Santa has arrived at the North Pole.

Friday at Winchcombe.

Quick, quick, our replacement GWR lamp post hasn't got its top on yet, and Saturday is the start of Santa trains at Winchcombe!

Luckily the weather forecast was fine and dry, so we were able to use the silicone on the glass.

First of all, get your tools ready. Here is the kit for a 16 inch Windsor lamp top.

And this is the top of the post where it is destined to go.

The FoWS have given it a first coat of paint, but the acanthus leaves haven't been picked out yet. That is still to come.

The first item to go on is the frame itself, still without glass. Otherwise it would be too awkward and heavy.

 

There it is. Still without glass, but the lightbulb works. On the left is the sidehung door. Cheaper lamp tops have no door, but a removable top - not authentic.

Next, Neal started to fit the specially cut glass, which came as part of the kit. Don't drop any, Neal, they are difficult to replace!

For the full effect, we'd need lamp glasses that read 'WINCHCOMBE'. At Broadway we achieved that effect by cheating a bit (well it was early days) - we used stickers.

If anyone knows how to get proper lamp glasses, we'd be interested to hear. Otherwise it'll be stickers again, but not until we have replaced all of the non-original posts.

The glass panes are held in place by little tabs inside, but that does not ensure a watertight seal, so we ran silicone down the edges.

Then we put the top on, and it was time for a photograph.

There's one more non-original post to do on P1, but at the moment we don't have any more posts with which to do it. If you have one in your garden that you want to donate, get in touch! We'd love to hear from you.

One of the canopy gang poses with the new post, and its 16 inch top.

Saturday at Gotherington.

Not the continuation of spot resleepering at Winchcombe, no, but dealing with a list of minor faults at Gotherington.

 

Normal doughnut supplies were interupted on Saturday, so alternative sources were tried, thanks to Tony.

These were actually rather tasty, being a mixture of chocolate, caramel and sprinkles.

Yum!

We loaded up two vans and set of with the list of minor faults for Gotherington skew. Just in time for the first up Santa train to come past. The first of the Christmas season.

It came storming by.

Sadly it was a tad too stormily - the camera had to have a think about it first, before releasing the shutter. By that time Foremarke Hall had already managed to get a buffer past.

Then we put a load of ballast in the Citroen, and the team split into two.

You see, it's over here, mile post 15...

The main gang went to change a lifter plate for a slightly higher one, while three of us went to Manor Lane to add some ballast to a foot crossing between there and Cleeve.

We had noticed before that there seemed to be a lot of alcoholic litter around the Manor Lane entrance gate, which is on our property, but set back some way from the road.

Party time...

Our gate approach, hard to find and discreetly around a bend, is apparently the place to have a party for the local youth. Beer bottles and party balloons littered the site.

We negotiated the beer bottles on the ground and made our way to the foot crossing. Here the rubber panels had risen a little, and revealed an unsafe edge. We back filled this with the ballast that was loaded at Skew bridge.

Job done. Let's hope it lasts. It's quite a busy crossing, with that new housing estate nearby.

As we left, we got a message to let us know that a train was passing Gotherington, so we paused the return journey to let it pass. This is the second ECS, on its way to CRC to pick up Santa passengers.

We then drove on through, to exit at the Cleeve foot crossing.

Wrongo! No fewer than three cars illegally parked around our exit. No way to get out here on Saturday. No one about (Nursery shut, so not customers of theirs), so all we could do was drive all the way back to Manor Lane. 

Back in at Skew bridge depot then, and turn right down the Dixton straight, to find the gang in the cutting there grappling with that lifter plate we need to replace.

You'd think a quick change with the impact wrench for a higher lift, but no. The new plate wouldn't fit, as one of the sleepers was too close. So that had to be dug out and barred across some.

Burp !

After that strenuous bit of sleeper barring and ballast shovelling, we afforded ourselves a tea break, and consumption of the remaining chocolate doughnuts.

Enjoying the last days of its boiler ticket, 4270 accelerates a Santa train out of Gotherington.

The sun was very pale on Saturday, but as it wasn't very strong it allowed some interesting shots of the now full returning Santa train.

Another lifter plate was required just past Gotherington Skew bridge. This one was simpler, phew!

