During the diesel gala.

Saturday during the diesel gala.

A normal working day for the PWay, but heavily influenced by the 3 train timetable during the 3 day diesel gala. They didn't leave much room for actual work on the track, in between the trains.

 

 

 

 

At Toddington our newly acquired RRV has had a first proper service from a specialised company. It's quite a sophisticated vehicle, so needs a good maintenance programme.

The day at Toddington (Thursday, actually) also gave us the opportunity to attach the brass STEVIE name plate to the panel that Walt has repainted.

In due course the whole vehicle will have a refresher coat of that yellow.

 

On Saturday then we had our tea and doughnuts, then set off to get the Landies.

On the way back to the tool van we met the first diesel hauled passenger train, just entering Winchcombe station.

Wheel deep in the wheat...

We loaded up with kit for two jobs - fishplate greasing with the Interflon backpacks, and two sets of replacement fishplates.

Following the first Landie through the deep grass from Working Lane reminded us of the 1946 Punch poem about the K&ESR, which started with:

Ever seen a railway train,

Wheel deep in the wheat?

 

We ploughed on up the hill until we got to the top, where the line curves as it comes out of Greet tunnel.

What is wrong with that backpack?

 

 

 

The idea was to get one team on the Interflon, while the other examined two possibly cracked fishplates.

However, once again the backpack pumps proved difficult. One clogged after a while despite vigorous shaking (but we have now worked out where, and how to free it it) but the other now failed to pump at all - a broken piston seal is suspected. That slowed the fishplate greasing by 50%, unfortunately.

 

 

The first train to come by was actually one hauled by our most interesting visitor, 55019 Royal Highland Fusilier. While waiting for it to appear, Nick phoned ahead for some bacon baps.

Hallo? Bacon baps to my door?

Mobile phone reception at the Greet tunnel mouth is not all it's cracked up to be. 

Ah! Got a signal at last....

There's no picture of the Deltic coming out of the tunnel, as we took a video of it instead:

https://youtu.be/daqen8IESwc

Annoyingly (for the cameraman) all the tractive effort seemed to have been expended inside the tunnel, and the train just sort of rolled out, with another Deltic burst just as it came past. Pleasingly though, it was well filled.

Trains crossed at Gotherington during the gala, so the Deltic met the class 37 there, and this is it coming past again a few minutes later.

Just to the left is the garden of the Royal Oak pub, a great place to drink and watch trains at the bottom of the garden. From personal experience - no relation, obv.

 

 

 

The best bit of the class 37 was that it brought our bacon bap order...

Here it is, in the grass, with the train just vanishing into the tunnel.

 

This is one of the best bits on the GWSR.

Customers can buy them too, of course. We don't even get a staff discount, but they are worth it.

 

 

We chomped through the bacon buttie for an early lunch, and tried to fix the Interflon pump, but without much success, seeing that we didn't have the sort of tools for what was largely made of plastic. A keying hammer is not quite right.

Then the Deltic returned from Cheltenham. A number of trains seemed to pause here for the outer home by the tunnel mouth to be cleared.

After that, Dave and Tony continued fishplate greasing, taking over from Tim, who started at the tunnel. Tony was the lookout for him.

We had a train about every 45 minutes, and as it was diesel gala day, there was a different one on every train. We could see people running at Winchcombe (where trains also crossed) to get from one train, quick, into the other.

The Peak came this way, and...

...the class 47 came that.

The sky became a bit threatening during the day, but actual rain never came.

The Sulzer engined 5081 drifted to a crawl by the Royal Oak, then accelerated again as the signal by the tunnel mouth came off. The puff of smoke gave the picture a bit of life - diesel loco pictures can look very static.

The fishplate examination team returned from their mission, and the Interflonners called it a day, as it is a bit back breaking bending down for hours at an end. They did something like a mile, having to zig-zag from side to side as we only had the one backpack on the go. That really slows you down.

We returned to Winchcombe in the afternoon, as we had an order for 4 x 9ft bullhead rail posts.

Cutting rail makes a comet rail of sparks, so we waited for the train to pass.

What are you thinking about? Nothing much....

The class 20 takes out its train, next to the Bubblecar.

Nick's turn to cut rail today.

We didn't know what the 4 posts were intended for, but a request is a request, so there they are!

Our last shot of Saturday is of the Deltic again, as it's so popular. Here its is by the bracket signal outside our C&W workshops.

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A full complement of 5 again, and a few visitors, which is always interesting. The day started with bad weather though. The forecast was for 5% percent rain, but we got 100% several times, and even the shelter of the oak tree didn't protect us from getting wet. Thoughts turned to throwing a tarpaulin over the trusses....

 

 

As usual, our late arrival at 08.30 saw Jules and Dave already well into the day, with Maxie the Mixer puttering away and a first mix just about ready for laying outside blocks on the gable end by the tree.

 

We sorted through our piles and provided Jules with all the 9 inch blocks that we still had, including one with a missing corner. Beggars can't be choosers - in principle every block has to go on. In practice, it's actually only most of them. 8 inch blocks are nearly all gone as well, so we put the handful of remainders on a single pallet, and were able to cast to one side two empty ones, so making more space around the site. That felt good.

