The last one this year.

Friday at Broadway.

The last few days before Christmas. Will we work? It's always a last minute decision, often weather dependent. Friday looked dry. - ish.

 

 

 

On arrival up the station approach, we saw the effect of the removal of 5 more pine trees.

Can a tree lined station drive still be called tree lined with only one tree on one side?

Well, some are leaning over a bit, and one neighbour seemed worried about it, as she started parking her car on our forecourt, instead of on her drive.

We've had some very wet days, and Neal's freshly dug pit for the third canopy support is now a sort of outdoor hot tub at the moment. This will hamper our intentions to pour the concrete for the base. It is surrounded by pure clay, the sort they use to waterproof canals.

 

The rain also washed a whole load of pine needles along the gutters and down one of the down pipes. We extracted about a football of needles from here. Luckily there was a drain cover underneath. However, the down pupes along the plaform lead straight underground, so fingers crossed they don't make a blockage where we can't get at it.

On to work. Our usual wheelbarrow suffered a puncture, so we had to borrow another from the Broadway maintenance team. Hope they repair it.

With heavy clay currently all along the back, John preferred to work on the northern end, which still had some clean rubble along it. He used two mixes during the day, until the rain came after lunch.

While we were away Neal dug the second riser pit and put the rings in. This one is for the service ducts that connect with the store room on P1. The top is hidden under that concrete block.

Readers may recall that we dug down on P1, punched through the platform wall, dug a trench under the tracks and punched a hole under the P2 wall. This riser will pick up on that conduit.

The water pipe still has to be dealt with.

During Friday Yours Truly rescued more blues and reds and stacked them on separate pallets. The picture shows the reuslt of several months' work - there are approximately 600 reclaimed bricks here. Most bricks we find are damaged, so the other job is to smash them up and use them as infill around the building and along the platform, where the previous infill has settled.

At the end of Friday - the rain came at 2pm - John had used his two barrows of muck to raise the end wall by two courses, nos 7 and 8. This wall will be blank, but will carry two large quad royal poster boards, which you will see when you come down the steps. We have already organised two of the posters for them, two more 1900s style to find.

 

 

 

Saturday, out with the gang.

An excellent, pre-Christmas turnout of nine of us, and a promise of something different.

Our first shot of the railway was even before we got there - a roadside shot of 3850 with the ECS crossing Chicken Curve in the winter solstice gloom. It was the shortest day of the year.

We kept the morning's munchies brief, not only because David and his legendary box of Brownies was delayed by a nasty puncture from a big nail.

That 'something different' turned out to be moving this stop block. We walked to work - not an everyday opportunity on the 15 mile GWSR - and as we looked at the stop block (on the left) 7903 FOREMARKE HALL came by as the second Santa engine, ready to pick up the rake stabled along Winchcombe P2.

 

This is the stop block to be moved then. We were tasked to move it two panels nearer the end of the rake on the right. That will align it with the ends of the other two sidings here.

 

The first job was to knock out all the Mills keys, and cut the rails right behind where the rake was stabled.

Chris had a terrible time here - the disk cutter was ancient, and it took forever to cut the rails. It lacked power, and when pressed against the steel, it seemed to lose interest altogether. Put it down for a breather, and it would stall.

Then it was all hands on bars, to tip out the rails and lever them away from the sleeper ends.

The siding here was laid in about 1990, and two of those who did that were still with us today - Dave and Leigh.  

They confirmed that the material was already second hand and well worn back in the day, being of Midland origin as well. Typical siding stuff.

Leigh drilled new fishbolt holes, taking the time to instruct a new apprentice - Steve, one of our more recent recruits.

The LMS chairs, as you can see, had 4 chairbolt holes and an awkward jaw which somehow made it difficult to knock out the keys.

Will LMS chairs be made into 2807 boot scrapers? Or only GWR?

 

 

The sleepers with their ancient chairs were lifted out and taken away by the Telehandler.

The remaining cribs were then cleaned out, ready to accept the sleepers under the stop block.

We then made a sliding pathway out of the rails, along which the stop block could be pushed.

That worked pretty well. Soon the stop block was two panels further along, and bumped up against the newly cut rails behind the carriage.

The stop block pushed along to its new position, and dropped into the sleeper cribs.

The rail ends on the stop block were not originally the same length, so we allowed for that when cutting.

But still a gap - caused by the stop block not standing quite square.

Another shove cured that, and then we got the bolts in.

Result !

This was the scene as the light began to fade. The truck is standing on the former up line, the sidings are on made up ground, which has tended to settle during the 40 years since it was dumped there by the pioneers.

This shot was made to compare with the starting position (see a few pictures further up). As we tidy up the tools, Leigh reflects on what still needs to be done: re-sleepering the stop block, and removal of the four scrap rails.

As we put the tools back, Foremarke Hall reversed to a stop beside us.

It was running round its Santa train. These carry on into dark, which adds to the appeal for our customers.

Are you lonely tonight?

In the mess room a solitary doughnut remained. Was nobody then prepared to rescue it from a lonely Christmas?

Steve was. You're a hero Steve !

While we are at Winchcombe, here is a blast from the past, in a seasonal snowy scene:

It's class 14 D 9539 with the Elegant Excursions train. The date is actually in May (!) 2005, and after a hailstorm. More snow than we're having this winter. (Photo by Paul Fuller)

Monday at Broadway.

Two of us on the job. Three degrees all day long, just about bearable, if you kept moving (we did).

 

At the moment we're completing the services that we laid under the track a few months back.

This inspection pit is made up out of riser rings that go down to the apperture made in the platform wall, where two pipes from the centre drain arrive.

The pit will receive the stormwater from the gutter downpipes of the building, and the footbridge.

 

We then mixed up several loads of concrete with which to stabilise the risers, and make a sort of vessel at the bottom that will channel the rainwater into the pipes to the centre drain.

Here it is completed. Inside the bottom riser ring the pipes have been opened by cutting the top half off. Some old cement bags have been stuffed in the ends to make sure nothing untoward goes down them while we work.

 

We then back filled about half the pit. Only half, because then we have to connect the stormwater drains.

Neal then started to dig out the ends of some of the conduits under the platform surface that he had laid earlier.

There is an astonishing maze of pipes, and conduits leading to what is a simple waiting room.

Water, electric supply, possibly gas, lighting cables, rainwater drainage. It's lucky that Neal knows where all this is going.

We're going to take a little Christmas rest now, and will be back in the new year.  The next job that we know about for sure is on Jan 2nd, when we will be assisting the grab lorry with emptying the two wagons of clay, which were taken to Toddington on Saturday. Once empty, they will come straight back, as the Broadway extension will be closed to traffic to allow for the repair of a wing wall. In January the digger will come back, and we will complete the landscaping around the back of the building. The wagons will be filled one more time. The level of the land behind the building, and next to the footbridge, has changed due to all the demolition rubble and infill that was pushed up there in 1963. We will hold a site meeting and scratch our heads about that, also in the new year. There's a spearhead fence to place between the end of the building, and around the footbridge tower.

So, see you all in 2025, and have a merry Christmas. Thank you for your generous support during the past year, we really appreciated your backing. It's good to know the support is out there.

Merry Christmas from the Broadway P2 waiting room team !