Foremarke Hall on its way to the North Pole with excited children.

We had lunch in the platform shelter at Gotherington. What a lovely little station. You sit back and watch 

the trains steam out of the passing loop.

 

We waved to the children, all expecting a meeting with the visitor from the North Pole. 

Although most seemed excited, some were already crying. Best to get it in early. Perhaps they felt guilty, and had some misbehaviours to confess?

 

 

 

The long trudge home, through Gotherington station and back to the vans.

The next job was just a simple replacement of a defective insulating end post, which should take just two people to do the job. As were were about a dozen again, yours truly took the opportunity duck out and talk to Bryan, the owner of the station. That's always an interesting conversation. Heritage railway tips flow both ways.

What we didn't realise was that the swapping of the end post wasn't so simple at all, and involved all of the gang (except yours truly of course), as the joint was so tight the whole rail had to be loosened and moved back a few mm with wedges. Quite a job! Then back on foot from one end of the loop to the other.

 On the way back to Skew bridge yard we stopped to shovel some more ballast. We had some left in the truck after the crossing fill, and here at Granna lane some sleeper ends were exposed - a great place to lose some spare ballast.

This was an easy job - just shovel it off the truck, and drop it down. Soon done.

 

 Back at Winchcombe we put back the tools, parked up the truck, then had a look round the Santa platform. It really was very jolly and exciting there. Lots of helpful volunteers dressed in red.

At the business end was 4270, looking festive and atmospheric in the evening light and platform lamps.

Got your ticket yet? It's too late - all the Santa tickets are sold out this year. Good news for the company, as the winter is costly in maintenance and outgoings that don't stop, just because the trains do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday without the Usketeers.

A miserable day. Gigaclear came to install superfast Broadband at the blogger country pile. A 2 - 3 hour job, they said.

The workmen ripped out the BT apparatus and phone, and ran a cable under the lawn and drilled a hole in the side of the house.

After 5 hours they left, but without a Gigaclear service in place !!! Some sort of issue with the supply, nothing to do with the house, or their work.

An engineer will come... (when ?????)

Luckily we were able to reconnect the many cables and plugs of the old BT modem, so this blogpost comes to you one more time through a rural telephone line. Thank you BT, but wish your service wasn't so slow, expensive, and recently, more and more intermittent.

Well, somebody had fun today. The pictures below are thanks to Julian. You can send pictures by email, but you can't send brandy soaked fruitcake :-(

 

 

 

Today was glass day. Through family connections we managed to order the glass for all the windows, ready cut, for a very friendly price.

Here are Paul and Dave, proudly bearing the much awaited goods.

 

 

The most interesting glazing was round the two sliding windows. These enabled the operator of the original weighbridge to communicate with the customer, and hand out tickets etc. So they needed to open, and not slam in the wind.

There are two then, on little brass rollers, which run along a steel strip. 

As examples of  'this is one we did earlier' the brass rollers, worn flat after seizing, have been turned and in one case replaced some while back, and were in store (read - lamp hut).

The steel strip was badly rusted and full of craters, which is no doubt why the rollers had flat spots worn into them. It was replaced with a new one, with the same screw holes.

In the picture you can see Paul re-cut the space for one of the rollers, which was part filled in when our friendly joiner Steve mended the corner of that window with a piece of new wood. (another thing we did earlier)

There's more glazing to do with the two plain windows that open. (less interessting)

 

 

 

 

Next came the putty for the glass, and in this picture you can see Paul tap in some securing nails

 

 

 

 

The centre window is fixed, and outside Paul was getting the frame ready to insert the first sliding window.

Then it was lunch time. The building is now mostly dry thanks to the tarpaulin over the trusses, but when we had a look on Saturday, after some stormy and wet nights, there was half an inch of water covering the floor. At the time the windows had rather flappy polythene sheets over them.

Now the big window is glazed on one side, and the chance of rain pouring in like last week should be considerably reduced.

Paul and Dave chew the fat.....

 

 

 

Then it was the turn of the second sliding window, which you can see here on the makeshift table being fitted with putty.

Last week there was also talk of fitting the door, which is now fully repainted. We have hinges and a bolt. (both original)

 

 

At the end of a rather dingey but dry day (humidity 100%, according to the BBC) both windows were in, and a large hole in the side of the building plugged.

