Earth movements II

Saturday at Winchcombe.

A PWay day, but only 4 volunteers on site. We are gearing up for the track removal on the viaduct, and there is not much for us to do along the line in the run up.

Our regular doughnut supplier was away on Saturday, so we had a backup supply, with a little more luxury on top. That was an excellent combination with the tea.

Mike, Jim and Simon check our new supply of lifters.

The intention was to go to MP8 and do some ballast shovelling, but there were not enough of us, given that we needed lookouts too.

So it was decided to spend the day checking inventory, and going through stuff in the GUV that we might not need. 

We came across 10 tins of British Army grease filled in 1993, to be checked in 1995. Might come in useful, but is it still in date?

The previous day a team had also been out (during the storm too, with heavy rain forecast) and they did a good job moving and re-stacking second hand rail.

Picture with thanks to Walt.

STEVIE once again proved his usefulness, as there was no way we could move one tonne rails around the yard without a heavy lifter.

The results were some beautiful stacks - here of flatbottom rail in the foreground, and bullhead at the rear.

 

And this is a stack of manganese rail. At the moment there are ten full lengths, which we would like to dispose of, preferrably not for scrap. They are in good condition.

This is the location of a previous 'sundry' pile, which has now been sorted and restacked where it belongs.

It is in this area where we propose to stable the mess coach, so a free area needs to be available to accommodate the steps.

Potentially we could also lengthen the Usk platform to this point. We have most of the materials already.

 

 

 

With our day of sorting out, we decided to go through the scrap pile and see how many throughbolt chairs there were. These go to the 2807 group @ £5 each, and they turn them into profitable bootscapers.

We found 14 throughbolters, and loaded them up on the blue Transit. Then we took them to Toddington, and dropped them by the 2807 boot scraper raw material pile.

Nobody there, hope they appreciated the gesture.

Back at Winchcombe we stood ready to take a photograph of P&O with plenty of steam due to the cold, and were surprised to see who was really leading the train.

It was 2807 making a double header. No doubt out for a test run, given the faces we saw on the footplate.

It was good to see this heavy freight engine again, and it was in fine form too, looking very steam tight all round.

Our last view on Saturday was of the C&W 03 coming through the Winchcombe platforms. You'll notice a TOAD waiting in P2. This was part of manoeuverings to assemble a freight train for next weekend's gala. Don't miss it!

That freight train is always very popular.

Tuesday on steels.

Half a day, due to a dental appointment. Neal and John have been cutting and drilling, and the half day was spent cleaning and then undercoating two more purlins, on one side. The weather was just perfect for it, after much rain these last days.

Five of the purlins (just visible on the right) have been undercoated so far, and four are left to do.

After brushing the swarf from the drilling away on two of them, then cleaning them carefully with turps and a cloth, here is a start made with the undercoat, on the first side.

 

Then three pictures of Neal, always busy.

In the first picture he is drilling holes in the other end of the ring beams, as promised last time.

Next he moved to the middle, where he drilled just a few holes. These are precautionary, in case we wish to place any small struts across the ring, as was done on the P1 building.

Neal thinks they won't be necessary as this ring beam is much stronger, but it's no trouble to do them now, just in case.

Finally he showed us how two back to back angles will run up these plates here, which will constitute the middle of each truss. Originally these were made of large section T bar, but this is no longer available, so back to back angle will be used, which is even stronger. It will be rivetted on in due course. John is preparing them in the loco shed, out of sight. (but not out of mind)

Lastly for Tuesday we took a picture of some coins discovered cast into the floor of the old garden centre.

After intense study, we concluded that these were cheap modern copper pennies, but interesting nonetheless. Probably placed there as a good luck charm.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Four of us again, Dave being back from family business in the south. The conversation got a lot livelier too! Such fun. Of course we had bacon rolls, with ketchup.

 

This seemed to make Paul rather sleepy.

And what do you think of our 'bar stool' here? Did we heed your thoughts about having beer pumps along the counter? Many people have asked about them; in jest, we thought.  

Actually it's a support that Paul made for the safe. There's a bit of T&G to go round it yet. We don't want the safe down on the floor, where no one will see it.

 

Paul spent the day on carpentry, which is one of his strengths. The rest of us were on heavy labour, which is about our level.

