Last push at Didbrook - we did it!

The last Saturday at Didbrook

Things are looking tight at Didbrook, with not all the rails back in yet, and no ballasting or tamping. The tamper ordered for this job has not come, due to unscheduled maintenance, we heard.

 

 

 

The first thing on our list on Saturday was to clip up the penultimate length, while the last two rails were trimmed to size.

 

 

Tom and Bert Ferrule watch Chris cut off the crippled ends from the start of the non-relaid section.

The rails to be cut to size were then pushed right up to the end.

As they were lower down, a cross is made with two bars and this lifts up the end of the rail. It has also had its crippled end cut off. That is lying in the foreground. Lots of bits of scrap rail now lie around.

Then comes the moment of the big cut to size.

This cutting to size is always a bit nerve wracking, as someone has to take the responsibility for cutting the length precisely.

It's not Tony here, he's just holding one end of the tape... But it's a tense moment. Will it fit afterwards? And with the correct expansion gap? 

 

The cutting job then moves to the other end of the closure rail.

Bert Ferrule and Tony hold it steady, while Chris makes the final cut.

The others stand and watch in awe.

 

 

 

 And there we are:

 

The two closure rails are in, and the big track relay at Didbrook has its rails joined up again.

Actually, if you look closely, you will see that the last fishplate has only two bolts in it. That is because the Malvern side rail has ended up a bit too far south, and the last two bolts won't go through the holes. A job for the next day.

 

Now everyone moves south, to resume packing the Cotswolds side rail. In the absence of the expected tamper, we are going to have to carry on doing this by hand, a very demanding job of our little gang.

We line up 5 or 6 Duff jacks again, and Bert Ferrule eyes the rail in, shouting commands to those in control of the jacks.

'Graham, one more',

'Tony next'

'Come on Alan, throw your weight behind it!'

Dave the brings a load of ballast recovered from the dismantling of the old track (with the economy sleepers)..

You can see the voids under the replacement S1 concrete sleepers in the foreground, and the height of the ratchet that has risen out of the trip jacks, it's quite a lift here.

In the afternoon the skies cleared a bit, and you see the gang here under a brilliant blue sky (albeit with an outside temperature of just 6 degrees at best) working on the final few yards of the Cotswolds side rail, as they approach the Toddington end with the tool van.

 

Under dark skies again, we managed to finish the Cotswolds side rail packing by the end of the day.

Ballast has already been dropped to  make a start on the Malvern side. Will we finish before the re-opening of services?

The next day (Sunday)

A 'All hands on deck' call went out for Sunday, to finish the basic jacking and packing, so that we can run services next Saturday. 8 volunteers were able to make it. We had the whole of the Malvern side of the resleepered track to pack and level.

 

We set out under a radiant sun, but only 1 1/2 degrees air temperature. We wrapped up well in our orange, but as the morning progressed zips came undone as it got warmer.

Bert Ferrule went ahead and measured all the unevenness with a cross level.

When we eventually followed with the Duff jacks, the sleepers were raised up to 6 inches, as can be seen here.

That meant a lot of ballast from Dave, and much shovelling to get it all under and packed.

Our little group of 8 worked all day, but by mid afternoon we had reached Didbrook 2 bridge, the concrete one. The Malvern rail had been packed, and now the track looked quite smooth and level.

Still to come are ballast drops, and a replacement tamper for the one that couldn't make it. This section is now available for traffic again, albeit with a TSR until tamped by machine.

 

The bridge marks the start of another 13 panels of economy sleepers, which here are in better condition, but which will also be swapped out at some point, meeting up with the 4 panels done by Hayles Abbey halt.

On the 15 panel section that we have just resleepered, every rail end was trimmed to alleviate the dipped joints that they have had for years.

What such a dipped joint looks like sideways on can be seen above. Compare the top of the rails with the top of the picture, and you can see what the issue is. It makes the wheels of the train pound the fishplates, and that eventually leads to breaks. The fishplate in the picture is already a reinforced replacement, known as 'deep skirted'. That'll hold it for a while. (it's on Didbrook 2 bridge, hence the wooden sleepers)

A last look along the pretty much level and straight track that we spent two days lifting and packing. Andy and Nigel bring back the trolley we used to carry our materials.

The day after that (Monday)

The PWay gang was still at it, but now on heavy duty ballasting. Thanks to the efforts on Saturday and Sunday the track was reconnected and passable.

The Green Goddess Growler at Toddington with a ballast train and Shark.