An addendum to Julian's report states that one of the two smaller windows was also glazed, leaving one more to do next week. Paul won't be there, but he now has two carefully trained apprentices...

This does look rather good, doesn't it. It's even somewhat seasonal. Those little stickers on the glass look like winter snowflakes at first glance.

We still need to fit some brass locks on the window. There was one original at Usk, the other was snapped, but we found a brand new replacement in a local shop at Broadway. Great ! It's one of those lovely hardware shops that has everything. (Plug: Cotswolds Building Supplies!)

For the scaffolding we continue to await funding to pay for it. 

A last minute picture from Dave:

Big window glazed up, tower scaffold moved back to the chimney end.

Thanks from a reader.

Many of you add comments on the blog, which we always read and appreciate. But last week we received a book in an envelope, addressed to 'The Heritage Herald blog' at Churchward house! Luckily they knew who was behind it. The envelope contained a 1964 book on the Lynton & Barnstaple, and a note of thanks for several years of blog reading enjoyment.

We have the 1989 updated book on the L&B, so to read this original volume was rather fun. Many thanks for the little gift, received from an anonymous supporter.

A little puzzle

As this blogpost feels a bit short (thank you, Gigaclear) we will set you a little puzzle.

It's a picture we came across while writing an article. It was taken in 1953, and shows an 8F on its side after a derailment.

Copyright: NSM

Can anyone say more? Note the 'RAPIER' steam crane on the right.

Sleepers awake.

Friday at Toddington.

The loco shed was buzzing...

First there was a big shunt, to remove the class 37. A big shunt is always exciting.

Unfortunately there was a big mess underneath. Not sure if that is diesel dirt, or 2807 dirt, but in any case it was going to be cleaned up!

Some whizz-bang revolving scrubber was used, being put to the test here by Steve. Some lumps were hard to remove. and were scraped up with a shovel.

Afterwards 3850 was put in its place.

Last week we were corrected about the work done to the drag box and rubbing plate of - not 3850 as we had said, but in fact  2874! All these GWR 2-8-0 freight engines look the same, esp without their boilers. That 'all look the same' idea raised a few hackles of course. We have 3 of them at Toddington, a fourth is in storage. Can you tell one from the other, just by the frame? And it doesn't help if they have a shunt every now and then, so that they all change places.

Neal was fabricating on Friday, working on one of the new Broadway canopy support pillars and in particular, the 'cast iron' box at the bottom of it.We're standing in the cab of a GWR heavy freight engine. Which one? Let's not go down that road....

 

 

After lunch, and once 3850 had been shunted back into the second road vacated by the class 37, we were intrigued by this smokebox making its way into the shed.

We don't have a travelling crane in the loco shed, but we do have access to a Telehandler. It's such a versatile machine.

Like the GWR 2-8-0s the Winchcombe canopy frames were shunted around a bit on Friday, but we ran after them with the primer and managed to paint the whole lot, both sides.

Next time it's the undercoat, and then they should be a bit more resistant to rusting.

Saturday at Winchcombe.

12 good men again. We are on a roll! We are curious why the PWay gang is suddenly popular with new recruits (Great! But why?) and the best explanation we could elicit from the latest to join us was that they fancied working outdoors, and saw the PWay on offer at the recruitment fair. So that seems to be working well.

Or was it this?

Paul came with a big cake for us all today. We were 13 though, how to divide that? Dave had a go, cutting it into 4, then 8, then...

'Hey Dave, you mashed it all up now!!!'

'No I didn't..'

'Yes you did, just look at it!'

Thick cream came out everywhere. As there were no saucers or spoons, we were reduced to eating our share with bare hands, and that didn't go well, we can reveal.

The taste was good though!

We were back at Winchcombe, changing sleepers in the stretch between the bracket signal and Chicken Curve. It looks like day two of a probable three day exercise. The first thing to do was get some ballast from Gotherington Skew yard.

Dave loads up the Citroen tipper with fresh ballast.

