New Year's Eve.

Saturday 27th - one last push.

A brave PWay team came out on the Saturday, immediately after Christmas, to complete the pre-assembly of the replacement turnout for CRC south. Yours Truly was conspicuously absent, (grandchildren and a Pantomine...) so we can show you the state of play at the end of the day, thanks to Bert Ferrule, who was there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previously, the RH side here had been drilled and bolted down, and on Saturday the closure, stock and check rails were gauged to the crossing, and also screwed down. In the LH picture the switches were also laid in, and the whole sequence numbered, ready for quick (we hope) assembly at CRC.

At the end of the day (RH picture) the switches were unbolted again, laid to one side, and the timbers moved up to gain parking space, it being Santa season, with lots of volunteers on site. 

The whole unit, in parts, is now ready for transport to Cheltenham, as soon as trains stop running.  Ideally, we would have liked to move the three major parts in one go, but the destination site is cramped and we don't have the lifting capacity to unload larger parts on site. So as a kit it has to be.

 

 

 

Monday at Broadway.

The canopy gang met for a site discussion. It was icy cold, with a cutting northerly wind, so we sat in the cafe, with just a quick venture outside to see the actual places that we were talking about.

Services were running! It's all week, Friday excepted. (Check that, if you're coming !). Motive power were two lovely GWR passenger engines, Pendennis Castle and Betton Grange.

 

Here is PENDENNIS CASTLE, just completing the run round. We took two shots, but couldn't decide between them for the blog, so you get both.

Here is the Castle, just buffering up. What a lovely, elegant machine that is.

It was a Castle that was photographed at Springfield Lane in 1962, pulling the last down Cornishman along our line.

Can you imagine Highclere Castle thundering through Broadway at 70mph with 11 on? It's max 25mph now, sadly.

 

 

Monday turned out to be busy at Broadway, as you can see from this snapshot here. Good news for the company!

We went to the Neil Parkhouse book signing at Toddington on Saturday, and on the way from Broadway we saw that the car park under the road bridge was unusually full, there were photographers parked along the B4632 at Stanton, and there was a large plume of steam in the air, as a northbound train crossed Stanway viaduct. 

The book, No.6 in his series about Gloucestershire lines, is called Cheltenham and the Cotswolds Lines. It's very high quality, all colour period photographs, with excellent descriptions. With 528 pages, it'll keep you going for quite a while.

We recommend. 

 

 

Some points from our P2 discussions:

- We're going to see if the FoBS can be persuaded to fund the purchse of some cast iron canon bollards for the pavement outside the station, as we have now had 3 or 4 occasions where heavy vehicles mounted the pavement, and cracked the slabs, and twice, broke the cast iron inspection pit covers. We're fed up!

- The interior of the signal box, due to come into use next season, needs finishing off with linoleum, brass lever leads (probably £2000!) and a cast iron stove. 

- No news from the brickworks. Our best guess for a delivery date is end of February.

- In the meantime we intend to cast the foundations for the third post at the footbridge end of the canopy, dig some drainage trenches for stormwater drains along the platform edge, fit the base plates to the three manufactured canopy end posts, clean them and have them galvanised. They can then be fitted. 

 

 

Wednesday - New Year's eve.

Two Usketeers, on an icy but bright morning. It was minus 4.5 degrees on arrival, too cold to do any brick laying. 

 

 

We sat in the weighbridge hut, and Paul treated us to these eclairs, which went down well with the coffee.

We discussed our plan for the day.

We'd go up to the site of the hut, measure up for the fireplace brick arch, and knock out some more of the damaged concrete blocks of the retaining wall. 

 

 

 

 On the way we met PENDENNIS CASTLE, our visiting engine this winter.

 

 This was a very loud locomotive....

 

 

The train for CRC was about half filled, we noted, although the returning one was quite full, which cheered us up.

 

 

 

 

Paul is always a keen waver, at anyone willing to wave to him.

The Castle was really getting into its stride here. 

 

 

When it was gone, all was quiet, and about 5 minutes later there was a lovely curl of steam and smoke that emerged from Greet tunnel.

