The Growler came.

Thursday at Broadway

The viaduct is now back open for traffic, and the first loco over it was 37 215. Just to test the line, see, but why not pick up the 3 spoil wagons from the P2 foundations while we are there?

We had a tip off, so waited eagerly on P1 until we heard a distant 'toot', the sign that a train is passing the foot crossings between Laverton and Little Buckland.

Residents of the Broadway station cottages tell that when the line was still open they could hear the train when it was still at Winchcombe.

The Growler buffered up to the 4 wagons, one of which was due to be left at Broadway in LT storage.

So here you have an unusual picture of a freight train at Broadway, and not just for demonstration purposes either. One day it will be back too, as we have another three wagon loads to load and dispose of.

The Dogfish was left in the north siding, the Mermaid re-attached, and the loco drew into P1 to gather the rest of its crew.

Here it is, ready for departure again.

We decided to film the departure of the Growler, but sadly the load was nothing for its power, and it trundled off very shyly, not growling at all until it was past the advance starter, some distance away.

Oh well.

Saturday - back at Broadway (but with a different hat on)

Just in time, before services to Broadway resume at Easter, a PWay hit squad went to Broadway to tamp the floating sleepers adjacent to the two trenches that were dug to connect the two platforms, and provide an outlet for the stormwater to the centre drain.

Here they are, right in front of the stationmaster's office, where the cable ducts to P2 begin.

It was a good thing that we tamped the areas of the two trenches, as the Robels went into the ballast like a knife into butter. There was little or no resistance.

Now all is well, and there are no worries about trains causing the track to subside where the trenches are.

The weather forecast was for showers in the morning, and we certainly got one of those.

In fact it was a hailstorm, and Cleeve Hill disappeared behind a huge black cloud, never a good sign at Broadway. It means you're in for it, weatherwise.

While tamping an additional dip that we happened to spot, the hail came down so hard that we had to flee for drier premises. We don't often do that.

Our tools for the day were the two Robels that we had named recently -

LITTLE FREDDIE

 

 

 

and

BIG AL.

 

These names commemorate two dear friends that we lost over the last couple of years - Stevie Warren and Alan Miller, both to cancer, which proved to be incurable. Stevie Warren had a completely different name in his civilian life.... although he was called Steve, Winchcombe locals called him Little Freddie, being a junior version of his well known father Fred. He had a reputation before he knew it....

Alex of our C&W department very kindly painted on the names.

For lunch we thought the nice warm mess container of the Broadway gang looked inviting, but sadly they were about to lock it up, so the only dry alternative was this table for 4 on the platform.

Chris, Tony, Tim, Bert Ferrule, Dave and Jim round the table. We are the riff-raff, and have to eat outside...

It was dry, but we never said it wasn't windy. It wasn't a place to linger, but at least the rain fizzled out, with a dry afternoon on the cards.

Here the sky was already broken cloud, as we filled up the backpack for the start of the annual fishplate greasing.

We kick off at Broadway north, and stop at CRC...  There are a few lucky breaks in the middle, with stretches of CWR with no fishplates at all. Whoopee!

The track across the viaduct has been welded into 60ft lengths, so that is a bonus this year.

We made it to our day's target of Pry Lane, not without some difficulty, as these backpacks, supplied with the Interflon product, are sadly rather useless. They clog every 5 or 6 fishplates, despite vigorously shaking the fluid, and the hose for the wand is too stiff, so that by moving it around it soon disconnects itself and the stuff gets everywhere.

Tim is going to bring a plain weedkiller sprayer, see if that works any better. Unless a reader has a better idea? And the stuff is ruinously expensive, is there not a similar product on the market?

Back at Winchcombe four of us hit the Coffeepot (outside again), and there was time for an updated shot of the S&T workshop going up.

Tuesday at Toddington.

While waiting for more supplies at Broadway two of the canopy gang spent a day in the 'Greenhouse' at Toddington, working on the steels again. These still require further cleaning of rust and millscale, and painting.

It's a boring job, but it has to be done. 

For a little break, we watched one of the trains leave. It's nice to be running again, and on Tuesday, with two steamers. Sadly there were only few passengers, this early in the season, and without the tourist destination of Broadway. 

We were chatting to the driver of Dinmore Manor when this little scene appeared. Not just the two admirers of our manor, but the little Drewry railcar appearing in the distance.

On the right are the three spoil wagons from Broadway. They will be emptied on Thursday and the contents taken to Gotherington Skew bridge for an infill job there.

