Venus arises.

Last Wednesday at Southam.

Some late pictures have come in of the very arduous excavation and curing of  a 'wet bed' at Southam last week. What a grim day it was, with snow and sleet. But 7 volunteers turned out, they're tough! Thanks to Doug you can see what they did.

 

 

 Here they are just short of Southam bridge, working in snow flurries.

 

 

The area around the bridge is alwaays waterlogged. In fact there is a constant little stream of water, rain or shine, coming out of one of the weep holes in the Cotswolds side abutment.

Eventually the track becomes waterlogged and starts to pump up and down with passin g trains. That creates a familiar white stain, which is a slurry of ground up ballast and water.

The cure is to dig out the stained area, and put a sheet of terram under, and fresh, well draining ballast on top.

In this picture our contractor is digging out around two sleepers.

This area had track laid in 1999, and was known to be waterlogged even then.

 

Once the sleepers are clear of the ballast they are partially freed from the rails and moved sideways, to create a pit.

 

 

The pit is then compacted, and Terram placed in it, well under the sleepers slid to one side,

 

 

Fresh ballast is then placed on the Terram, and that is also compacted. We don't want the passage of trains settling this down later on.

Finally the sleepers are slid back into their original positions, clipped up again, and the void back filled with fresh ballast.

Bill and Ben, the two Robels, then tamp everything nicely.

 

 

 

Saturday at Hayles Abbey halt.

Cold again, a cold start after an icy night. 

Coming off the Cotswolds edge, we saw a strange phenomenon -

Is that the Alps in the distance? They are snow - capped...

What we are actually looking at is the Malverns, on the far side of the Vale. You can clearly see a frost line at a certain height.

We climbed hurriedly into the PWay mess coach, now back at Winchcombe.

There was a strange smell in the kitchen this time.

This was eventually traced to a glove being dried on top of a near boiling kettle. Possibly tongues of gas flame were also licking at it, although this was hotly denied by the owner of the glove.

 

 

Better news were in the dining area. David had baked us a big box full of Millionaire shortbread. This easrned praise all round, leaving some of Tesco's industrial doughnuts uneaten at the end of the day (hungry Dave kindly agreed to dispose of what remained)

 

We set off for Didbrook, with one vehicle coming in from the north, and the second from the south, putting up one pair of site boards each.

The southern team met the DMU at Didbrook 2 bridge, where the 10mph TSR marks the start of the 15 length relay site.

 

At Hayles the two teams met. The job here was to re-pack the transition between the oold track, and the 4 panel relay here. That always sags after a few days' use.

It was interesting to note that about a dozen new trees had been planted along the top of the shallow cutting here - all local red Rowan trees. Very nice.

 

 

Where were we again? Ah yes, HAYLES ABBEY Halt.

Nick photographed the arriving first train out of CRC.

 

 

Dinmore Manor came in tender first, but at least this somewhat bare site will one day flourish with bright red trees.

 

An hour later Dinmore Manor returned from Broadway, as we were completing the supplementary tamping.

Jim's £5 hurricane lamps - just like the originals once here - still swing in the breeze after 6 years.

The next job was to replace a (large) number of ferrules on the section through and beyond the platform.

This stretch was relaid something over 10 years ago in second hand wooden sleepers, and part of that 'inheritance' were second hand wooden ferrules. You don't see those very often now.

Their more durable plastic replacement is in the foreground.

Initially we had one impact wrench on the go, which occupied two volunteers. Thinking about it over lunch back in the mess coach, we brought a second impact wrench up, and that then occupied three volunteers - one undoing, one fitting the new ferrule, and one doing up again. 

Much faster.

When the DMU came back from CRC, it actually stopped at the halt. That was a surprise. Being trackside, we couldn't see whether anyone used the service, but we did find that the trains were less busy than the previous saturday, which was the first one. Maybe pent up demand, released at last?

Dinmore Manor then came back south again, making this rather pretty picture possible.

If you look carefully, you can just make out the new Rowan saplings and a stake behind the tree. There's also a bird box. Our lineside gang is making a real push to help nature.

Mid afternoon the rain came. You can see both impact wrenches in use here.

We got as far as under the bridge. Once out to the other side we all started getting rather wet, so we called it a day. There's probably a bit more ferrule replacement to do up to a point around the bend. Then the concrete sleeper section down the Defford straight starts.

Next week - ballast and sleeper drops scheduled. That should be interesting.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Jules was away on holiday, so four gallant Usketeers today.

On arrival we were delighted to find that the scaffolders had come to remove their kit, and you now see the Venus fully revealed.

There's still a bit more work to do, but basically the outline is there now. This is what a fully rebuilt Usk weighbridge hut looks like.

 

As the forecast was for rain later in the day we decided to work indoors and address the floor.

In this picture you can see Paul on the right adding some sand to a corner to determine the level of the concrete that we will be pouring, and on which the final floor slabs will be laid.

Wwe need a level sub base, not too high, not too low.

A piece of timber, a level and some bricks were used to see where we needed to be with the concrete pour.

The broken stones and other ballast are there to limit the quantity of concrete will be needing.

John is looking upwards, as a pair of A400s passed over the station just then.