We also have a video of this on YouTube, but with the other locomotive in service today - 6880 BETTON GRANGE.

https://youtu.be/Cbs2uLXLfhY 

 

Then it was off to work. The buckets that we had left out to fill with rain water were frozen solid, another reason for not laying bricks today. You need a minimum of 3 degrees throughout to do any brick laying.

 

 

This is the area of damaged concrete blocks. It's also where the tree stump was.

We are going to remove the damaged blocks, and prepare a flat surface to replace them with complete, but second hand blocks that we have scrounged from around the yard. 

 

 

 

Paul and Yours Truly took turns in hammering a chisel under the broken blocks. For some reason the mortar used (back in the 1950s?) was extremely hard, much harder than the blocks the mortar was supposed to cement in place.

 

 

 

Eventually BETTON GRANGE returned from Cheltenham, this time bursting with happy passengers.

Paul had an errand to run in the afternoon, so we joined the small team that was dismantling the CRC replacement turnout, to make it ready for transport. 

 Pete and Dave D were making a stack of steel components on the other side of the road.

Paul was using the Telehandler to push together the timbers, and take them across the road to a stack, 6 at a time.

Switches and check rails were swung over by Dave D in the RRV, with a stack of timbers in the foreground, ready for stacking by Paul in the Telehandler.

 

 

 

Last thing we had to move the barrow, which had been filled with the chair screws removed from the timbers.

That barrow was so heavy with all those screws in it, it seemed rooted to the ground. Not a chance of lifting that.

But STEVIE made light work of it. 

 

A turnout QKD kit.

 

 

 

 

At the end of the day the whole turnout had been disassembled, and stacked on the other side of the road. This frees up the car parking area that we had rather guiltily used up before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wating 'in the wings' as it were was the Warflat, recently re-decked with sleepers (which the Usketeers had hoped to use, hence our appeal for a fund to buy some more)

 

A last note concerns these fridges and microwaves that people are bringing to the railway. 

These are electrical goods, and as such - anything with a plug in fact - are not allowed in the skip, but need to be taken to a recycling centre. They are definitely not 'scrap metal'. In fact, if you bring these to the railway, you are not doing the GWSR a favour, on the contrary. Now the railway is obliged to dispose of them in a legal way.

 

In fact some of the microwaves still have their glass plates in them. That is not metal, but does add to the weight. 

So please dispose of your electrical waste properly, don't load it on to the railway. 

 

 On this New Year's Eve we would like to wish all our readers a Happy New Year, and see you in 2026.

 

 

It's Christmas.

Friday on the CRC turnout.

Four expected, and eight turned up. A good day, plus dry weather, a bonus.

We needed to complete the pre-assembly of the CRC turnout, by the signal box at Winchcombe.

What do you mean, there's none for me?

On arrival, we were met with the very welcome sight of a tray with 8 cups of tea on it. Doughnuts were also available, laid out on a giant Grundon wheelie bin. There's junk food for you.

 

But we couldn't hang around for too long, it was almost the shortest day of the year, and there was a lot to do. 

 

 

This was the state of play first thing. Rails sort of laid out, but not much bolted down yet.

By the end of the day, we were to have finished this off, and then completely disassembled it again. Unfortunately the location at CRC, beyond the platform ends, makes it very difficult to get any decent craneage in to lift an entire turnout, or even sections of it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STEVIE continues to be a blessing, as he does all the heavy lifting for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time it was for the stock rail, missing in the foreground on the previous picture, by the check rail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A second bullhead rail was brought by David and Walt out of storage.

This one is part of the stock rail on the opposite side, where two shorter lengths, end to end, were required. 

 

 

 

Walt then cut the two stock rail halves to size. It's already difficult to work the disk cutter, bent over all of the time, but in the case of the latest rail brought over it turned out to be a Mnaganese one, which is extra tough to cut. Walt earned his wagesOK  today. 

Wait - what wages?

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of Friday was spent drilling holes for the chairs, and then bolting down, which is what Chris and Andy are doing here.

 

 

 

 

 

Once we had the outer rails properly bolted down, and all aligned with the straight edge of the car park road, we could use that as a datum point for the rest of the turnout.

Nigel with the track gauge, reading out the measurements.

 

 

 

In this picture it is already getting darker, as the afternoon progresses.