Gotherington Skew yard is in a beautiful area, isn't it! Rolling hills, and golden autumn leaves. We got two bucketfuls of ballast on the tipper, then drove carefully back to Winchcombe, which was abuzz with Christmas preparations. The forecourt was full of marquees and parked cars, and some of the helpers diverted to the C&W yard, but their parking could have been better:

The gateway to Winchcombe yard on Saturday.

Get through here with your big truck, without scratching anything.....

November is a non running month. Right, so what's this in the distance?

We had a photocharter freight train on Saturday. Thanks to the labours of a small team in C&W we now have an excellent GWR freight train, which went up and down the line with two brake vans filled with photographers. Motive power was big GWR tank loco 4270.

Here it is about to set off across Chicken Curve. It didn't actually reach us until after lunch, so we were able to keep on working, but keeping a careful eye on the horizon.

After setting a record marker last week of 11 sleepers in a day, we did a racing start on Saturday to see if we could better it. Much depended on how easy it was to split the GWR throughbolters, some of which were rotten in the middle, but made of tough wood under the chairs, the bit that mattered.

In the picture Bert Ferrule is attacking one sleeper with a bar, but then we had a brainwave and went to get some wedges, which we normally use to budge rail along to widen gaps. The wedges did work, so we'll do that again next time.

 

 

Lunch time saw us with  two bits of cake left...

13 people, two bits of cake? What to do?

After seeing no takers (we all held back politely) Dave ate them both!

 

 

After lunch, a quick look at the River Isbourne works, to answer a question from a viewer.

What struck us as new is the sheet piling on the opposite bank. In a drawing of the earlier days of the railway, the river left the tunnel under the railway at a 45 degree angle, to aim for the corner with the bridge rail post on it.

After the works, the river now comes out straight, then does two 90 degree turns, with sheet piling to  combat possible scouring.

Also after lunch, we saw the photo charter train approach us from the north, then stop at the end of Chicken Curve.

We went out to meet it (some of us also enjoy photography) and here you can see Bert Ferrule taking a shot of the loco, as it slowly reversed by us, heading for some action at Greet tunnel.

4270 enjoying some of its last days in ticket on a photo charter.

After replacing many sleepers, we started to back fill around each new one with fresh ballast, obtained from the big pile at Gotherington Skew.

After about an hour away at Greet tunnel, the 42XX came back, chimney first, to do some run bys at Chicken Curve in the setting sun. One of these even made it into the pages of the Sunday Telegraph, so the benefit of these charters goes beyond the mere cash receipts.

Amongst the several wagons recently repainted by the wagon team is this one, of the Winchcombe Coal Co. We hope to tell you more of this in a future Heritage Herald blog.

All the photographers on the charter train travelled in the Queen Mary and Toad brakes. Alex, co-organiser of the charters and of the repaints, poses proudly in the Toad. This is what they all do it for.

Then back to back filling with fresh ballast. We use the Citroen tipper here, which was loaded with a good tonne of ballast and which slowly drove along the works site, to allow the gang to shovel ballast out of it and into the new voids.

As the French say (this being a French van): 'Au volant, c'est la vue - c'est la vie'.

Our last picture of Saturday. The Citroen is nearly empty, so we tipped up the back, to shove what remained of the ballast to one end.

You can see what we achieved by the fresh ballast along the track. We did 11 sleepers last week, and this time 12 of them. 13 left to go - will we finish next week?

Stay tuned to find out!

Tuesday at Toddington.

A very wet day, but who cared - we were in the loco shed.

Competitive smoke boxes.

We will stick our neck out here and say that the contestants were 3850 (L) and 2874 (R).

Neal continued (in the dry) with the embellishments of the future canopy support posts for P2 at Broadway.

John worked further on the ladder and platform for the ex Winchcombe yard lamp post. Here is the frame of the platform, which he made on Tuesday. Notice the many holes he drilled. These are for the floor, which is made out of lengths of round steel bar.

A moving moment for Neal as the front buffer beam is fitted.

During Tuesday Neal also took time off to help with the assembly of 2874. The heavy corner brackets behind the buffers were bolted on, and then the new buffer beam on front was fitted to see how well it all aligned. Not so well, we heard, this is an old engine, with a long stay at Barry, and it's had a few knocks. 

We'll get there.

