One gable up.

Saturday at Gretton.

Big change on Saturday - no more Peasebrook, hello sleeper changing at Gretton. It still means shovelling though.

We set off for the Working Lane and Pontlarge entrances at Gretton, to address the worksite from opposite ends in two vehicles, each of which would set out warning boards, and then meet in the middle with the tools and supplies.

Great was the annoyance of the team entering at Working Lane, as a thoughtless dog walker had parked his Shogun across our access gate and walked off. It would help to prevent this if we had some sort of sign on that gate.

The new sleeper.

 

After some delay, both teams met near Gretton halt to start changing sleepers. This is part of a programme started a while back at the tunnel mouth, and bit by bit we are working our way with spot resleepering along the oldest wooden sleepered section we have on the railway. Near Prescott it changes to concrete, and then so on until CRC.

Resleepering means digging. Luckily we've had a bit of a rejuvenation in our gang with new members (very welcome they are) and the first rotten sleeper was soon out.

Here is Steve levering the rail into the chair with a bar, so that Bert Ferrule can knock a key in.

 

The next sleeper was a bit more tricky. This section still has the original sleepers laid in 1992, second hand even then, and it's amazing how long they have lasted (30 years in the ground, second hand. Will the replacement last as long?).

Splitting a throughbolter for removal.

Proof that these are the original 1992 sleepers can be seen in this one. It's a GWR type throughbolter, and we only ever laid those second hand, still attached to their sleepers.

The only way to get them out, the bolts being rusted solid, is to split them in half with a bar.

We then had an intermission, in the form of the train from Cheltenham, here hauled by Foremarke Hall. 

The loco has something of a squeak in the exhaust (typical to 7903, or to all Halls?) and you can tell which loco is coming by that noise. Dinmore Manor doesn't do it.

With the train gone, we've got 20 minutes before the next one arrives, after crossing at Winchcombe.

Just time enough to insert the new sleeper, bolt it up and insert the keys.

Oh, and here it is already, with P&O in charge.

The old Gretton halt was by the trees in the distance.

There seemed to be quite a few customers - Mrs. Blogger says it's because of half term.

On to the next sleeper. We buy them ready drilled, so all we have to do is hammer in the bolts, and do them up with the impact wrench (aka the animal).

Then we quickly fill the hole back in, and get the Robels out to pack the sleeper. We used to do this by hand with the beaters, but it was always a bit demoralising to see that once the trains ran over the bit packed with beaters, the sleeper in question soon started to pump. Not any more.

This picture shows us by the parapet wall of a small access road that passes under the embankment here, just south of the Gretton Halt site. You can just make out the village church spire peeping out between the trees.

Two of today's gang were there when the track was laid here, and we talked about those days, how that was done, all with second hand materials.

We delved into the blogger archives, and came up with a photograph by former PWayer John Lees of the same wall:

Again the Gretton church steeple peeps out from behind the trees - 30 years ago. In those days the ballast that remained was scraped to one side, second hand sleepers, often with chairs such as the throughbolters still attached, and then the rail was put on top. That rail has already been laid out.

This is how they got throughbolt chairs under the track, as it's very hard work doing it with the track in situ.

On a nostalgic wave, we pasted some more of John Lees' 1992 photographs at Gretton into this blog. Scroll down, or read to the end of this bit to see them.

Back to Saturday then.

Having replaced a sleeper, we got the Robels out to tamp around it - two sleepers each side. That highlights that some chairs are floating, with say a half inch gap underneath, which closes when a train rolls over. What we have to do then is lever the offending sleeper upwards with a bar, and quickly tamp underneath it to keep it there.

Tamping for floating chairs by Adam and Leigh.

One of the duff sleepers we pulled out had blue bits sticking out of the holes. As both Leigh and Steve had been there when they went in back in 1992, we asked them what was going on with the blue bits.

Leigh explained that at the time the holes were drilled on site, and in certain cases they were slightly out of gauge. The solution at the time was to insert segments of blue water pipe as dowels, to move the chairscrew over a bit, and with it the rail. Cunning...

We did 4 sleepers on Saturday, and then allowed Foremarke hall over one more time. Going home meant a long reverse along the up line, which is somewhat narrow now, with our limited clearance policy.

Reversing on the way back, the truck hit a sleeper thrown out on a previous occasion. In fact there was a string of 5 of them. We hit the one in the middle here.

Here's a plea then: when you discard a sleeper, please throw it well to one side, away from any chance of wheels getting into contact with them. As the vegetation advances, those left by the side as here will soon be overgrown, and then quite hidden from view, and even more at risk of being hit.

Many thanks.

Gretton in 1992.