 

Here are Dave and John digging away at an unwanted pile of dirt down the side of the yard. As it's been rather wet they've laid down a plank along which they can wheel the barrow, out of the mud.

Yours Truly spent several hours clearing up part of the site where the PWay mess coach is due to stand. The manganese rails have now been shifted, revealing some unwanted storage of items that are not PWay, or that should be broken up. We took these to storage elsewhere, or put them on the broken concrete pile.

During the day we were visited by the chop-chop-chop of a big Chinook. That's always an occasion. You can hear it coming, even if out of sight and somewhere over Sudely Castle.

We found Paul outside the hut with his usual leer, sawing at the legs of the new support.

Now a little divertissement:

Here's P&O pulling away from the bracket signal. Conditions are rather damp so there is a short slip, then more confidence and a whistle, before exchanging tokens from the signalman.

https://youtu.be/052zImilmbM

 

 

 

 

One of the items to be cleared up was this half sleeper with a throughbolter attached. The throughbolter was in good condition, so worth saving without bashing it about and damaging it.

This is an ideal situation for the new maul that was sponsored by a blog reader. We went to get it, as well as a big keying hammer with which to persuade it deeper into the grain.

We asked Dave to take a break and help us, as driving the Maul in is a two man job. One man holds it into the crack, the other whacks it with the keying hammer.

It worked perfectly! The chair has now been put aside for 2807 and their bootscraper industry at Toddington.

That looks heavy....

The heaviest item we moved was this concrete base used by S&T. Such bases usually support rodding runs or signal wires. This one was still in reasonable condition, so we took it round to the S&T compound. The other larger one is broken however, and is still on site as it needs mechanical means to move it to the scrap concrete pile.

Towards the latter half of the day we raked over the dirt that John and Dave had brought. The slope comes down from the Usk hut, to peter out at the foot of the tree.

The blue effect is a beam of light, and marks where we still need to put the spent ballast that we were prevented from collecting by a neighbour the other day.

Finally, here's a overview of the future mess coach site. Walt cleared away some rotten sleepers, we picked up rubbish that was found underneath and put it in the bins. The big concrete S&T block remains on site for disposal on our concrete scrap pile, and in the foreground is the remains of the sleeper that we split with the maul.

This weekend is our end of year gala, so we do hope you will come and see us.

A day with a Network Rail gang.

Today we were joined by Alistair, Mike, Bethany, Jake and Richard from Network Rail, who came and volunteered with the PWay gang changing sleepers at the south end of Toddington. They got stuck in and seemed to really enjoy their day. After lunch, when asked if they'd like to go for a train ride, they said that they would prefer to continue with the track works, so we weren't going to stop them! 

We are grateful for their help and anyone else who would like to come and volunteer with us is most welcome!

Replacement sleepers laid out by Paul in readyness.

Explaining the job - 'This is a shovel'.

So this is a steam engine...?

GWSR PWay - 3 heaving, 10 watching.

Today's PWay team at Toddington South. Surely some mistake here, there are 9 men, but the figure clearly says '10' ! Ah, forgot the photographer.....

And finally, in case of any doubt, we welcome any new volunteers, and to our delight we actually feature on the back of the gala brochure! So it's true....

(Last spring's relay at Didbrook, in case you ask)

A bit of undiscovered history.

Greg Wigg, a heritage colleague,  interviewed a former signalman from Bearly Junction (up the Birmingham line from Stratford) and gave us a copy of the recordings he made. We transcribed these into a Word document, which contains the descriptions of two incidents that happened along our line. The first one will be new to you, but you will recognise the second, which we will post in a future blog.

Here is the first one:

Greg Wigg interview with Andrew Whitehead, former Stratford & Broadway railway society volunteer, and Bearley Junction signalman.

I was great friends with a driver, or drivers at Stratford, and one day one driver told me he was on a steel train, and he was on a class 9, a 92, and it was in the afternoon where it was starting to get dusk and they were freewheeling down through Cheltenham Race Course and just beyond there he said we got an awful lurch he said, that the engine went about 30 degrees over and we’re talking about a heavy vehicle, you know, a 92 when its fully loaded is somewhere in the region of 110 - 115 tons, and when he got to Gloucester which is where they change crews, he reported to control that he had had a bad lurch near Cheltenham Race Course station. And when they investigated, on the down road, the down line, for a distance of about 30 feet the track was suspended on nothing.