We are just lifting in the freshly cut stock rail, which will bolt on to the end of the Manganese 'toughie'. 

 

 

 

This is the turnout round about 3 o'clock. The right hand side is bolted down, the rails are all cut to size and approximately in position. The two missing  timbers in the foreground are for the point motor and associated bars, which are on extra long timbers, kept to one side for the time being.

 

 

Saturday, in the Pheasant.

No tracks laid here, just 24 PWay Christmas dinners eaten. It's that time of year again. But we are not at a complete standstill, there will be action on the 24th, and the 27th.

Just before lunch, we had a quick look at the Greenhouse site for the Broadway canopy fabrication.

The fabrication is finished now, all possible pre-installation rivets have gone in, and Neal has drilled countless holes ready for the final rivets on site. Neal estimates that the total number of rivets placed so far is 1200. That's pretty impressive. All rivets are now weatherproof (sort of), by a coat of primer, and a coat of undercoat.

Neal has also moved the trusses as far into the greenhouse shelter as possible, to escape from the driving southerly winds and rain. Northerly winds and rain on the other hand are now more likely to cause damage to our kit of parts. Southerly winds are dominant here, hence the move.

 

 

 

During the one or two half decent sunny days we've had recently, Neal and John have primered and undercoated the numerous dagger boards that Neal cut.

 

 

 

 

 

There are also mouldings, and constructional timbers for the canopy ends.

 

 

 

 

These timbers for the canopy ends can be seen here, also in primer, and partially in undercoat. 

So we have done what we can, given the weather, and the wait for the special bricks. 

 

 

 

Interesting tidbit: The chairman's Christmas message specifically mentions Broadway signal box. Fingers crossed for a 2026 opening !

 

 

Friday, on hands and knees.

It's Christmas Eve.... but the blogger children have their own Christmasses now, and only visit afterwards. 

Hence Christmas Eve on the railway.  

A gang of five returned to Gotherington station. Last time we got one sleeper in, and bolted down with one bolt.

Chris is having a bit of a lie down.

 

This time the goal was to do the same at the other end.

Well, it was jolly difficult, no faster than last time.

How do you dig a crib for the new sleeper, if you can't get to it? Running board, axle, brake rigging, a telegraph pole on its side, it was all in the way. 

 

 

 

 

 

We dug a spot for the pan jack, the only thing you can crank under there.

But those jacks are surprisingly heavy, if you have to lift them with arms stretched out. 

 

 

 

There was plenty of good advice from those not under the Toad though.

 

 

After 15 minutes on hands & knees under that Toad, we had to take a walk around to get the feeling back in our lower legs.

Quite pretty, this little branch line though. This is GOTHERINGTON GOODS terminus. That's a lovely display of telegraph insulators too. Check out the 'hat' on top, which not only protects the pole from rotting in the top, but also offers room for two more insulators.

 

 

 

We had the company van out, and half a telegraph pole dragged out of the way.

Chris's orange feet can be seen underneath, where he is trying to dig a hole on the other side for the sleeper end. 

 

 

 

 

After a picnic lunch on site, and multiple coffees served by Savita, we had the sleeper in and one chair on.

There was no room to fit the other chair, as the Toad was still too low, and all our jacking didn't get it very much higher, with the jacks just sinking into the ground instead.

But experience added to, better results next time. 

One chair in, finally !

 

 

Once the chair was in, we tried to screw it down with the electric impact wrench. It was the perfect tool for the job, but the wrong Toad, as it kept interfering with bits hanging in our way.

We got the bolt in eventually. 

A last one from Paul. What a pleasant, warm day, you'd think. But it wasn't. There was a mean northerly wind, and just 3 degrees. We've all got thick winter jackets and beanies on.

Next time we will bring more Duff jacks, and wider packing supports, and have a proper go at righting the Leaning Toad of Gotherington.

A bit of GWSR history:

GWRS Newsletter December 1981 - 44 years ago.

That's the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway Society, our baby steps back in the 1980s. By then, the society had already been in existence for five years, but we did not yet own our railway.