These then are some pictures taken by John Lees, a now retired member of the PWay gang. John had a 40 year career of volunteering with us, and was there practically on day 1. As it happens, exactly 30 years ago, the rail head had reached Gretton. John was a keen amateur photographer (and DMU driver, as well a a private pilot) so took pictures every week.

The rail head is about to cross the skew bridge at Gretton. The halt was on two sides, just beyond.

What is not clear is just how the footpath to the halt ran. The village side seems to be occupied by back gardens, that on the left a farm track. Does anyone know? It would be interesting, should we ever want to make a feature of it, like at Hayles Abbey halt.

Here is another picture of the parapet of the same underbridge, with the loaded extension train by the site of Gretton halt. That had closed 30 years earlier still. The train would come out every working day, with a guards van in which meals were cooked. Later we had the luxury of a small kitchen in a Hawksworth 3rd, and today a Mk1 BG, although now that we are running, our PWay train almost never goes out.

Keying up the newly laid track.

A few hours later the sleepers on the extension train had been laid out, and the rails previously dropped in the cess lifted in. Lifting power came from a red 360 digger, which can be seen in the background, moving spent ballast to one side.

Here the track is about to cross the underbridge, as a member of the gang cleans out the rails in the cess before they can be dropped in.

Notice the chap in the yellow hi viz vest. That's our Steve, still working today. He was there on Saturday, still going strong. Our work is good for your health, it keeps you fit.

There was a bit of mechanisation, as evidenced by this tube of compressed air leading to the airgun being used to bolt down the chairs. Before that, it was a 'T' bar and two men per bolt....

The train is now empty of sleepers, as the gang walk back to the guards van.

The next track panel reaches over the bridge.

In this picture you can see the yellow compressor on a wagon in front of the guards van.

You can see all of John Lees' photographs on the Flickr site here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/73536293@N02/albums/72157664738875108

An astonishing 12.700 clicks have already hit the site, which has 1700 of his slides, all scanned and uploaded for you all to see. It's our record of building the railway, a historical document that will stay on line as long as we pay (or can pay) the Flickr fees.

Monday at Broadway

The clockmaker returned to place the master clock inside the stationmaster's office. We imagined this would be just a little box to give the necessary pulses, but in fact the clockmaker has found an original Synchronome master clock, which was mounted on Monday. It's a beautiful instrument.

 

Prior to fitting the pendulum.

The master clock is electrically driven, but only insofar as the low voltage electric supply gives the pendulum impulses from time to time.

 

We took a picture for you of the mechanism.

The pendulum has a small hook on it and this reaches out to a ratcheted wheel and pulls it round, bit by bit. Once every 30 seconds this releases a retainer, and this activates the electro magnets to complete a circuit and give an impulse to the slave(s) to move the hands. It is a very simple, and very accurate mechanism.

The little pointer on the left allows the clock to run, be disengaged, or advance 30 seconds for every ratchet (much faster) instead of after every rotation of the ratchet wheel. In that way you can change the time. Move the master clock by 30 seconds, and all the slaves will follow.

The master clock in position between the ticket hatches.

The clock outside, and the master clock inside, were entirely funded by a supporter of Broadway, and we are very grateful to him. We may now have an electrical platform clock outside (a bit off the 1904 period) but this has been made good with a wonderful period master clock inside. 

Below is some historical information about the master clock, starting with the company letterhead.

SYNCHRONOME as a company name is made up out of 3 Greek words: Syn (with) chronos (time) and nomos (law), meaning 'according to the law of time'. The company was established by Frank Hope-Jones in 1895. Our clock example is thought to date from the 1930s.

The Synchronome system allowed numerous slave clocks to be attached to a single master clock, and all tell the same time, all the time. This was very useful in factories, department stores, schools, or railway stations etc. There are famous examples, still in existence, in Liberty's and Selfridges in London.

Frank Hope-Jones is also known as the person who suggested that the BBC collaborate with the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and to transmit regular time signals on the radio, known as 'the pips'. You know them?

Wednesday on the Usk building.

A heavy downpour first thing this morning, and on arrival we found Paul and Dave huddled in the lamp hut, waiting for better times. They soon came, and we had an excellent day on the project.

Having finished with the trestles as we reached the limits of their height, we moved over to a temporary scaffold tower, in expectation of formal scaffolding at some point in the future.

Coffee in the sun, best part of the day.

After sorting out a scaffold tower - our thanks go to the Construction & Maintenance dept, and to Colin for signing it off from the safety angle each time - we pulled the chairs together to have a mid morning cup of coffee behind the hut.

In the background a pair of gates is being erected. These will define a limit between the Usk site and the barrow crossing. Another gate is pencilled in on the other side of the oak tree, so limiting access to the PWay yard.