 

The little Drewry paused by the box to get the token (it is too low down to just have it handed over from the signalman above) and then advanced through P2 in the direction of the viaduct.

 

 

Then back to work. The day was forecast to start fine, then deteriorate slowly to steady rain in the afternoon - exactly what happened.

So we had a good half day to advance the cleaning and painting work.

 

 

 

These brackets were made and then cleaned and primered a couple of months ago, the last thing we did before we started on site at Broadway.

Here they are in undercoat, protected at last from the weather.

By mid afternoon it had indeed started to rain, but the sound of 37 215 idling in the station made us go and have a look.

Here is the Growler just taking over the last train to CRC, while the loco that brought the train in, Foremarke Hall, is taking on water.

Then back to the cleaning job again.

We're probably about 3/4 of the way there with the cleaning and painting. While we are technically 'under cover' that is only true on completely windstill days. Most other days though the steelwork gets wet and then it rusts, even after cleaning, if we have put on primer, but not yet undercoat. Primer does not protect against rust, sadly. Some primered work has had to be cleaned a second time as it was covered in streaks of rust where we were unable to apply undercoat before the end of the day last year.

From this view it's looking quite good all round. Once everything is painted we can assemble a bit more. It all needs to be ready to go at some point, because once the walls are up we need to be able to assemble the canopy on site all in one go, with a costly amount of scaffolding around it, which will also stand on the track. So that means a winter erection of the scaffolding, and just a limited number of months in which to do it, before services resume for the next season.

The new Cotswolds Halt.

At the end of the day, and without any orange on, we visited the new cafe to see what it was like. The old Flag & Whistle is no more. It was a franchise arrangement, but as it was lastly actually costing the railway money (instead of making a cash contribution) the decision was taken to bring the cafe in-house and give it a refresh.

The main cafeteria.

The main room is the same size, but it feels brighter.

An opening has been broken through to the old volunteers' mess next door, and we now have a bar, with additional seating.

The new bar

There are draught beers and cider, comfy chairs and some bar stools with textiles from spare material in our C&W upholstery section.

The counter was made in the C&W woodwork shop. 

It looked a bit dark, due to a curtain being drawn. It wasn't actually open during our visit, as we are still in the low volume shoulder season.

The cafe is now open Tuesdays - Sundays, six days a week. Very impressive. Friday is a non running day usually, but there are Fire & Drive sessions.

The counter, and a welcoming Tracey.

The food offering is simplified. You can get hot panini, pizzas and sausage / bacon rolls, and fresh cakes. There's no actuall cooked food, as that is labour intensive, and we cannot compete with the very successful Pheasant pub next door. The offering is a start, and may evolve as we build up actual customer experience. There is lovely apple juice from Hayles Fruit Farm.

Passenger figures have been low these first few weeks, but Tracey surprised us by revealing that her side of the business had been 'manic' That's great news.

PWay news.

We've got a couple of stop frame videos from Walt:

On Monday they went to Toddington to pick up some redundant stuff from the viaduct.

This was brought to Toddington south on the trolley, and stored by the yard throat.

We ascertained from Walt that the number of frames per second on these films varies according to the length of the stop frame video. In fact the number of frames in the stop frame mode is fixed, so the longer the video is, the faster things seem to happen.

We don't really work that fast...

Then we have some shots from Paul, showing the hired in B&R tamper at work on the viaduct.

This is a fantastic drone shot. Apparently the quality of the trackwork across the viaduct is superb. We hope you appreciate that, as you glide across it.

The drone shot also shows the white discolouration of the legs. That is what was caused by the leaking waterproofing course, now repaired. The damage itself has not yet been repaired, for want of funds. The whole lower section of the viaduct needs repointing, and damaged bricks replaced. The GWR Trust appeal for this remains open, in the hope that more people will contribute.

You can also see the cable stays attached to the parapets. They were also paid for by the Trust, an unexpected additional expense.

This is a shot from inside the tamper. The tamper is hired in, and we always have a PWay representative on board, in case something unexpected develops.

Straight ahead is Stanway viaduct, looking north towards Broadway.

It was striking today that there were very few passengers. Is it because of the weather, or because people can't travel to Broadway? At Easter we will find out.

Later on the tamper had reached Pry Lane, and here you can see the jib of the crane attending to the expansion of the sewage treatment plant.

Back on top of the viaduct, now looking south. You can see how the spoil from the deep cutting at Toddington was used to build up to the point where the viaduct starts.

