Keyless entry

Friday on Steels.

We had a bit of a hiatus in fabrication due to holidays and a delay with a purchase order, but now we are back at it again and gusset plates are being ordered.

Soon we are going to have winter weather, so the remaining steels were taken off the Macaw and parked near the 'greenhouse'.

These angles are already under its canopy, but have not been stripped and primered yet. Looks like material for the trusses, which we haven't started yet.

 

Neal is a chap with many talents, and he tends to get 'borrowed' from the canopy project for various issues around the yard.

While Neal was helping out somewhere else we had an amble around the shed, to see how our three 2-8-0s were getting on. You can see them grow!

One fledgling has now been kicked out of its nest and told to have a go and try out its wings. We didn't see that, but felt the after effects.

2807 has clearly been in steam, because if you stood nearby you could feel the heat emanating from it.

There were little wisps of steam here and there, and dribbles coming out of pipes still.

We were rather taken by this dedicated oil can, and its puddle on the shiny paintwork.

Do you like it?

 

We think of it as 'The spirit of Steam'.

 

Back to work!

The plan was to strip the millscale off the fascia plates, as well as the angles just brought in.

That proved to be a bit of a failure. The millscale was incredibly tough, and would not easily be removed with our angle grinders and flap disks. We are going to look into a couple of alternatives to get it off. Let's try the cheap option first, we'll know more next week.

Plan B was to give the already primered angles a coat of undercoat, to protect them from the oncoming winter weather. We may be under a canopy, but as soon as there is any wind the rain comes in sideways, and we do not want to have to strip all those angles that we did already a second time if they get rusty.

Here is John with one purlin being painted from above. Moving them around also results in scratches, so in a way we are playing catch up with painting here. 

Another winterising measure was to bring in the RSJs, also off the Macaw. They are still outside in this picture, as it is not easy to bring them in under cover straight off the wagon.

We got the 4 long RSJs under glass, with a bit of a wriggle. These will form the ring beam on top of the steel frame inside the future cavity wall. They are much chunkier than the ones used by the builder on P1, and we aim to get the uprights straighter than he did.

The ones still outside will become the uprights (with gusset plates on the end) and still need cutting in half to double their numbers.

At the end of the day, with Neal being away some of the time, and much manoeuvering of steels to get them inside, we had painted three of the purlins in dark stone undercoat on one side.

Now we need to buy more paint!

Just for your pleasure, here is a recent picture of Foremarke Hall entering Broadway last Monday. It was done to show the new lamp tops fitted half way along P2 there, but the loco and the ex Shirley signal box fit together so well. And the gates to the bottom of the SB are also museum pieces, they are off the HIA footbridge.

Monday at Bishops Cleeve.

The post sticking out of the ground on the right was of great interest on Monday.

It marks the site of a long lost farmer's underbridge, which has been back filled but for about 3ft on the up side, by the Cleeve playing fields. 

The 3ft hole is now hidden by a large bramble infestation.

The down side does not have a 3ft hole, and is more visible. The mission for today was to measure it up, as we want to put some hand rails round it.

 

A second job today was to check out bridge 20, where the handrails were reported as damaged.

Here you can see Neal measuring up again, to compare with the Cleeve bridge we visted earlier. Surprisingly it was 70cm wider.

The end nearest to the camera has at some time had a bash against it, and this has led to two of the handrails coming apart. As Neal is handy with steel, he was asked to take a look.

Tuesday on steels

More cleaning and primering of the 4 long fascia boards took place.

The three replica cast iron posts for the P2 canopy/foorbridge interface were also manoeuvered out of the loco shed (where we had made them, and they were now a bit in the way of other activities) and placed in store under the 'greenhouse'.

They look a bit rusty but that is not an issue, as they will be galvanised, and that process also cleans and de-rusts them. We want them to be well protected as these posts tend to be attacked by rust as they come out of the ground, hence the intention to have them galvanised tho prevent that.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Wednesday again, and more fun with the three Usketeers today (no John for once). The best bit came straight away - Paul had stopped at Gregg's and bought us all thickly filled bacon butties. It doesn't get better than that!

 

After consuming quite some coffee we fanned out and addressed various snags around the hut (as in snagging a new house, removing various issues arrising)

Dave spent the day on the thick wooden door, which had become rather scratched, after all the in and outs it's seen.

Paul had his little saw horse out, to make a strip to go on the bottom of the door, where we knew there was a gap.

 

This strip will stop any rain coming in, but we couldn't help noticing that there was still some daylight coming in under it. 

Dare we tell Paul?

 

 

We also had the idea of making up a coat rack.

We need 4 coathangers, and they want to look a bit old. Dave kicked the search off with these two, which he found under a wrecked GWR coach that used to stand under the other side of the yard. Note that he found them under the coach, not in it. They are certainly the sort of thing we are looking for, but what is their origin? They both carry the three letters I.O.W. It is tempting to think Isle Of Wight but that is unlikely. The letters may stand for the initials of the manufacturer. 

Do readers have any ideas?

 

Yours truly spent the day around the outside, filling in more of the Cotswolds stone ballast, which had settled a bit.

The operational day was a blue timetable, which translated into one train with Foremarke Hall, and one with a DMU.

We joined the clearance gang by the advanced starter, to take a picture of a departing train with the starter signal. Unfortunately there is no steam, as the train will be in station limits until the far side of Chicken Curve, so we see just drifting smoke here. Still nice though.

On our way back to the Usk hut we saw the C&W shunter arrive from Toddington with a GWR FRUIT C.  That was one of those nice, unexpected shunting manoeuvres, and the opportunity for a picture. The wagon was destined to be stabled up against the Santa coach, and its duty is to hold the store of Santa presents. A wagonload of them! You can already buy your Santa tickets on line, if you want to be sure of places on the day of your choice.

Back at the Usk hut we found Paul painting the ends of the trusses. Our trusses are in bare wood, but where they emerge outside we think a coat of paint is advisable.

 

 

 

 

After back filling two of the four sides with extra chippings, yours truly dug a small trench by the corner downpipe. 

This is to hold a short length of 3 inch drainpipe that will take any water away to a little soakaway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is it with the new length of pipe in the ground, and some of the turves cut to size and put back on top.

A small soakaway of spent ballast (still to be properly filled in the picture) was constructed at the end.

Our roof area is fairly modest, so we are not expecting floods of water, but having seen the contents of the gutter recently, despite the netting we put on, it may be that some mud will come down.

 

 

 

 

 

We put this big old lock on our door (which did not come with any sort of locking mechanism, it being just left ajar in situ in the Usk goods yard) and while it looked the part, it didn't have any keys.

The picture above was taken at a local locksmith's, where we had taken the lock to have some keys made. They would have to be pretty big ones... The locksmith thought our look was Victorian (so at least 120 years old) and he confirmed that he could make us a pair of keys, but advised us to change a part in it (roughly centre of the image, a bit hard to see) that was badly rusted and which could break at some time in the future. It means fabricating a replacement. Do we have the skills on the railway? We'll ask around.

Finally today, a mystery parcel arrived for the Usk hut. It's from a supporter. The unwrapping is later this evening, so you'll have to wait a week to see...

Exmoor Associates.

Just to remind shareholders that we are requested to vote for a number of resolutions, the end effect of which is that the YVT will control the company, and so be able to contribute towards EA purchases as a charity. It cannot do so (we understand) to a company unless there is a formal relationship with it.

This change requires a very high number of consenting votes from the EA shareholders, so if that is you, do please vote on the resolutions. Indifference will cause them to fail, so your vote is very important. Don't forget!

Online voting ends at midnight on Saturday 7th October.