The scaffold tower was erected at the northern end, and we set out to complete this gable end in one fell swoop.

In the picture Paul is putting back the lines that we follow to build the angle of the roof.

 

 

Once the lines were up, we measured the distance required for the next course, and assembled it on the ground in a dry run.

Once we had all the 5 inch stones sorted, with their angled ends, it was a simple job to transfer them to the top, ready for Dave and Jules to bed them down.

Elsewhere in the yard Walt from the PWay gang was working on the new RRV. We went over for a chat, and were delighted to see that he had sourced a company 'GWR' sticker from the C&W department (again, thanks to them for letting us have one of these things) and it looks great on the yellow side of the RRV, together with our crowd funded name plate. Well, the PWay crowd we mean.

Back 'at the farm' as it were, we found Dave and Jules working diligently on the gable. They were bedding down the course we had set up, but also did the backing up at the same time, reaching over the top.

And soon, as the courses are getting shorter and shorter, it was time for the next course again, for which we had been sourcing stones with a slope for each end.

Jules then measured the gap between the two sloping stones, and reported to the ground floor that dressed stone to a length of, e.g., 38 inches was required. That was the signal then to rummage round in the 5 inch pile to assemble exactly such a length from what was there, without causing an overlapping joint.

Hey, wait a minute, didn't they do just that? Oh well, it is right near the top.

We then found a candidate stone that would fit perfectly under the very top:

It had two corners cut off, and was clearly once the second to last stone on the gable here. It would need just one more little triangular bit on top. And it fitted perfectly between the lines.

Sadly Paul then intervened to say that there would be a length of 4 x 2 emerging from the top, to which we attach the barge boards. So we had to put that lovely stone back into stock. It seems now more and more, as we get to the end of block laying, that we will have quite a bit of stone left over.

Why have we got stone left over? We think there are 3 reasons:

- The original Usk hut had courses of dressed stone below ground, and no concrete slab. We, on the contrary, put down a row of concrete blocks on our foundation slab, followed by a row of blues, so that saved at least a couple of courses of stone.

- Our arched replacement window is larger than the original.

- We are building our chimney into the gable end for greater stability, instead of right on top of it.

Lunch time was soon upon us, and we moved the chairs into the sun and shared out some marshmallows that Paul had brought:

Fancy a marshmallow with your coffee?

This being half term we had two steam locos out today, 4270 and 35006. They were pleasingly well filled, with many children visible. We waved dutifully. Almost everybody waved back, we even got a  thumbs up from someone. Clearly an Usk enthusiast.

While offering up more mortar for Dave and Jules, we came across the secret of the rapid growth of our Usk hut.

Don't tell anyone though!

Using some new softwood sleepers as a workbench, Paul and John made an extension piece that is to fit on the end of the gable, so that barge boards can be attached to it.

Dave duly fitted it, and that then defined the exact room that we needed to fill to complete this gable end.

And here it is, finished!

The inside was built up from the outside, with just a small mistake - the top stone sticks out a bit, but you'd hardly notice. So the inside is finished too now.

Now the other gable end is left to do, including the chimney.

This is what the other gable end looks like from inside. That is the level from which the chimney will start, and stone will be placed left and right of it to give it some solidity at the bottom.

At the end of the day the building looked like this:

You can see its shape here clearly.

Next week - it will probably be on a Thursday again, as this suits personal circumstances better - we will complete the other gable and some of the chimney. That will complete the stonework.

Still to do:

- The full height of the chimney - needs scaffolding.

- Glazing the windows and making the sliding windows fit.

- Sourcing and installing a floor

- Felting and slating the roof

- Hanging the door

- Site reinstatement, bringing the level up to the height of the platform and seeding with grass.

- Sourcing window cills

- A big enamel sign with the name of a coalman is on the wish list. That will be several £100!

At the end of the day the Usk hut stood proudly, behind the new gates that were installed today.

Our Ukraine visitors

News from our Ukrainian family in the village. They have a 3 year visa permit to stay, and have been here for 6 months now. Putin's 3 day 'Special Military Operation' is actually a complete war, we can all see that. Our government has been supportive with the temporary visa, and help with places to stay. There's one problem which has recently surfaced. They came over in their car, and our regulations require that it be officially imported after 6 months and registered in the UK, we hear. That's complicated and also expensive, especially if you intend to return home and are faced with re-exporting it, and the reverse process back home.

A simple solution to this problem is to extend the temporary period for the car to match the length of the temporary visa - 3 years. A petition has been raised:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/626210

You could do your bit by signing it - it doesn't cost anything. 

Thank you!