Two Dogfish were filled with fresh ballast at Stanton, and were then hauled south to Didbrook by class 37 D6948, out for a test trip.

Thanks to Walt, who loaded the wagons and joined the train on its journey south, we can show you pictures of what they did.

The wide mouthed frog...

 

 

 

The first job at Didbrook was to push the PWay support train further south and out of the way.

Dogfish and nose of a Growler as they slowly grind by. Fresh ballast below.

Paul keeps a careful eye on what is being dropped, and where, as the Growlwer ventures out along the newly resleepered (and packed) track southwards.

At this point Walt was in the back of the Shark, so that we can see the effects of the ballst drop, and the Shark ploughing it from the four foot to the cess.

We're looking back towards Toddington here, and the start of the relay section.

 

 

 

Two Dogfish don't get you very far (our other four are currently being modified, and were not available for this job) and here Paul advises the second man on the Growler that the drop is complete.

As the light began to fail a third train set off from the loading point at Stanton, leading to this evening image by Walt.

 

 

Walt also had a video, which we have uploaded on to Blogger. It looked OK on the preview page, but didn't actually play.

Does it work on the live blog?

Also on Monday:

 

 

 

The canopy gang accepted an offer of 20 concrete 3x2 slabs for later use on P2 at Broadway. This meant a trip to Ashton Under Hill in the Transit, and we see it here being unloaded at Broadway for storage.

These slabs will go under any of the future canopy areas on P2.

 

 

 

 

The slabs were no lightweights, and it took a fair bit of effort to wheel them all the way down the platform, over the crossing and back up the other side.

On the subject of slabs, we were concerned last summer by coaches parking on the pavement with two wheels. The risk was that, according to Murphy's law, sooner or later one would hit the entrance canopy - quite feasible, as you can see here.

 

A second reason to deter heavy vehicles from parking on our pavement has now also appeared:

Our pavement slabs are slowly being crushed one by one.

 

 

Here is another example. And that next to a double yellow line.

Similar pavement parking has occurred further down the drive, where a cast iron inspection cover was broken.

The solution for heavy vehicles parking on the pavement is a row of bollards, something classic like this canonball type:

https://www.broxap.com/cannon-cast-iron-bollard.html

Of course we can only recommend, but would an offer to pay for the the first one tempt?

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A damp day, but it didn't put us off. Dave and Paul worked on the chimney flashing, while Jules and yours truly made a start on sorting out the floor.

On arrival at 08.30 we found Paul and Dave already well at work. The flashing is proving to be quite slow. Paul knows what he is doing - he was a professional builder, after all - but he needed to get back into the swing of it with the lead cutting and bashing.

For example, Paul made this beautifully formed piece.

He did tell us what it was called, but we have forgotten... but you can see its purpose OK. There are two rows. One comes out of the joint and guides any water downwards on to the second piece underneath, which guides the water away from the brickwork and on to the slates. It can be done all in one, but it was cheaper to do it in two halves.

 

Another piece he made is this step. It fits neatly into the joints, which have been chased out for the purpose. The piece is then secured with a small lead wedge.

What about Jules and yours truly? Well, we made a start on fitting the floor. First of all we had to half empty the room, and shift what was left into the second half of the room.

After sweeping out the floor we unrolled this large damp proof membrane. It was just the right width, but far too long, so we had to roll the end out of the door and cut it off.

During the day we slowly started to cover it with pieces of rubble (to save on mortar, as the depth we need to fill is about 8 inches). Then comes a layer of weak mix, and this will provide the surface on which the final floor slabs will be bedded.

 

 

 

 

Outside, preparations were being made on the other side of the chimney, with more lengths of mortar being chased out.

What? What do you want???

In this picture you can see the lower half of the flashing fitted, and the open joints above, ready to receive the upper level of flashing. Below are the barge boards fitted. They still need a layer of topcoat.

 

 

 

 

We also took the time to lay out the ridge tiles that we have.  We were two short, so went to the reclamation yard nearby to secure a pair to complete the row. The variety available was astonishing, but we got a reasonable match.

 

On the Malvern side the box type flashing piece was fitted, and a last slate on the gable end.

We need a dry day to place the ridge tiles, so possibly next time?

We went to attend a meeting in the afternoon, so Dave showed us the latest piece that they placed, just before we had to leave.

It all looks very professional and neat. Well done those roofers!

Outside under the tree we found our floor slabs all neatly power washed. Thank you, Friends of Winchcombe Station.