Yours truly spent the day on the new Winchcombe canopy brackets. Last week they were painted in the special T&R Williamson's primer, and this week they received a complete coat of white undercoat. Whatever next? They are due to be finished in BR (W) cream, but what colour is that?

Earlier in the week the front buffer beam of 3850 was fitted. And not with nuts and bolts, but with genuine hot rivets. What do you think?

We think it looks pretty good !

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

High winds and rain promised. We turned up nonetheless, and we rewarded with sunshine, at least until lunch time. Then it got a lot worse, and yours truly developed toothache. Ouch!

To start with it was indeed somewhat damp, so we convened inside our building - we can call it that now - and discussed how things were going.

We are still hampered by lack of funds for scaffolding, so won't be starting on the roof for a while yet.

One benefit of the tea break was that we taught Paul how to answer a call on his new smartphone. To date he was missing every call! Enough!

Now he knows how to do it. (swipe upwards....)

With clear sunshine now evident, we all went outside, and Jules started to tidy up the outside of the building.

The chairman also came to call in, and a very useful discussion was held, on all sorts of subjects.

It's very gratifying to have such interest shown in us. But as you can all see, we have kept our promise to rebuild the hut, we are people you can count on.

 

We decided to move the tower scaffold from one gable end to the other. No problem with that, as it's got wheels.

However, now it needs re-certifying (we even have a scaff tag on it) so it was a hunt to find a qualified person. Pete from C&M kindly volunteered to do this for us, and in return we gave up our blue water tub, which they needed for an off site job, and we can do without from now on.

 

Inside, John made himself busy by applying woodwork killer to the gable ends we were about to use, while yours truly gave the door a second coat of paint. It's now ready to use. We have the original hinges and bolt for it. Closer study of the many holes in the middle revealed that in its 150 year life, the door has held numerous types of lock.

 

 

Here's a shot taken by Jules during our mid morning coffe break. We have plastic film over the windows, so with the sun shining in it was almost cosy in there.

We had a debate about whether to whitewash the interior, or leave the natural stone. Whitewash makes things brighter, but covers the stonework. What do readers think?

 

 

 

 

Outside, Dave and Paul were up on the tower.

The so-called bird's mouth was cut into the end of each gable support, and it was then firmly nailed down, together with a second on top. These two (pairs) will then support the gable ends, of which we have two (scrounged from the Forest of Dean demolition), and then we need two more.

Yours truly then caved into a nagging but growing toothache. Calls to the dentist went unanswered (!) so a return home and salt water rinses seemed like the next best option.

 

Once home, we received this additional snapshot from Jules, so even without a blogger present they were clearly up to something.

Lunchtime was spent during a bad rainstorm, but eventually a blue sky returned.

Next week Gigaclear are coming round to the Blogger country pile, so reporting might have to be via pictures from Jules. We'll have to see how it goes.

 

Once at home, we managed to reach the dentist, who informed us that emergency appointments were only made at 08.30 precisely each morning, and that there would be only one each day. If you miss out there, then that was just bad luck.

Something seems to be wrong with the system there.

PWay in the tunnel:

Last for today, but certainly not least, a couple of shots of our valiant PWay gang working in the tunnel (a wise move today, with the rainstorm we had around lunch time). 

 

Picture with thanks to Paul.

They set off in bright sunshine, heading for 'the dark side'....

 

They walked almost all of the way through (693 yds), with not a lot to see as there is a dark bend at the end. 

Once work started, these pictures were taken by Bob, to whom we offer our thanks.

They were working at the southern end of Greet tunnel, still changing sleepers, but clearly nearer their goal. From outside the tunnel and far along the Gretton straight, spot resleepering has already taken place, and indeed is still ongoing.

The top two pictures show a rotten GWR throughbolter being removed. There wasn't a lot left of it, so this removal wasn't particularly difficult. You could just pick up the pieces by hand. Strange though the phenomenon of sleepers rotting in a nice dry tunnel. At least it's only the occasional one. They were laid in the early 1990s, the tunnel being bare of rails and sleepers when we bought the line.

After replacement with a nice new one, the sleeper was back filled and tamped using the Robels. In the tunnel the ballast is still quite good, thanks to the absence of water and weed growth.

See you again next week!