they have grown to substantial dimensions. We learned from an arboretum that a Leylandi is a relatively new hybrid (about 120 years old) and mankind does not know the maximum height to which they will grow - in the arboretum some plants already stood at 30 metres tall! Not a good thing to plant next to a railway line.

Jim and Bert Ferrule having a discussion, on the long, very long Gretton straight.

Just before returning to the mess coach for lunch we also packed three newish sleepers that were replaced a couple of years ago, and that were seen pumping under a passing train. Their replacement dates back to the time before the Robels, so packing would have been by hand, and not very adequate. No more!

Back at Winchcombe we caught sit of the 'Bubblecar', which had been outshopped by C&W into the sun. It's rather tasty, we must say. We think the interior still needs to be fitted, but the outside is good enough to eat.

When we returned to store our tools, we found a couple of burned out wagon frames in front of our store van. They were vandalised at the southern end of the line, the fate of everything stored there.

This one has GWR axleboxes, and a hinged side. A three planker perhaps?

 

This one still had traces of paint, and was equally burned out.

If our memory serves us right, it was labelled as a 'PIPEFIT'.

They will go back into store now.

 

After lunch we split into two teams. One went to replace a cracked fishplate in the Dixton cutting, the other was armed with a large bucket of grey-blue paint to cover some tagging on Working Lane bridge. Traces of youthful trespass were not only revealed by the tags, but also by trampled fencing and a beer can half way up the wing wall.

On our return we fell into the chairs of the coffeepot outside seating, for a ice cream and some coffee.

 

The Ivatt rolled into the station at 4 o'clock.

Unfortunately we suffered from a slow shutter release today. Pressing the shutter release does not mean that you get that picture, but one a little later, after reflection by the camera circuitry.

Winchcombe is very busy once every hour, and so it was at 4 o'clock.

As the Ivatt waited for the diesel headed train to cross it, the southbound train headed by 5081 rumbled into platform 1, under the watching eyes of our little PWay team, tired and thirsty after a day under the hot sun.

Tuesday at Broadway.

During the last week Neal had the opportunity to mount the fire bucket board on the end of the building - here it is in situ.

We've got 3 authentic fire buckets, lettered by C&W, to go on them. Before we hang them on we'd like to make some wooden disks that will fit inside just below the rim, so that they can't be filled with water or sand. The end wall is only one brick thick, and is unlikely to support such a heavy weight. If we put sand on top of that, they will look full.

 

 

The station was reasonably busy on Tuesday, and we had quite a few onlookers and people with questions. Ice cream was selling well, and we spotted a fireman staggering back to his footplate loaded with 3 Magnums and three bottles of water. It's hot work.

The Ivatt was there again, and here it is reversing past Broadway signal box. Did you notice the article in the current Trackside magazine?  In an article about 'getting it right' our box appeared in an example photograph, and in a second, double page photograph (taken in 2018, when the station wasn't even finished) they describe Broadway as 'one of the finest builds of its type' Wow! Getting heritage accurate does matter, and it does get noticed. It's our job to show what the past was like, and people may not understand, but they do notice that we cared.

Next, those quad royal poster boards for the end of the building. They appear in the 1904 opening day photograph, lots of posters on the end of the building, which was once the main entrance into the station.

The quad royals were made off site, and Alex of C&W very kindly arranged to have them lettered by Pat.

Tuesday we got the suggestion that they could be put on a train from Winchcombe to Broadway, an excellent idea. We have a railway after all. We awaited the train eagerly, and found the two boards lying down in the guards compartment. Soon they were up on trestles for the final fixing arrangements.

During the day we were visited by Growler 37 215, which needed a bit of adjusting to produce the desired vacuum in the guard's compartment. Engines were turned off and on, exhausters activated, cabs changed, and eventually the brakes did come off and the train left. All part of the fun. Almost like British Rail!

Mid afternoon the two quad royal boards were up, fitting in beautifully with the fire bucket board.

Now for the posters... we tried hard to find period ones, and we hope you will agree that we did well. Those along the platform side of the building are from the 1930s, characterised by a large picture and a few words about the destination.

Turn of the century posters were more verbose, almost like newspaper advertisements.

From L to R -

- Cork, via Fishguard

- Great Horse Sales of Wrexham

- Art and Industrial Exhibition of Wolverhampton

- Stratford Races.

We were particularly pleased to find the last one, as it would almost certainly have been a poster used on our line. Stratford Race Course is just a few stops further along, after all.

The last shot of the day shows:

A hole in the ground, and stacks of building materials, with rusty containers. We would very much like to make a start on the P2 waiting room and canopy. The longer we wait, the higher the prices.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A full complement of 5 today - was it the lure of someone's birthday, and the expectation of some cake?

Jules and Dave were early again, and at 08.25 we found them on the gable end, one mix already made and being applied. They don't hang around, these lads.

You may recall that we laid out a line of 9 inch blocks last week, and this is what they were bedding down today.

After finishing off that line of weighty blocks, we put up the second lot of trestles along the Malvern side, and Jules then transferred his activities to the ends of the trusses. He's building stone and mortar around them, so that they are enveloped in the top of the wall.