The cover picture was one of Brit 70045 Lord Rowallan barrelling through Bishops Cleeve with an up Saturday Special, past a beautiful Costwolds stone signal box. Will we ever have one of those? Candidates for improvement could be the Race Course, or Gotherington, both of which are free style, Bradstone and plastic boxes.

 

What was the news in December 1981?

 

- Capital raised for the new plc so far has reached £88.000 

- Four camping coaches are expected to arrive from Dawlish Warren.

- Two buffet cars and a Siphon G, bought by 2807, have been acquired. 

- Locos anticipated to arrive are a class 14 diesel, and Prairie tank 4115 from Barry. 

- A tender has been submitted for a turntable, water tank and clock tower from Ashford, Kent. (what happened to the clock tower?) 

 - Father Christmas will be at Toddington on two afternoons in December. Admission: 65p, which includes a present for the children.

- A site caravan has been found to act as a shop for Toddington.  

 

Merry Christmas to all our faithful readers. We're glad you enjoyed the blog this year, and now on to the next !

The leaning Toad of Gotherington.

Friday at Gotherington station.

A gang of two on Friday - is that still a gang? 

We would need to do something that just the two of us could handle, so decided to help Bryan, the owner of Gotherington station, with his Toad brake van, left on the picture below.

 

Back in the day Bryan bought this van direct from BR at Gloucester, for the princely sum of £120. Transport to Gotherington was £360 though... Bryan put it on a short panel of track next to the station.

Over time, the panels started to sink into the ground along one side, and the Toad developed a distinct lean to one side. 

 

It's the Leaning Toad of Gotherington. A while back a bright fellow from the PWay gang airily said ' we can fix that' and so, a few weeks later, it was up to us.

We took the white Transit, two sleepers and some tools. In order to avoid turning in Bryan's narrow foreourt, we drove on through into the paddock to turn. Big mistake ! At the first reverse, the rear wheels began to spin, even though we were on level ground. 

Sheepishly, we sidled up to Bryan and asked him if he would help us push. He would. Phew ! The Transit was rolling again.

 

 

 

We then went on to the job of assessing, and actually digging.

Here we see Paul prodding the ground, with Bryan telling us where various services ran. The ground under the Toad was very soft, which was one explanation for the lean. The other was life expired sleepers.

 

 

 

After quite a bit of digging and jacking - the pan jacks let us down twice, and when one worked, the jack went down into the ground, rather than lift up the Toad - we did get the rails so far off the ground that we could get a new sleeper in. We pushed a cast iron chair underneath, and with one of the electric impact wrenches, screwed a bolt into it to tie it down.

That was as far as we got on Friday. The next visit will be to secure the other end, as we felt that by lifting up one corner, we were lifting more than just a quarter of the Toad. Things should then go more easily. We left a second new sleeper on site.

 

 

 

One item of interest to us at Gotherington was this Sugg Rochester gas lantern.

Earlier in the year a supporter donated one of these to us. It has a glass cover, but this brass securing ring is missing. One side is hinged, the other has a securing screw. The brass ring fits over the glass, and holds it down (or up, as the case may be).

If anyone knows where we could get one to make our lamp complete, we would be interested to hear. 

The diameter is approximately 8 inches. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the one we have, with the fixing ring missing.

In both pictures the hinge is at the top, and the lock, a screw in a triangle, is at the bottom. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Saturday, out with the gang.

Eleven workers on Saturday, an excellent turnout.

 

 

We loaded two enromously heavy timbers on to the Transit, as well as a gigantic pile of tools.

The target was the turnout separating shed roads 10 and 11 at Toddington. Here two timbers were in need of renewal. 

First though, check that the diesel boys don't want to come out and play.  (they didn't) 

 

 

 

Dave D grabbed the electric impact wrench, and undid the 12 chair screws.

The split nearest the camera shows the state of the timber, and why it has to be replaced.

 

 

 

 

Unloading the heavy replacement timbers wasn't so hard, and one was soon being dragged into its new bed.

There was a fence (for the public) separating the truck and the work site, so a few of us stood outside, only sorry that we couldn't join the others in their hard work.

With the two new (second hand) hardwood timbers in their places, Dave D was once again called forward to do his magic with the Milwaukee tools.

Here he is using an electric hand drill.

This, instead of the hard to start petrol powered one we used to employ. 

