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!