Greg: God!

The bank had slipped away because they’d had rain, and he’d gone over that...

Greg: Jeez

...and the whole train went over it without coming off. He said they put about 50 train loads of spent ballast in to fill it up.

Greg: Crikey! And that was south of the tunnel, was that?

It was south of the tunnel, I think. I’m not too familiar with the line beyond Cheltenham Race Course. I don’t think he’s alive now, but he used to be a member of the Stratford & Broadway railway society. And he used to come to the meetings.

Greg: You can’t remember his name?

Yes, a Welshman,... no, I can’t remember it just off hand, but he was a good friend of mine, he was.

Coincidentaly we recently saw on line a photograph of a washout south of Hunting Butts tunnel, and this is likely to be the cause of the awful lurch reported.

This is the stretch of line in question, with the tunnel off to the left, and Swindon lane bridge centre right, with the bus on it. This stretch of the Honeybourne line belongs to us, but is unlikely to be used, at least in the near future. You can just make out Christ church in Cheltenham on the horizon.

A busy week.

Friday on Steels.

Just two of us last Friday, and a wobbly weather forecast that warned of high winds, then not, then high winds again. There seemd to be a brighter window at lunch time, so we decided to give the steels a go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was warm and damp first thing. 35006 P&O was getting ready for a gold Fire & Drive, and moved off shed with water and steam spouting from its drain cock pipes.

 

Also in the yard was this six wheeler. You don't see too many of these.

It's believed to be a water carrier (not a milk van then) and is under restoration still.

 

 

 

After we left early last time, John and Neal laid all the gusset plates out and gave them a coat of primer. Not too soon either, as later in the day they got soaked in a prolonged cloudburst.

While Yours Truly was on painting the primered purlins in undercoat, Neal spent the day drilling holes in the gusset plates.

Here he is consulting the drawing. Well not really, most of it is in his head, he was just checking a small detail about the holes in an old Broadway P1 drawing.

Then he made himself a little work top out of two trestles and the pallets from the delivery, and started drilling holes - lots of them.

 

We had to rearrange the purlins a bit, so that we had some that were reachable, with the primered side up. They are quite heavy, so there was some head scratching about leverage and fulcrums.

This is (almost) the result at the end of the day, three purlins turned over and the second side painted in undercoat. Kinda half way there.

 

During the day a couple of Fire & Drive candidates asked very nicely if they could pull this large old steel trunk out of the skip, in return for a donation.

In fact these trunks weigh next to nothing, but take up a disproportionate amount of room in the skip, so we took an executive decision and said yes. The £20 donation will go to heritage projects (most recently for example the £70 BROADWAY stickers inside the new lamp tops there)

Although the start of the day was wet, the warm wind soon blew our steel dry, and we were able to work normally until about 3.30, when the heavens opened. Really badly!

Just before that we were thinking about calling it a day, given the black clouds that were approaching, so Neal laid out all the gusset plates that he had equipped with holes for you to see. There are lots and lots.

Friday was good day of steady progress here therefore.

Saturday with the PWay gang.

A sunny day, and a good turn out of 9 willing volunteers. Morale was high, but the doughnut level low, as our principal supplier had to dash off somewhere else first thing.

 

 

Before the unavoidable tea 'briefing' we went to get one of the crew cab trucks.

Er, not this one then?

What happened here? It looks like a pair of Telehandler forks went through it...

The old blue Transit it is then...

Men, choose your weapons!

Here is the gang today, with all the tools laid out on the deck of the blue Transit. Packing on the Gretton straight was on the menu today. Without a doughnut start - is that even possible? They don't look very happy now.

The Ranger went in via Working Lane, as it has a slippery grassy slope and the Transit is not 4 wheel drive. Simon and Yours Truly went in via 'Coco's' a mile further along, and on the level.

We have new supports for our site boards, but practice shows that the feet are too small. This one stayed up though, thanks to a scaffold pole borrowed from Coco. 

Idea - short removable sections of scaffold pole pushed over the feet would make them more stable, without making them bigger. Even lengths of 2inch plastic pipe might work.