While the viaduct was being built a contractor's railway ran down the valley along the tree line on the right, and back up the other side. There is a picture showing that.

 

Today, Wednesday, was a very wet day and not very suitable for doing much. For some strange reason it was the PWay gang that was asked to dismantle the ugly penguin hut installed on the Winchcombe platform before Christmas.  Eight people (!) answered the call.

The new, improved penguins.

How many PWayers does it take to dismantle a plywood hut? With careful planning, 8 should suffice.

'Baldrick, get the door'

A day with an Usketeer.

Yes, 'an'. There was only one today. Domestic priorities seemed to have overcome the usual Wednesday peregrination to Winchcombe for the three others. Yours truly decided to go nonetheless, as we really need to get the grass seeded out, in readiness for the unveiling of the enamel sign by our Trust chairman on May 8th at 11 am.

There was also this chair in the boot of the car, that we didn't want to carry around for any length of time.

It's for our coal office, the coal man has to have somewhere to sit at his desk. The Railway Archiving Trust at Toddington very kindly agreed to let us have it, and it is a perfect specimen, just right for what we want. Old looking, not too luxurious, but striking nonetheless.

 

Here it is, installed by the lowered portion of the counter, which makes up the desk for the coal man.

We've got all the items on the desk, donated by blog readers, as well as a new item - did you spot it? It's a delivery note for some coal to Winchcombe, in the filing tray top right.

Can't read what it says?

Here is a photograph of it:

So BR (W) advise the (then) coal man that two wagons filled with coal have arrived at the station for him, and he's got three days to get them emptied before they start to charge him 3/- for demurrage per day. What's that, 20 tons of coal to shift? Blimey ! Better get shovelling... the pressure is on. 

We haven't the time to check out the two collieries involved (do you want this blog out, or not?) but we can see that the delivery note was signed ('for') Mr. Don Carver, who was the stationmaster at Winchcombe in 1955. We even have a picture of him:

Here he is, in his splendid original GWR pillbox hat, standing in front of his house, which is of course still there. The sailor on the left is his son Peter. (Picture courtesy of Helen Carver, his daughter)

Back to the Usk hut:

We turned up at the usual time, did a certain amount of seeding and digging, and then the heavens opened.

The pale brown bottom right is grass seed not yet dug in. We sat in the hut, it rained harder and harder, and then some of the rain started to stick to the window: Sleet !

The PWay gang sat safely ensconced in their mess hut, eating doughnuts and drinking tea.

Late morning the weather eventually cleared up (it was a band of rain travelling across the UK) and we were able to get on with a number of cosmetic tasks for the enamel sign unveiling.

This is the bottom of our spent ballast road, straightened out from last week, and levelled. There is no more ballast available, although 20 tons of the stuff remain at Didbrook, waiting for delivery. They would go well into this watery hole at the front, and also elsewhere in the Pway yard, not all of which is hardened ground.

As the band of rain passed over the sun came back out, and we were able to take a couple of fine shots of our two working locos today. Here is Dinmore Manor just coming off Chicken Curve.

Isn't she looking great. But sadly nearing the end of her boiler ticket, so enjoy while you can.

Going the other way was Foremarke Hall:

Just leaving Winchcombe, but still within station limits, so regulator all but closed.

Back to the Usk hut for more digging - shifting some spent ballast around, and sowing grass seeds, and digging them over. Two pheasants were lurking nearby. We know what they are planning to do as soon as we leave...

This is what they are after, a now large area of seeded lawn, with lots of grass seeds to peck peck peck at.

We hope that by digging it all over some of the seeds will be underground and thus free from the attention of the pigeons and pheasants. But as Paul says, one third of seed is wasted, one third is for the birds, and one third is for you. Hope something comes up before the big day.

More diamond pavers.

Saturday at Pry Lane

A good gang of 9, and plenty of cake (from David, with extra chocolate) and five packets of Doughnuts. Not all got eaten, and one member of the gang very kindly offered to take the rest home for private consumption.

 

 

The first job was to load a spare concrete sleeper.

Now normally these don't really wear out, but the one we were due to replace was cracked, probably laid like that.

 

The location was Broadway, by the goods shed.

Here we are, digging out the old one.

 

We tried to lever it out, but these jobbies are really heavy, so we waited for Dave to arrive with the Telehandler.

He pulled the old sleeper out, no problem.

 

Then we had to insert the replacement.