The two timbers were soon replaced and solidly screwed down.

Next !

That was back to the short section of track for 3 bogies that we built a fortnight ago. 

We left the site last time with a pile of ash ready for packing.

The gang set to spreading this out, while Dave D disappeared to get the small Telehandler and load it with locomotive ash. 

This costs us money to have taken away, so a bit of employment on a short siding is not only useful, but it also saves us money. Entire railway lines used to be packed with ash.

 

 

Dave reappeared with a large bucketful of ash, and we had him tip it on the end here, where the level difference was the highest, at about a foot.

Then it was lunch time, which we decided to spend in a (crowded!) mess room at Toddington.

We walked by this GWR tender, which we hadn't seen before. 

Mess room talk suggested that this was from the 'storage site somewhere in the West Midlands' and is destined for 2874.

It will need a heck of a lot work, it looks like a complete Barry original. Holes in the tank, and grass growing on it ! 

 

 

More packing after lunch. Here is Tim, working on the top edge of the embankment that leads down to the narrow gauge line.

 

As we were packing the ash, the yard shunter arrived with the class 45, and some wagons. We think this was to retrieve something that was stored behind them.

This end of the siding was on much more level ground, so just one more load of ash should do it. We wait for Dave...

There he is!

This was a bit of a cramped site for the Telehandler to manoeuvre on. We cleared our tools from the road, and put them on the sleeper ends. Unfortunately that wasn't enough, and Dave reversed on to Nick's favourite darling rake, bending the end quite considerably.

Nick: Nooooooooo !

 

Before we could take a picture of the result, Nick was seen hurriedly retreating into the distance, bent rake by his side, and armed with a large keying hammer.

 

He came back with a straighter rake, but it was now missing a tooth. Or is that 'toof'?

 

 

 

Job done, we returned to Winchcombe via the trackside. Here we met one of the Santa trains, returning its happy passengers to Toddington.

As we unloaded the tools, another Santa train brought the last load of happy children (and quite a few adults) to the North Pole.

Two anecdotes from an elf on site:

- One child to see Santa, and 8 adults, and

- One family returning for the 17th year. Now, how old were those children by now....?

All part of the fun, everyone was clearly enjoying themselves.
 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Windy and wet today, increasingly so as the day went on.

 

 

 

The Usketeers set forth with some reluctance - just how wet would it get? Was it worth making a whole mix?

In the end it was decided to reposition the pallet of bricks instead, to create more room. 

We also sourced some square section bar, which we cut to length for the fireplace grate. They're on top of the brick pile here.

 

 

We thought we'd try them out on the three courses laid last week: 

It looks as if we are still a couple of bars short, if we are going to have two at the front. We'll have to raid our source of supply some more.

 

Dave spent an hour cleaning the floor (it seems to be leaking creosote (?) ) and then pulled out a rather reluctant root from the back.

Your blogger's chair collapsed, but no worries, there are lots lying round Winchcombe yard, so we just picked up another one. We chopped out another broken concrete block (behind Dave) and will probably have to do several more, as those at the rear are all rather damaged.

There won't be any work next Wednesday, and the Wednesday after that we thought we'd see what the weather does. This job is rather exposed, it has to be said. In the meantime Paul will make up the wooden former at home, for the fireplace brick arch.

 

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Although the platelayer's hut project is made with many free recycled materials, one item is not - the sleepers. The ones removed from re-sleepering along our railway are not really good enough, and we don't want the new hut to start decaying straight away. So what we need are good quality second hand sleepers. Our PWay department buys these @ £37 each, but has no budget to then give them away. So it would be helpful if we could raise our own money to buy some.

According to the drawing we need 36 of them - that's £1332. Would anyone who would like to help us build this hut, in front of Greet tunnel, and just right for photographers, please send a little contribution to the GWRT (our Trust) for its General Fund. Follow that up with an email to trust.financedirector (at) gwsr.com as well as to pway.manager (at) gwsr.com and say that the donation of £xxx is intended for the pway tool fund. Then everyone will know what your intention is.

Many thanks ! 

PS A blog message to say when you have done so would also be helpful, as we don't have insight into the Trust finances.  And have a nice Christmas !