Brickies gear up.

Thursday, more brick laying.

A nice sunny day, trains running, cafe open, so a great day for some work on the P2 building.

 

We set John the bricklayer up with an enormous wheelbarrow load of mortar, then watched the first train of the day run in. It was hauled by the class 24, aka 'Splut', due to its very slow running diesel. We counted 30 revolutions in 15 seconds - is that 120 rpm?

Sadly there were very few passengers for this.

 

During the day we spent most of our time moving close to a ton-and-a-half of blues to the new floor. That is one of the 6 pallets that we have.

The FoBS have bought the final 6 copper lamp tops for P2, and while we are going to have 12 of the glass panes equipped with a faux engraving of the station name, we thought why not order 11 more for the lamps on P1.

Back before the station opening we gave each lamp top one pane with the Broadway name on it, but after seeing other stations we realise that the lamp tops actually had two, so the order for the P2 tops can usefully be doubled up to complete P1.

Sadly we had to observe a certain amount of rust in the P1 lamp tops.

Our earliest purchases for Broadway were not bought from the specialist coppersmith we are using today, but from a wholesale importer, possibly of Asian origin. The quality is not as good as the home made product. Currently we are replacing all the nuts and bolts with stainless steel ones (with nylon washers to avoid an interaction with the copper) but with the earlier purchases we only changed the bolts securing the frog to the post. As you can see from the pictures above, the mild steel bolts securing the lamp top to the frog are showing serious signs of rust - sadly, there is a learning curve here.

John spent most of the day bent double, laying 3.7Kg blues, one at a time.

Foremarke Hall was the steamer of the day, and that train was much more popular.

Here it is in front of the modern STOP sign. That was placed there prior to opening in 2018 as a 'temporary' measure until the signal box came into use. That's 6 years ago now.

Nothing is as long as a temporary measure.

 

The third train of the day had the class 24 again.

It rumbled past our worksite, and we got a cheery wave from the driver.

 

Although the day wasn't quite finished, we decided to do just the one barrow of mortar, albeit a huge one. Two huge ones would be too much.

That gave us another 60 blues laid, so completing the first of 5 rows along the front.

Here's a shot looking the other way. Note that all the brick piles have been replenished, so we are ready to go next time.

The last shot of the day shows Foremarke Hall rumbling into Broadway station again. We took the shot to show just how much more busy it was. There was a coach party too, and we heard Dutch voices more than once.

Tuesday on bricks again.

Italian voices heard today, although reports from Toddington and Winchcombe came that they were not too busy. Broadway seemed quite good, however. Maybe end-to-end traffic?

As last Thursday, Neal spent the day on the steels at Toddington, leaving John and Yours Truly on brick laying.

 

 

This was the third day on the blues. The first day saw 80 bricks laid, the second 60 and this time John managed 98 blues, with a mix and a half made.

That's about as much as we can manage between us.

We think there are about 150 bricks to go, to get right round on the first course.  There will be 5 courses on the plinth.

 

 

Yours truly spent much of the day on lamp tops. These have become topical, because when FoBS bought the final lot of 6 we needed, it focused the subject of mild steel bolts on the older models - now possibly 10 years on their posts - being rusty. While we now change all the mild steel bolts for stainless ones upon delivery, in the early days we only changed the bolts holding the frog on the top of the post.

 

Here you can see how those earlier bolts have performed over the years. Some of the nuts are severely delayered, and proved to be quite difficult to remove. We also discovered that the base plate was fake copper - in was in fact a steel one, with copper corners. These earlier lamp tops were cheap and got us up and running.

 

This is how we now change the bolts for stainless ones, right after purchase. On either side of the copper bottom sheet is now a nylon washer, to keep the stainless steel from eating the copper.

All 6 of the latest tops are now in etch pimer, and 'lamp glasses' with BROADWAY on them are awaiting collection from the supplier.

At Broadway there are 11 lamp tops along P1. It's a huge number, they're much too close together, but that was the advice of the builder at the time. Today we changed the rusty bolts on 7 of them. An eighth one was too far gone, the nuts were rusted on solid and impossible to remove.

 

 In between times there were always trains to watch.

Tuesday we had the blue Growler, with a handful of diesel enthusiasts in the first carriage.

 

Mid afternoon we took a picture of John's work, with 2807 in the background.

John's half way along the back. The second half needs doing, then the southern end (store room) and then we're back at the start for the second course.

 

It always gives us pleasure to see people photographing the posters at Broadway. They seem very popular, you often see people taking pictures of them, or standing in front of one for a selfie.

The posters on the N end were particularly selected to suit the age of the station, the early 1900s. The races one is, admittedly, from the 1930s, but we couldn't resist it as it advertises Stratford races. Such a poster would typically have been displayed at Broadway, and along our line.

We have found two more older examples for the P2 building - you need to plan ahead in this game. We will now have 3 of the 6 likely to be required. With the purchase cost of the poster, and conversion to a metal background, the per item cost is around £100. Not much expenditure for so much pleasure, and atmosphere.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Three Usketeers today, with Dave on holiday (retirement is one long holiday for some...). We pushed on regardless, but missed his good company.