 

Dave joined Jules on the same face, and worked the left hand side, with the aim of meeting in the middle.

On the opposite side, the southern gable end, we found Paul.

Paul was laying a row all by himself, quietly and without any fuss. Occasionally there would be a request for more mortar.

During a break - we're not the youngest, as you know - he had a peek through the window to see how Jules and Dave were getting on. Having met in the middle, at the tree end, Dave and Jules realised that they now had two courses of blocks on the outside, but nothing to back them up on the inside. So the trestle outside was dismantled, and re-erected on the other side of the door.

Our fifth very busy volunteer was John. He's on a mammoth multi-week task of removing all the embedded nails from the free 4x2s we got from Toddington and Lydney, but today he also found the time to clean and primer the door. It's an original, somewhat time worn, but still sound.

 

 

Mid morning we had a little break, and fought over whose cake we were going to eat.

What we like about the Usk project is the social side - it's so nice to talk to the others...

After cake and coffee it was back inside for backing up. The access is rather awkward - through the door,  then immediately up a ladder. If there's not someone already up there, standing in your way.

Here's a shot through the big window (the view that Paul would have had earlier) showing Jules and Dave inside, backing up the 8 and 9 inch blocks put up along the front last week and today.

We are very glad that we commissioned those 10mm thick galvanised lintels, as there is clearly a lot of weight in stone on top of them. They're not going to rot.

Here's an unusual view of Paul, taken through the doorway. He's working his way along with that new row, and you can see that it too will need backing up. That's planned for next week, we have already agreed.

We tried to get shots for you of both Dave and Jules in close up (not through the window) but that was a challenge, as space is limited there. This is Dave working his corner, with the recently laid 9 inch blocks outside visible in the top LH corner.

The same shot of Jules was tricky. Eventually we went for a sort of 'selfie', by which the camera looks back. It sort of worked. At least you can see what he was up to. Your blogger is also in the shot, at least partly. Well, it was a 'selfie'....

During a pause for Paul, we snapped the front facade to see what he had done. The whole row was in, bar one block. He hadn't actually got it yet, so after establishing that the gap was 13 inches wide, we went and got him a 13 inch 5 inch high block.

That fitted perfectly, so after preparing a bed of mortar Paul can be seen slotting the final block in its place here. The earlier blocks of his are in the foreground, with the 'green' mortar around them.

Later we had a second opportunity to snap Dave, and this shot also shows Jules' work in the foreground, with just a short gap in between.

Next week we're going to fill that gap, and add another layer, then move over to the other side as mentioned earlier.

This is our end of the day shot, before the vital hessian went on to hide it all. Paul's row of blocks is complete, and as the gable end rises, the courses can be seen here to be getting shorter.

No work was done on the chimney liner, but that must come soon. It needs to pop out in the middle at the top.

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Now last week there was a request for some old pictures to compare, so we have fished out a few representative ones.

Below is the earliest picture that we have of the Usk hut. There is a slightly earlier one on line, but we don't have any rights over it, and don't know the author.

 

 

This picture was taken in May 2017, about the time we first considered actually removing the stone built weighbridge hut and transporting the whole caboodle back to the railway. 

The stonework over the big window has fallen down after the window rotted. There is ivy all over the building.

 

 

Taken at the same time, this picture taken from the entrance by the road shows the collapse and decay of the building. It certainly looks a lot fresher now! 

The plate in the roadway for weighing the road vehicles used to be in the bottom  RH corner, but was already missing when we arrived. The corresponding pit was filled in.

The next pictures were taken in March 2018, the year we dismantled the building.

All the ivy has been removed, and we dug an exploratory ditch around the bottom, to see how far down the stonework went. We think it very likely that the ground around the building was raised in its lifetime (of 150 years) so it looks a bit low here.

Note the failing lintel over the little window.

 

This picture now shows the door, which just had a bolt and was ajar.

It is likely that the bottom of the little ditch around it represents the original ground level, as in the picture the doorstep of brick (i.e. added later) covers the bottom of the door, and you stepped down into the building.

 

Our final picture of 4 years ago (yes, 4 years now!) shows the building from the front, where the big sliding window was. Dislodged stones surround it (some stones were taken to the edge of the site and dumped there by someone prior to us arriving) and there is a new big hole in the corner.

 

That hole, we heard, was made by a lorry that passed along the road, saw the burger van on the other side, screeched to a stop and reversed on to the site to turn round or park, and ran backwards into the corner of the building.

Having built a lot of it now, we found it interesting to see that there is almost a hollow space between the outer blocks and inner backing up, at least on this corner. There were also simple barge boards.

Mrs. Blogger and Mike Rose, a local supporter who has helped us a great deal, can be seen surveying the scene in the distance.

The question in all our hearts was of course: Would we ever succeed in demolishing it? Getting it back to Winchcombe? And - rebuild it successfully, block by block?

Follow next week's exciting installment!