A special train.

Saturday at Stanley Pontlarge.

Things are back to normal - we're running steam trains again, we are used to Covid and are all inoculated, and Saturday's gang was 10 strong, an excellent figure. And that was without our regular Dave, so we had a few doughnuts left at the end of the day, as Dave wasn't there to hoover them up.

Here we are all lined up, ready to get on to the track at Stanley Pontlarge.

We're one Landie short - the blue one is under repair. It's got an 'S' plate, which means it's 24 years old - gasp! So it's got a few little issues that need sorting out. It's a diverse little fleet, headed by our Citroen tipper truck.

Last in line is Steve's VW camper van, which is even older, as it figures in some pictures of a track walk during the very earliest days of the railway.

 

 

 

 

The first thing we had to do was set out the site warning boards, and then let the first train out of CRC pass.

It was Foremarke Hall ON Saturday, the second steamer being 35006 P&O. 

 

 

We came to address the big dip in the line reported a couple of weeks ago, about which we wrote in the blog. It's nearly two panels long, so not something you just lift and pack a bit. Armed with 10 good men though, we felt more confident.

At Stanley Pontlarge there isn't much room to park any vehicles. As we have to drive up and down the line to place the warning boards, at some point we have to turn round and cross our own cars. The undergrowth now starts at just over 3m from the rail head, and that make sit impossible to respect the minimum 6ft distance from the track, and still get out of the truck on the other side.

What also happens is that as we have to travel close to the track the wheels nibble at the ballast keeping the sleepers in line. Note the ridge of ballast down the middle here - it should be up against the sleepers, which are now exposed.

Looking the other way, you an see that we are parked hard up against the brambles (and can't get out on that side) while the distance to the track is only just the bare minimum required.

We really need a flail to cut back the undergrowth along the haul road.

Our ROV could be equipped with a flail, it is worth mentioning.

In this picture we have all our tools out and have started to position the pan jacks. For that we have to dig holes in the ballast. Although the air temperature was only 21 on Saturday, it was extraordinarily hot under the sun. Very tiring. Hats are being worn to prevent sunburn. We lost one of our volunteers not long ago to a virulent melanoma on his head, which eventually killed him. A personal friend of yours truly had one on the back of his neck (he had no idea, it was discovered during a medical to be a main line fireman) and he eventually died at the very young age of 37. So we now wear hats, and smear on the stuff. Ours is an outdoor occupation.

Here is the site of the big, long dip. It's not really possible to photograph, unless you have a telephoto lens, which smartphones don't have of course.

The guilty party is that big oak tree on the right, and it had 4 large fruit trees in its immediate vicinity too, so we reckon that copse has been sucking moisture out of the ground here, causing the ground to subside under the weight of trains.

Under the direct influence of the sun it was very hot, and it suddenly struck us that the oldest and wisest of us had congregated in a particular spot.

The shade!

 

Next to the big long dip we also had a twist fault, as the dip was larger on the side with the trees than on the other.

After tamping 4 areas around each sleeper at one end for 20m or so, we did the same again on the other (non tree) side, in order to return the track to level here.

Those that weren't on the Robels scraped together spare ballast with shovels from all around.

 

 

 

The last job of the day was to straighten the same stretch of track. With one side dipped lower than the other, a short curve had developed in the area of the copse.

We addressed this by digging the sleeper ends out here, then jacking the track sideways as much as we could. We achieved some improvement, but a proper tamping machine like an 07 would do a better job here, and not take all day, as we did.

 

 

 

 

We were jolly glad to return to the Coffeepot on completing the job. Unfortunately we have two more like this to do... That'll be for Wednesday then.

 

 

Tuesday at Winchcombe.

A one-off today: A special train to take the Bubble Car and 70 sleepers to Toddington.

First thing in the morning the 03 shunter came down from Toddington, armed with a MACAW and the SR Queen Mary brake.

This was before the ECS working to CRC.

Here they are being reversed into one of the PWay sidings.

70 redundant sleepers have been set aside for use at Toddington in building an additional coal bunker. These sleepers are all useless for the PWay in one way or another, so it's a good clearance of the space.

The Winchcombe Telehandler was used to stack the sleepers on the MACAW. They have never seen such a freshly repainted sleeper wagon before! This one is privately owned. A second MACAW is also being repainted a few yards away.

The train also included a couple of GWR wagons from the PWay extension train. We forget why they were going to Toddington (on loan for a while), but below is the train as it made its way under the Hayles Abbey road bridge.

Before leaving, the Bubble Car was also attached to the consist, so we have a very unusual train here for you to see. 

The Bubble Car was painted by C&W and while there, contractors removed some legacy sheets with asbestos in them from under the floor, so it is now ready for the interior to be fitted again.

