A grab lorry came.

 

 

Thursday at Toddington

A contractor came with a grab lorry to empty the three trucks from Broadway and take the contents to - Gotherington Skew bridge! Don't we have a railway line to there?

Here are the three trucks on the unloading road at Toddington. Neal is checking the unloading of the first truck. It will be four journeys to get them all cleared.

Once the first load has gone, Neal, Ian from the drainage gang and yours truly don the inch thick clay boots and shovel the bits missed by the grab into the middle for another go.

The operation went well, although slowly, as the grab was soon full of sticky clay that wouldn't come out any more.

 

Between the loads, and after shoveling the remains into the middle, we went to the mess room for a brew.

On the way, through the shed, we took this picture.

You can see the 2807 tender frames (upside down) and in the background the Peckett John, which is being rebuilt as a fill in job as time allows.

When we came back from tea it had started to rain and blow quite seriously. The sky was very disturbed. The first wagon was empty, and the second almost so.

 

 

The third and last wagon was the Mermaid, and once again we had to climb in, don the inch thick clay boots and shovel stuff into the middle.

You got a shovel full of clay, lifted it up (very heavy) and then threw it into the middle.

No you didn't, as the clay remained stuck to your shovel ! Cue much banging of shovels on the metal floor to get the damned stuff off.

The grab lorry went to Gotherington Skew four times, and the last journey, being empty, was a fill in one to take some of the PWay's big pile of concrete rubble away.

Huge pile of concrete rubble in the PWay yard.

Yours truly stood in the pouring rain and gusty wind to see the grab lorry pick up old sleepers, broken platform slabs, concrete rubble and S&T frames.

The PWay yard has been a dumping ground for years, sadly. But no more.

After taking out one lorry load - say about 20 tons - the pile was much reduced, although we would dare venture that there was enough left for the chap to come again. There is other scrap concrete around the site, esp old sleepers such as the broken wartime economy ones.

Saturday out with the gang.

Nice and sunny, but a modest turnout. C&W were shunting around us, to retrieve a plywood lined box van to have new plywood fitted. It seems that it was an economy van, with plywood fitted when built, so it's going to get more of the same, but of a better quality.

Here is our PWay train being shunted back and forth.

The white Transit, having 150.000 miles on the clock, seems to be weeping oil, so we left it at home and piled everything into the Ranger. Luckily we didn't need many tools this time. Some of us had to go in private cars, but as the work site was at Toddington with its big car park that was no problem.

 

The main job on Saturday was to lift and pack a number of dipped joints at the yard exit.

Bert Ferrule and Graham then went off to the end of the CWR north of the viaduct, to resume fishplate greasing southwards.

They made it to the Stow Road bridge.

The yard at Toddington gives a good view of the passing trains. On Saturday, being Easter, we can report that the trains were well filled, which is a relief. 6 carriages out of the 7 had people sitting at every window. 

A motorcycle group called at Toddington as well, so we are getting back into the swing of things.

The balancing working to P&O heading south was Foremarke Hall, but the shot was straight into the sunlight.

We debated where to eat our lunch. We are barred from the revamped cafe, even outside, if wearing orange. But that is what we look like, we are required to wear it.

As the sun shone brightly we decided to sit on the terrace outside the mess room.

Can you see it coming yet?

In the foreground is some of the Interflon kit. We have given up on one of the backpacks, and are using the little hand sprayers as the second. You really need two operators, one going down each rail.

This was the machine Nick and Dave were trying to see in the picture above. Unusually, and luckily for the photographer, the driver had a bit of steam on, while still in the 10mph station limits restriction. We then heard the lovely sound of a 3 cylinder pacific accelerating away.

Our next PWay project will be the installation of the stop block (in the car park at Toddington) and the relaying of 2 or 3 panels of track in front of it. These lengths will be occupied by 4 goods vehicles that have been cosmetically restored, to make the Toddington site look better from a passing train.

Monday on the steels.

Easter Monday, so trains ran, and two of us attacked the steel in the greenhouse again, trying to get the cleaning and painting job finished at last.

One of the two trains was hauled by a Growler on Monday (staff shortages was a reason we heard) and we posed this shot in anticipation of a noisy Growler type departure.