It needed several new attachment points, and then it was in.

 

The next job was not far short of Pry Lane Bridge, so before starting the job Yours Truly walked down to the bridge itself, to see what all the construction going on there was about.

The rumours we had heard were true, the contractors had lowered the road under our bridge... It seems their articulated delivery lorries had trouble passing under the bridge, which is a skew one... 

Here is their 360, levelling the verge.

This is the view from our trackbed. Big works going on. The crane jib has been on the horizon for quite a while now. It looks like one more circular settlement tank is being built, together with ancillary buildings.

The reason why makes us suspect that there may be big housebuilding projects at Broadway...

Back to GWSR PWay.

We came to Pry Lane to fit rubber crossing pads to a ballast working crossing laid in by our dear friend Stevie back in 2017. He of the RRV. Yours Truly helped by bringing in Broadway demolition spoil with the big hired in dumper.

But the crossing remained a very temporary one, so the job for the day was to fit official rubber pads, to make it easier to use.

 

The rubber pads to be fitted had been delivered to the site at some prior point, so all we had to do was slip them in.

The first one goes in. It's a bit tricky, as an edge has to be pushed into the web of the rail, and because it's made of rubber, it's very reluctant. You can hit it with a keying hammer, but it just bounces back at you.

We got one side it by using the Duff jacks on their sides, then the second half was dropped in by Dave with the Telehandler.

The pads were put in on the skew. We are on a high embankment here, and it's not possible to cross over at right angles.

Here they are, 4 pads laid in. Two more were earmarked to be laid in, but on the day that proved to be impossible, because these rubber pads are too thick to be laid on concrete sleepers, and the necessary wooden sleepers with base plates had only been envisaged for 4 pads when we laid the track here.

Not far away was this distant signal post.

Notice the cross, it is not in use, and hasn't been for years, since it was erected. What a shame.

 

The first vehicle over the crossing, with new pads, was the Transit.

A slow approach was not possible, as the rear wheels spun on the loose ballast as soon as you let the clutch in. So we hopped up with gusto, and came to a stop on top, with the bonnet on the edge of the embankment. Here Dave loaded the two spare pads on the back.

Dave loading the two remaining rubber crossing pads.

This picture shows, by means of a faint trace of dust on the pads, that the outer rear wheel was in the air when it crossed here. The other side was the same, so this crossing needs to be lengthened to allow a much more diagonal approach.

The next stop was a mile away at Laverton.

Here the flood has receded and the drains were clear. However, water continued to flow into the area from what looked like a broken pipe inside the bank, bubbling out of the hole bottom left of the picture.

 

Also of interst was the fact that someone had opened the gate to the line by taking it off its hinges. That's not how you are meant to do it!

Clearly we need to chain the hinge end to the post, but how?

 

Dave had a brainwave (it does happen...). The original access to the old Laverton Halt on the opposite side of the road is no longer in use, as we prefer the one in the picture above. It is completely overgrown with brambles now, and on top of that there is a 12 inch concrete ridge built along the road verge that makes any vehicular access impossible.

Can you see Dave? We promise you, he is in the picture...

So if there is a chain and padlock on the old gate, perhaps we could use that?

And so it was.

Monday at Broadway.

A surprise visit back to the site, following the availability of a bag of ballast with which to make concrete infill.

 

 

First of all, given that trains will return here at the end of next week, we decided to tidy the site a bit by moving our mixer to under the footbridge.

The water butt should come too, but - it was full of water.

Now, some of you would have overturned that water butt and carried it away empty, but not Neal. Waste not, want not...

 

 

 

 

So here is the new mortar (or indeed concrete, as on Monday) production site.

The big orange bag is a fresh bag of ballast, as on Monday we would be making concrete to part fill the void between the two rows of concrete blocks.

During the day we got rid of the whole bag (about a tonne of content) and shovelled it into the mixer. That was quite tough.

 

 

We produced round about 15 barrows of concrete, which were all carted by Neal to the building.

 Here John was waiting to shovel it into the void, which needed to be about half full all the way round.

 

 

 

The heavy rain that we have seen these last days also left its stamp on the site, with standing water esp at the north end.

John just about managed to keep his feet dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We managed three sides of the building before lunch. The orange bag full turned out to be insufficient, but fortunately we had a pile of ballast that we shovelled out of the Mermaid wagon a couple of months ago, and that happened to be within easy reach of the mixer, under the bridge. 

After lunch we finished off the last side, and a strip by the 'Gents' end from one side to the other.