 

 

 

The first grandfather post north set last week is now rigid, and was equipped with a wooden post.

This allows a link with the gate.

While John started on the next hole, Paul fitted wooden posts to the other concrete ones set last week

Yours Truly was captured 'on film' by Terry. 

Having creosoted all the capping strips and supporting rails, the drizzly weather today was a good opportunity to fit the caps. The rest of the woodwork supply was too wet to paint, so just three big posts were painted today, as we had previously placed these in a drier spot in the greenhouse.

 

The C&M gang have been creosoting too, bringing the existing featherboarding up to scratch to match the new.

Here are Rod, Paul and Terry painting the old, dry fence that surrounds the sliding gate.

 

 

 

 

The forecast was for a wet start, drying out later in the day. We didn't notice any of that, and were forced to put on jumpers and jackets to keep warm and dry. What a July!

Mid morning we like to sit and have a coffee, but it was wet outside, so we opted for a table in the Cotswolds halt.

A Cappucino and a lump of Rocky Road certainly goes down well when its cold and mizzly outside.

Treat yourself, why not ?

 

 

Occasionally the drizzle let off, and we paused under the lime tree to reflect on what we would do next.

Those new rails are just the right height for a good chinwag.

At the station, 2807 paused for a bit of a lunch break.

This is the chance for the footplate crew to eat a sandwich. You get a few minutes - it was ever so.

Round the back of the cafeteria building, people from C&M were replacing a panel of tongue and groove that had gone a bit rotten. At the same time (we think) there is a change of colour in the offing.

They did a nice job, very neat.

After a picnic lunch, out in the open again, between drizzle showers, Paul and John were installing a new concrete post, the first of the ones up the drive, at 1m from the edge.

This will allow a grassy strip in front of the fence that can be mown. The bottom rail is to be high enough to push a mower under. 

How many cm is that though? We will need to make enquiries.

At the end of a rather damp day we had nonetheless made good progress.

Both left and right of the gate have seen the start of the post and rail fence - one up the drive, the other up towards the steel paling fence. The first of two gate retaining posts was also installed, and we have bought a pair of long cabin hooks for it.

 

 

We also finished off the capping strip along the featherboard fence, at least as far as the front is concerned. The side leg is still to do, but the battery of the drill gave out. Next week then.

Also to do is a capping strip on the gate, and the closing of the gap that still remains next to the gate. At the moment we have other priorities.

 

Lastly at Toddington, a couple of shots of Neal's work on the P2 canopy steelwork.

While we were laying bricks on the concrete floor, Neal has been at Toddington, and this is what he did.

In the picture is the manufacture of the arched ridge purlins. This is a complicated fabrication, requiring much cutting and the use of gusset plates that we recently cleaned and painted.

The other thing under the radar was this: The placing of 200 or so rivets on the second batch of fascia plates. This was done on Sunday by a small team, with the help of our steam department.

As you can see from the picture, all 4 eight meter long fascia plates have now been rivetted.

So we really have two teams working on parts for the Broadway P2 building - brick laying at Broadway, and canopy manufacture at Toddington.

PWay gang news.

First of all, just to confirm that many of us play more than one role, our good friend Pete has just qualified as a fully independent signalman.

A beaming new signalman Pete, in his box at Cheltenham Race Course.

'Certified', he called that. We're not sure if that is a good word for it, the nice young men in their clean white coats might take him away, ha-ha, he-he...

Next, the C&W shunter was spotted at Winchcombe getting the recently painted goods consist ready for its future place on the siding 2 that we relaid at Toddington, by the heritage yard lamp.

That should look great !

Several of the gang have been involved with the building of Hayles Abbey halt.

Today the whole gang descended on the halt to give it a maintenance fillip.

The halt is very much in demand by photographers. It's become one of our strong points along the line. So it deserves to be well looked after.

Here is Peter giving the fake sleeper built platform a fresh coat of Creosote.(there are bricks behind the woodwork)

After 7 years or so of use the platform level has seen settlement, so today saw the gang beef it up again with fresh crushed Cotswolds stone chippings.

This job took a whole lot more chippings than was at first estimated, and we would like to thank our building supplier Fairview (who supplied many of the materials for Broadway) for delivering several additional dumpy bags at very short notice indeed.

Fairview are based next to Honeybourne station, and one of their drivers is the son of a signalman Jim Hughes who operated several of our boxes.

Toddington, Winchcombe, Broadway spring to mind, although the principal one was Long Marston, also on the Honeybourne line.

It's nice to be local.

There was quite a bit of weeding to be done too, despite the use of a ground sheet under the chippings.

Here Paul is pulling at the weed growth under the post and rail fence that we built.

Lastly, Paul took this rather lovely picture of Foremarke Hall with steam on, passing our lovely Hayles Abbey Halt. The extra Cotswolds stone chippings are very much in evidence.