 

 

Today was not a normal running day, but one of race trains for Cheltenham. Two went down with happy punters, and came back empty a while later to sit it out at Toddington. Last thing in the afternoon they went back down again, ECS, to pick up the customers of 'At The Races' and take them back to their coaches at Toddington.

We were also 'happy punters', but just outside our hut. There was a narrow window from 'Freezing' at 8am, and 'pouring with rain' after lunch, so we sat there n ot quite warm, but OK. We had hot mushroom Cup-a-soup, and that really warmed us up.

 

 

After lunch we got quite busy. We now knew how deep we needed to go, so a first pour was directed at the corner where the sand was earlier.

 

 

Paul got on his knees - a bit painful that - and levelled off the first barrow full to the correct height. Later we gave him a seat cussion.

Outside Maxie was started up. She was rather reluctant to come out of hibernation, and demanded considerable tinkering with her by Dave.

Dirty fuel was the problem - well, nobody likes that.

So Dave, John and Yours Truly fed Maxie with ballast, so that Paul could work inside. Every 5 minutes we ran in  with a new barrow of concrete.

There was an interesting interuption as a chirpy man from a reclamation yard delivered us 200 diamond pattern pavers. We struck an attractive deal with him, and this was funded partly by the friends of Winchcombe, and partly from Usk hut savings.

The reclamation chappie wasn't expecting a steam train to go by, so we paused to let him look at returning Foremarke Hall ex CRC.

He seemed quite interested in what we were doing, revealed that he had bricklaying skills, and said he was willing to help. Mental note for Broadway P2!

This is what he brought - 200 pavers, all in excellent condition.

These diamond pattern pavers give a nice railway atmosphere, so when we saw some on offer at a good price, we pounced. They will be used for a 4ft wide path from the door of the hut to the edge of the platform. It's just a short stretch, but it uses a surprising number of bricks.

This is where we got to at the end of the day. The MO is to work round the inside of the hut, leaving the last space for completion in the middle. That will do us nicely for next week.

The white line is a length of pipe that we put under the floor, so that if required, we can have an electrical cable from one side of the hut to the other.

Here's a nice little shot for you of the hut as it now stands, with all scaffolding removed. Isn't it pretty? We still have several ideas to jolly up the area and make it look interesting. Watch this space then.

When the first race trains came through Winchcombe we took two videos for you. It's always interersting when the race trains come through the station without stopping.

Here P&O accelerates out of Winchcombe on its way to the races:

https://youtu.be/f0hNqAsr2WU

And the same with Foremarke Hall, but with a bit more noise:

https://youtu.be/oaLGcQWm7KQ

Wednesday on the PWay.

We were on the Usk hut of course, but thanks to Paul we have a glimpse of what the PWay got up to today:

 

As you may have read, contractors re-ballasted and re-stressed the Broadway extension.

As a follow up, we needed to put back the rubber crossing mats.

One of these crossings was quite big. This is the one just north of the viaduct. It's one of only two user worked crossings, i.e. not a footpath, but for farm vehicles.

This is the other one, a bit further north. It's between Laverton and Stanton fields.

Although it's a foot crossing, when we put these mats in back in 2015 or so we were astonished to find that the owner of the adjacent field had put in a horse jump straight onto our property!

That's not something you want to see as a train driver, a horse jumping out in front of you!

 

This picture shows the TSR at the start of the Didbrook relay. It won't be there much longer, as we have a tamper coming at the end of the month, and then this section will be smooth as a billiard table (we hope). On the left is the parapet of Didbrook 1 bridge.

We've had quite a bit of wind recently (59mph announced, which is a lot round here) and that knocked over the TSR sign. A second concrete block has been cleverly added in the picture. Neat!

Back at the farm Walt remained on duty, and we see him here stacking chaired wooden sleepers that we have bought. Previously they were on the other side, a bit in the way in what we use as a car park.

One sleeper was changed on the viaduct. You can see why - there's a big bit missing on one end. There may be a bigger relay job coming up here later this year, but clearly this one couldn't wait any longer.

Finally, a nice shot from Paul, taken at Toddington.

Here are both race train specials, ready to go at 11 am. The first one, with P&O, looked like pretty much a sell out, while the second had one unfilled coach.

While we act as lessor of the train and don't collect any ticket revenue, we are always keen to see that the trains do well, as in the end it is of mutual benefit.

Mrs. Blogger was a steward on Train 2, but was too busy serving the punters to wave...

Get yourself tested!

Speaking to a fellow volunteer today, we heard another frustrating tale of how he developed prostate cancer, and didn't know it. There is no national testing programme, unlike one for breast cancer. And there are no lumps to feel for by yourself.

On a whim he asked his GP for a PSA test. This not only came out positive, but further investigation revealed the alarming news that a tumour had already spread beyond the prostate, meaning he was in stage 4 of the 5 stages for severity. There were no prior symptoms at all, other than those all men get after retirement. The situation was dire, in a very short space of time. Luckily it was still possible to operate, and we heard the good news that he was free of the cancer today.

A test for prostate cancer is easy and costs very little to do. No complicated machinery is required. It is mystifying why our health system does not regularly test us. No mobile XRay machines in lorries are required, it's a blood test and a feel with a finger (OK, the docs called it a 'digital examination'....).

Thinking back, we can count between 4 and 5 volunteers on the railway who were told virtually overnight that they had a deadly condition. At least two of them have died.

So get yourself tested, guys.