 

 

The trains out today were headed by P&O and our summer visitor, Ivatt 46521.

The Ivatt is waiting for P&O to drift in and exchange tokens.

 

Looking the other way, and from the slight vantage point of a pile of bricks, we see Jules in the middle of the newly positioned trestle, while Dave is placing a few snecks to level off a bit of a slope we have on the left.

Paul on the right is building up under the end of the wall plate.

Having built up under the wall plate, Paul decided to set out the gable end, as we are very much on the point of building it.

That chimney liner sausage fought back! It was persuaded to point upwards to the gable, instead of downwards through the window. As we build up the gable end, we will need to incorporate it, until it will get its own chimney in engineering blues, somewhere towards the middle.

Having levelled the previous course with a few snecks, Dave asked for a few more chunky blocks, and after some debate we decided on a row of 7 inch ones.

Here Dave is bedding down the first. A second followed soon after.

 

 

 

Elsewhere on the site the chaps from Construction and Maintenance continued with back filling and shaping the site.

More earth was found opposite - a pile that has been there for years - and that was deposited on the northern end, where a slope down to a gully was shaped. That was then vibrated down with Broadway's roller.

The other side of the yard has several dumpy bags of random and broken bricks (with which we can't do much) and the Telehandler was used to bring some of these over. It then drove across the front of the Usk hut to drop off a bag full of bricks, which were spread out as part of the fill.

Paul's handiwork - the official start to the gable end. One small little triangular bit of stone. A landmark. Note how the angle of the stone reflects the angle of the line. While sorting out the many dressed stones into piles, we separated out any that appeared to have some sort of an angle to them, for just this purpose. Let's hope we can find enough of them.

Lunch time was taken 'al fresco', but under the tree as it was cooler there.

John, Paul, Dave and Jules are enjoying a large 'birthday cake' chunk of brownie, made by Mrs. Blogger. We had 8 pieces, and managed to put away 6 of them, given that John also had hot cross buns on offer, while John R, who dropped in later, brought a bag of doughnuts. Embarras de richesse...

John is also looking ahead, as we see him here with the original Usk hut door, which has finally come out of 4 years' storage in a GWR goods van. 

Our friendly carpenter repaired the frame earlier, and at the same time made the door fit the slightly amended height. However, the paint scheme was still a totally crazed chocolate brown.

With the dry summer months now upon us, this is a good time to do the woodwork restoration, even if we won't be fitting the door just yet.

Here is a mid afternoon shot of the gable end. Dave is pointing his work on the left, while Paul has been working on the corner on the right, where a certain elevation can be seen. That's the start of the gable slope.

As Paul was cleaning his spot at the end of the day, the Telehandler came by again across the front of the building, this time with a bucket of earth. This was spread out over the bricks that you can see.

The Usk team finish at 3pm, given the early start, and then head off to the Coffeepot to have tea and ice cream with their mates from the PWay gang.

Here's the hut at the end of the day, with the Telehandler having a rest under the tree. A C&M volunteer has spent two working days cleaning all the brickwork on our wall of excess mortar. Hope you can see that - or at least appreciate his effort in the unrelenting sun.

Here's the Usk hut at the end of the day, with the Hessian applied in two layers, to protect the mortar from the unrelenting sun. We put a black tarp over the top too, the mortar likes a bit of a fug underneath to go off properly.

You can sort of see the shape of the chimney now. We'll cut off the end of the flue pipe, once we know how long it has to be.

In the foreground is the earth that the Telehandler brought, now raked over into a new layer. Those are Usk hut stones, but more or less all that there is left now. We're steering it so that the last ones to be laid on the gable ends will be the 5 and 6 inch blocks, which are lighter to lift to those heights. Very few 8 and 9 inch blocks remain now.

Not so good news on the heritage front.

We learned today that it has been decided to fit loudspeakers (!) to our heritage 1904 Broadway station. This on top of the CCTV cameras, and after 4 years of operating perfectly well without any loudspeakers. The reason is that they are said to be 'for the benefit of the customers'. 

Currently the station has a hand held loud hailer, which was seen in use occasionally during the gala. On a normal operating day it is not required. Broadway is a simple station, with just the one train on the one platform.

Despite assurances to the contrary, these loudspeakers will be intrusive, as they already are on our other stations. They will not only be intrusive visually like the CCTV cameras, but also in another dimension, i.e. accoustically. The peace of our rural Victorian bywater will be disturbed by the braying announcements of where the next train is going, and of lost rucksacks.

Here is what the loudspeakers on our other stations look like:

Loudspeaker at Winchcombe

Loudspeaker on a stick, at Winchcombe

Loudspeaker on a gable end, at Cheltenham Race Course

Loudspeaker inside the Victorian canopy, at Toddington

A second loudspeaker, inside the original canopy at Toddington.

 Cabling everywhere.

Unfortunately the railway's Heritage Group was not consulted about these plans, and pleas to respect our Victorian heritage were waved away after a fait accompli. The GWR Trust ('to create and maintain a railway museum for the benefit of the public'), we learned today, has agreed to fund the purchase cost. 

What to do?