Blue timetable on Saturday, so one steamer and one DMU. Here it's passing the site of Gretton Halt. It could still be rebuilt, but why?

With the train out of the way for an hour, we could fuel up the Robels and they'd be ready to go.

We have two additional Robels now, part paid for by kind donations. We have decided to call them 'Big Al' and 'Little Freddie', after Alan Miller and Stevie Warren who sadly left us way before their time. There's a strange curiosity with Stevie, he lived in two separate worlds. On the railway he was known as Stevie, but at Winchcombe in his private life he was 'Little Freddie', a monniker that came about because his larger father was known as 'Fred'. So son Stevie was known in Winchcombe as 'Little Freddie'.

The two new Robels are going great guns, and we are sending the first two (Bill and Ben) back to the manufacturers for overhaul. They need to have names, otherwise we can't identify them in case of misbehaviour.

 

The names are put on in felt tipped pen - no brass plates here.

There are some differences between the two sets. The newer ones have 50cc Honda engines, while the older ones have engines of unknown origin. Because of that the exhaust gases come out in a different direction, and despite the shields we are suffering a bit from that while in use. They also drink a lot more, we were surprised to find. But they start much more easily too.

Here at Gretton the track, laid in about 1995, is at a very low level compared to the adjacent roadway. 

The tops of the sleepers are at about the same height as the road surface, so that the bottoms are buried in the dirt. There was no money for a bed of new ballast at the time. We used to scrape together the old ballast, which in some places had actually been sold after closure and removed.

 

So when we stuck the Robels in the top ballast they did not vibrate any stone under the sleepers.

This is what we found at the bottom of the hole.

That water there was amazing - we were on top of a 20ft embankment!

The whole Gretton straight stretch really needs relaying with concrete sleepers, cropped rail and fresh ballast underneath.

Maybe in 2024.

You can see where we were working - MP13 II. That's exactly at Gretton halt. Gardens have taken up the Malvern side approach, but the Cotswolds side, a little higher, still looks accessible on foot.

We had P&O out as our steamer for the day. The passengers seemed to enjoy it, although one small child, we noticed, was forced to wave at us by a parent holding and waving his little arm for him...

Here comes that big old Pacific, with steam on after slowing for the site board.

In the other direction went the DMU, which we see here disappearing round the curve at the Royal Oak just before entering the tunnel.

We were on our way back early, as both our Pan jacks had failed - again. Without them we could not pack the track. Duff jacks cannot be used while trains are running, as they stick out above the rails. We could take line blocks, but they would be very short, so they are not really an option.

The way home was through this jungle. Pray you don't break down here, as once you've stopped the truck you can't open the doors for brambles.

Can you use this?

Some things are surplus to requirements in our PWay yard:

A supply of second hand point timbers, in two piles. Maybe of use to someone?

A third pile is this one. These are the bigger timbers, not the standard sleepers. 

These folding boxes (they go on top of pallets) might be of interest to someone? We could let them go for a donation.

 

Then we also have some bullhead rail offcuts, about 12 - 15 inches long. They are also available for a donation to the railway.

If any of these are of interest, get in touch via the contact form (top right above).

Tuesday at Hayles Abbey halt.

Our halt is now 6 1/2 years old, and it's time for a little maintenance. Three of the original team assembled to do some gardening, and assess what else needs to be done.

Our first thought was about this plate on the bridge. Can you see the two mistakes on it?

We were waiting for P&O with the ECS for CRC. Are you still with us, after all these letters?

It was good that the driver opened the regulator as he passed the halt. Unfortunately there was quite a breeze and that blew the steam over the rest of the train. There are 7 carriages there, honest!

 

We decided that strimming and weed removal would be the most useful on Tuesday.

Other jobs that need doing are painting the roof of the corrugated iron shelter, which is very rusty, and finding more crushed Cotswolds stone for the path, which has settled in many places.

The roof will need to be done on a series of dry days, which are unlikely to happen before next spring though.

 

After an hour the DMU came by, and actually stopped at the halt. We weren't sure what stopped here in 2023, so had a look in the shelter.

A three car DMU stops at Hayles Abbey halt, on its way to CRC.