The special train passing Hayles Abbey halt.

Hi from Alex.

As the train trundled through Hayles Abbey halt we got a cheery wave from Alex, who was guard for this special journey.

The beauty of Broadway.

One of our bridge engineers took a lovely picture at Broadway, which we thought we'd share with you:

A colour picture, with 7903 Foremarke Hall just arriving.

The same picture in Black & White.

Nothing in these pictures suggests that it is not 1905 (OK, the locomotive is younger), but look what can be achieved if you want to. You just have to want to.

Pictures by John Fancote, with kind permission.

We've also had a picture sent in by Derek Palmer

(see his historic WR colour pictures at https://www.flickr.com/photos/73536293@N02/albums/72157719923760810)

who spent a night in the former stationmaster's house, now a B&B, opposite Broadway station. Something we've always wanted is a modern day picture taken from the same spot as the famous August 1904 picture, and Derek very kindly did this for us.

August 1904

August 2022, 118 years later.

It is now rather overgrown, and looks a little further away, so we think the 1904 photographer stood on the edge of the cutting (in the trees on today's picture) rather than sneak up to a bedroom in the new stationmaster's house.

Notice the posters under the canopy in 1904. Also, the (longer) replica station was given only two single chimneys, whereas the (shorter) original had three, two doubles and a single.

Thursday with the Usketeers.

A four man team, without Jules for the all essential backing up. We managed, but we missed you, Jules! We had to move the day once again due to diaries, but should be back to Wednesday next week.

Today we worked on two fronts on the gable end by the tree (which is resulting in a lot of purple bird droppings descending on us).

Dave was on the inside, trying to lay big blocks without using any small ones. We only took the really big stuff from the site at Usk, and didn't bring anything that looked like rubble. So now we've run out of little bits with which to infill.

You can see two gaps in the picture already.

 

 

 

 

 

We ran into an administrative problem today, as the railway requires us to watch various videos and do compulsory on line tests, and without these completed our permission to volunteer will be withdrawn. John (83) has no computer at home and Paul (75) lost all the details. Now their work permits expire imminently. What do do?

We went over the HQ (Churchward House) to outline the problem, and to our relief they were very helpful. A Desktop was made available for the two candidates, they watched the videos, and took the tests home in paper form. Problem solved. Providing they pass the tests...

A former V Bomber aircraft ground crew member, and a professional, life long builder, grilled about working at height.

While they were across the road we laid out the next external row of dressed blocks.

Notice the step here, which we caught using using 5 inch and then 6 inch blocks, with a sneck in the middle.

Now for Paul to bed this down.

Meanwhile, Dave is beavering away inside.

Here's the row of blocks, seen from one end. It looks a bit higgeldy piggeldy here, but will soon sit firmly on a bed of mortar.

 

 

Trains were hauled by P&O and Foremarke Hall today, and looked reasonably busy. A disappointment heard in the office was a lady wanting to book a party of 12 on the Toddington-Broadway Santa DMU, but due to insufficient volunteers to man this the Santa DMU can't run this year. We have quite a few vacancies for volunteers on the railway now (we believe due to the after effects of the Covid crisis) so if you're mulling having a go, we'd love to hear from you. (see GWR Trust page on how to join)

The normal loco hauled Santa trains between Cheltenham and Winchcombe will run of course, and tickets for them went on sale today.

After watching their safety videos Paul and John came back and here is evidence of that, as the blocks laid out earlier are part bedded down in this picture. (the four on the right are done, except for pointing)

Here is Paul pointing the first 4 he did, with the sneck to be used resting on the nearest block.

We measured the distance between the top of this course and the apex of the roof, and found that we still had 2ft to go. But the width of that gets smaller every week...

This picture shows how far Dave inside had got by lunch time. You can see that he's using bigger blocks now, with the gaps noticed in the earlier picture now closed with some stones we found elsewhere on site. (of the same colour of course).

Dave has +/- done a course here as well. It's hard to tell with undressed stones. He's trying to keep up with Paul on the other side, but it's tricky to get just the right stone here if you can't see the pile where they are coming from. We brought in a supply of options for him.

Mid afternoon Paul had completed his row, and we are up another 6 inches. 

Two feet to go! It ought to be going faster and faster now, but we spent a long time rummaging through the meagre supplies that are left for two triangular stones to go under the line at each end.

With Paul and John already gone home, Dave plugged on valiantly to use up the remaining mortar.

In this picture you can see that, in a way, it is easier to lay the blocks on the outside face, as the backer upper on the inside has to fill all the remaining space, and that with a completely random supply of oddly shaped bits.

 

See you again next Wednesday.