Alas! The loco went into stealth mode, and trundled away and out of the film as quiet as a mouse. Delete film....

 

Back on site found us working on the curved ridge purlin sections (sticking up in the background) and the big pile of angles (in the foreground).

We are almost through it all now. It all needs to be in red undercoat, if we want any protection from the weather at all. Once it's all done we can attempt some more fabrication. Purlins and trusses need to be made still.

Two curved sections remain to be cleaned, and one straight angle, which had been done before but succumbed to streaks of rust as only in primer. It just goes to show how this roof is not dry at all, despite many people saying how lucky we are to be able to work under a roof.

 

The forecast was sunshine and showers. We had a lot of sunshine to start with, hence the good progress on Monday.

But at about 4pm a big black cloud came over, and the rain hit the station, but, strangely, mostly missed the greenhouse. We were that close to it. 

At the time we were waiting for the last of the primer to go off so that we could apply undercoat before the end of the day. This was the view from the Trust hut. It's wet. The rain is bouncing off the tarmac.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Good progress again today, with two jobs on the go:

- Lengthening the diamond paver path to meet the road, and

- Landscaping the former site of the FoWS compost bins.

We have some absences coming up over the next month or so - funerals, courses, a holiday, so we thought we'd better get on with it.

Here is Dave making a start on removing the pieces of turf.

 

Down the side of the road John and Yours Truly worked on the former compost bin area.

On a railway, there is always a drainage ditch at the bottom edge of a cutting, and this one had been back filled by the compost bins. So our job today was to reinstate the ditch, and fill in a triangular area with earth and seed it.

Here you can see us making a start.

 

 

Mid morning Dave had finished the excavation of the area for the extra pavers.

The bottom of the new paver area was then filled with sand as a blanket from the clay, and next time we will lay the pavers on top here, on a bed of weak mix.

At the end of the day on the other side you can see that the reinstated ditch is almost there. The cutting side slope is also reinstated, leaving a long triangular piece along the road, which will be seeded. If we have time, we might also seed the cutting slope, as grass is better than ivy, bindweed and bramble. The time available depends on some absences that we mentioned above, and a new job that is earmarked for us, which is still waiting for payment from a sponsor. 

There is also potential brick laying work at Broadway, once the floor is in. That side of the business is rolling along nicely. We have got the wagons loaded with spoil away and emptied, and the next thing on the list is delivery of materials to Toddington, and then transport by rail to Broadway. That should happen mid April or thereabouts.

 

We had a quick look at the PWay gang today. They went fishplate greasing, and had a yard day.

Here Dave is just returning from levelling off some spent ballast in front of our site container.

Time was also spent on GWR throughbolter removal from still reasonably decent sleepers. By the oak tree we might be interested in the construction of a sleeper built bench round its base, and paul very kindly offered us the second hand sleepers that would suit.

Then we had a 'promo' card given to us by a correspondent from Rotterdam. It's for what looks like a reinforced fishplate. Googling the name and the product produced no hits, so you'll have to take it as it is.

In fact on the GWSR we use almost always so called deep skirted fishplates, like the one below from the Bluebell.

Wikipedia - Les Chatfield.

These seem to be developed versions of Alfred A Dixon's idea of having a reinforced section in the middle, where the stress is highest.

Note that, according to the promo card, numerous railways use Alfred Dixon's fishplates, except one - the GWR ! Probably had a version of their own.

Last but not least, hot off the press (well, two days ago):

Lineside photography under review.

Many regret the withdrawal of the lineside photographer's permits that we used to have.They were withdrawn some years ago now due to increased concerns about safety.

But these safety concerns have been addressed with a new photographers' facility, now in an early April test phase.

 

A new type of photographer's security enclosure is being trialled, seen in the above photograph being taken to a test location.

 

Here it is, ready for the first test. Participants will be able to buy day photography permits and enter the secure installation, safe in the knowledge that there is no risk at all to them, or to the railway.

The height of the security screen is unfortunately not adjustable, it's one size fits all. Smaller participants will need to project themselves in an up and down motion to see over the edge, and for this a rubberised floor is included. A forklift truck will be on standby to move the secure facility to a new location on demand, if a majority of participants inside can reach agreement.