Now we are waiting for a shunter to be arranged to take away the three loaded spoil wagons.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

An excellent day, with lots of digging, and a delivery of diamond pavers.

 

 

 

On arrival at Winchcombe we spotted the B&R tamper by the signal box.

Shortly afterwards it started its engine and drove south, through the tunnel.

 

 

 

 

 

Nearby we also spotted a rake of interesting goods vehicles. No doubt they will feature in the next gala.

All of these have recently been restored, so well done, that C&W team!

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the tamper left for its next job on the southern part of the line the PWay crew set off for its own job for the day - work in Greet tunnel. 

This is an opportunity not to be missed, while trains only run at weekends for a short time.

 

 

 

The Usketeers continued with the sizeable job of landscaping around the hut, while at the same time tidying up the PWay yard for use by the department. There's actually a lot of space under those piles of spoil and bramble entanglements.

Dave and Paul started by spreading out the spoil dropped last week on the spot where the compost bins used to stand.

Dave dropping another load of spent ballast to lengthen the road.

Once the PWay gang had finished loading their replacement sleepers the Telehandler became available, and we used it to fetch more spent ballast for the road past the hut.

 

 

 

Digging the spent ballast out of the pile wasn't easy, as the pile was peppered with reduntant concrete sleepers. These are of a design that we don't use, so we promoted them to the scrap concrete pile.

 

 

Paul raked the ballast level, while John cleaned up the spoil we brought last week (many rocks in it).

 

With what was available in spent ballast we almost got to the gate, as you can see here.

There was a bit more left, but it was no longer possible to scoop it up without including large quantities of clay.

 

 

 

Dave therefore volunteered to fill the Telehandler bucket by hand, which was a pretty tough job.

 

 

 

 

 

Yours Truly went round to your friendly reclamation yard to get 44 12x6 inch diamond pavers. We still had a bit of money in the kitty to make that possible.

The thing is, we noticed that while we have a nice diamond paver path from the platform to the door, a lot of footfall was taking place between the door and the road. This crossed over a 6ft stretch of lawn, and was wearing it down. Hence came the idea of lengthening the diamond paver path.

 

So it was that your blogger's car was the first vehicle to use the newly raised spent ballast road alongside the hut.

The pavers were stacked outside the door, ready for installation, perhaps next week. That depends on the weather, and what else we are doing. Our list of potential jobs increased today, it's not just at Broadway where the Usketeers will be helping out.

More details of that later when it all firms up.



 

 

PWay through the tunnel today.

 

 

 

 

 

A closer picture of the gang setting off for the tunnel. These pictures were taken by Paul, who was with them.

 

Here they are emerging at the other end of Greet tunnel, where we have been spot resleepering for a while now.

One day we will replace these with concrete sleepers.

If the sleeper is not too bad, but the chair is loose, it is also possible to fit a coil spring, and then drive the chair screw back home. That fixes it.

 

The trolleys that were pushed up had a generator on board and lights, for resleepering inside the tunnel. 

Yes, there too, even though it's dry. Everything has a finite life.

This one for example has a finite life. It's pretty much gone, so is about to be pulled out.

 

 

 

 

This little beauty was found inside a concrete cable trough.

They are common enough in S France, but in the UK we don't see them very often.

 

On the way back through the tunnel the generator was on and the big lights were working.

That makes for a lovely, atmospheric photograph.

Notice that while many people are pushing, one gang member has found hinmself a comfy little seat.

That's much better !

 

We can also benefit from Paul's drone.

Here is a shot of Winchcombe yard, looking south.

The siding with the carriage in Carmine and Cream paint is still known as the 'EE' siding. That's an echo from the past - it stands for 'Elegant Excursions'. Sadly these stopped running a few years back now.

Paul also took some pictures of the tamper earlier, while it was north of Winchcombe (it went south today). It was working in the area of the Defford straight here.

 

 



An update on Byfield No. 2

A contact at the Plym Valley Railway at Marsh Mills saw last week's 'Absent Friends' item on Byfield No.2 and sent us a couple of pictures taken in February this year.

The boiler looks nice in its red primer, but work on an overhaul has stopped.

Here are the frames, with a Polish TKh49 behind them.

We understand that this 1942 Bagnall is now actually for sale, so if you are interested we can put you in touch. Send a message via the contact option top right on the blog.

A few details about its history can be read here:

https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/w-g-bagnall-works-no-2655-byfield-0-6-0st/