The notices on the halt are all up to date, which is good. They reveal that it's only the DMU that stops here, so travellers need to check their timetables.

Looking the other way, as P&O drifted by in reverse, you can see that the grass has taken over quite an area of Cotswold stone path, despite the Terram underneath. The grass has shallow roots of course.

P&O looked better going the other way, but this time the driver had shut off steam. It wasn't going to stop, as it's steam powered, and not a DMU. Paul and Rick give it a wave.

This shot of the DMU stopping from Winchcombe shows the strimming completed on the north end of the halt. Paint is peeling off the running in board, which is already in its second generation. The first one was made of wood chippings (or similar) and soon rotted. This one is made of tongue and groove boards, which will last longer, but the weather has got under the paint here.

In the afternoon we joined Neal and John at Toddington, working on parts for the Broadway P2 canopy.

Neal was drilling holes in both ends of the 4 connecting RSJs that will form the ring inside the cavity wall. He was using a gusset plate as a template.

On behalf of our readers we asked him what he would be doing next, after drilling such holes in both ends.

The other side, he said with a smirk...

Yours truly was on cleaning and undercoating the 9 purlins that we have made.

Each session allows one side to be painted of two purlins, so its slow and steady here.

This is the picture at the start of the day's work - two 'green' purlins. But in fact they have already been painted on the other side, and here they have been turned around for the second side to be done.

 

Once both sides were done, Neal rearranged the piles so that the painted items were underneath the trestles, and two that still had to be done were on top.

We did those, and at the end of the day 5 complete purlins were in undercoat, with another 4 to go.

They all need cleaning with Turps too, as the surfaces are greasy from the drilling oil.

 

At the end of the afternoon we heard a GWR whistle, although it was P&O that was in service. That needs investigating!

It turned out to be 2807, out on a little test trip up to the bracket signal in the cutting. Here it is, just setting off.

On the way back to the shed we caught it here, after emerging from the station. Everything seemed to work OK, and there were some happy faces on the footplate.

Wednesday with some Usketeers.

Dave was away, so that meant three of us on site today.

During the week we received half a load of topsoil, the other half having gone to our drainage department.

This is really useful. Many thanks to Drainage and PWay who organised it.

On Wednesday we didn't waste any time and got straight to terms with this big pile of soft earth. It is high quality stuff, with very few foreign bodies in it (often you find shards of glass in recycled topsoil).

We put the first lot behind the platform slabs, where some settlement had taken place. We then started to fill the area of ground between the paver path and the tree, to achieve a gradual but steady slope.

At 10.30 Paul stopped to wave at some friends on the first train out of CRC. Actually, Paul always waves to people, he's very friendly, but this time it was at someone he actually knew.

Yours truly decided to fit the mesh to the second gutter, now that it is finally watertight. But first we had to get all the bits of oak tree out. It was amazing what they tree had already dropped in there, and the leaves hadn't even fallen yet.

Here is the mesh in situ. It's a clever system, and not expensive. The mesh screen is pressed on to studs on little arms that attach to the rim of the gutter. The roof underfelt still needs a trim - it started to rain soon after lunch.

You can see the need for the mesh from the stuff we had to scoop out.

It would work equally well at Broadway, where pine needles are a recurrent problem the whole year round, and must be getting into the underground drainage system by now.

This was the scene when we called it a day. Maybe half of the topsoil had been distributed, and we seeded the area outside the goods wagon.

Time will tell if the seeds still take this time of year, but it is worth a try.

The Pway gang was active also today, and here we see Martin in the Telehandler bearing gifts - a box full of 1/8th lifters.

Whatever rows your boat...

Sheds.

An interesting item came in from a contact at Wallingford. They built themselves a 'snack shack', but with such imagination. Just look at the picture, wow!

This little wooden building is beautifully disguised as a  newspaper stall, with amazing posters of the era, all home made. It is so believable. It also dispenses drinks on gala days.

We are very impressed, and it shows what you can do with a bit of creative thought, and a belief in creating a heritage atmosphere. We are selling a bygone era, and this works, while still serving a modern purpose.

 

 

At Winchcombe on P1 another wooden shed has gone up. 

This is paired with a road cone and plastic security fencing behind the GWR platform posts we put up last year.

See you next week!