Back to work.

Thursday in the greenhouse.

 A day spent on the P2 dagger boards, made by Neal, with knotting fluid.

 

 

Neal has been very busy cutting out P2 dagger boards for the canopy. Here they are, in the raw.

Now starts the lengthy process of treating and painting them. 

The first process is the application of knotting fluid. There are two piles like this, plus another of sundries. They were all done during the day. 

 

 

Next would be the application of a fluid to prevent (slow down) decay of the wood. For budget reasons we have had to go for raw pinewood, so we will do our best to protect it as best as possible. The same process was used on the staircases.

 

 

It was a long day, but we got there.

In between, we had a look at the action on the station. It was 2807 first thing, with the blue class 47 hovering (as it were) on P2.

 

 2807 was looking good, seen here just prior to setting off.

 On the unloading road was coach W5023 - not sure what it was doing there. It looks recently outshopped

 

 

 

Friday in the greenhouse.

 A second day, facing the quivering pile of dagger boards that Neal has cut for Broadway.

 

 

On arrival first thing at Toddington, we found W5023 from the unloading road about to be transported somewhere by Allelys.

The where was easy to ascertain - we asked the driver. It's Quainton Road.

The why came from a correspondent - it's going to be used for a filming job, and should be back with us in a fortnight or so.

It's all go around here....  

 

 

Then on to the day's task, which was the follow up to the knotting of the dagger boards.

 

 

We had a lively discussion with Neal whether it's 180 units, or nearer 400. 

Whatever the answer, it's an awful lot of them. 

So now the job is to apply fungicide, to prevent rotting. This treatment should make the pine boards last longer. 

 

 

There are always a lot of comings and goings at Toddington, so we don't pay too much attention, but a Mk1 on a long trailer did make us look. 

We spent a whole day on this pile of 184 boards. Painting them is a lot slower than knotting them, but we got through it at the end. Sadly, there is a second pile... There was also talk of a second coat, even a third one. Eek ! 

We had the pleasure of the company of Neal during the day. He's still drilling holes.... 84 holes the other day in the purlins. Doing the holes at the manufacturing stage will save time during the assembly part.

In the picture he is drilling different holes - these are in sets of junction plates that he made. They will join the purlins together, a bit like fishplates.

In other news, it is becoming apparent that we won't be ready to assemble the canopy on site at Broadway this year. That's a bit of a blow, but there are positive elements to the change as well. The reason for the delay is that we are simply not quite ready yet. We had pencilled it in for November, and that is only just over a month away. We still have to paint the whole structure in undercoat, complete the manufacture of the three supporting columns (chiefly galvanising them) and complete the pit for the foundations at the bottom of the stairs, and fill it with concrete.

It now looks like the assembly on site will start next September. Bear with !

On the bricks front there is some progress. There is renewed contact, and we have been promised a quote, based on the sample bricks we took down to the works. 

 

 

Sunday in the greenhouse.

Same job as Friday, treatment of countless dagger boards, now into their second coat.

Any excuse for a little break from the job is a good one, so we walked over to the platform when we heard what sounded like one of the Sulzer engined diesels arrive. 

 

Foremarke Hall was getting ready to head out, and the driver was enjoying a quick, last cup of tea from his can.

This view along the tracks is one of our favourite ones. The line seems to go on forever.....

Walking round Foremarke Hall, it became apparent that it was more that just the class 24, it was the class 20 as well. According to a correspondent, these two used to be allocated together at Eastfield, Glasgow.

 

Once the steamer had left, the pair ran round, and prepared to set off for Broadway. One spluttering, the other whistling.

 

 

 

After both trains had cleared the section, the yard shunter came to collect a rake of wagons, ready for next weekend's event.

A while later it came back with one wagon.

This picture shows it returning from that job. 

 

 

 

 

We went back to the painting job. We've always got our ears tuned for unusual sounds (A400s, old Bentley, Norton cafe racers etc...) and on Sunday it was a sound we hadn't heard before. 

It was a US army truck, a 'deuce and a half'. What prickled our ears was the sound of its turbocharged 7.8L six in line engine, with a characteristic whistle from the exhaust.

 

We managed to catch it on film as it left, so here goes:

We stopped the film at the top of the drive. That gives a shorter film that Blogger will upload; longer ones can't be posted and have to go via a link to YouTube.

Had we filmed a little longer, you would have heard it loudly belting along Stow Road and up the hill to the Cotswolds Edge. 

 

 

Near the end of the day we took this shot of Foremarke Hall arriving from Broadway. What a lovely scene, and one that we have created entirely by ourselves over the years since 1981: Platforms, tracks, footbridge, GWR Hall, water tower and waiting room rebuilt.

Hats off to the members of the GWSR ! 

 

 

Tuesday in the greenhouse

Treatment with fungicide of the dagger boards completed, about 400 boards, coated twice. Phew!

Next will be a coat of primer for them all. 

 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A full complement of three, and Paul was raring to go. We don't know what pills he's on, but he just could not wait to get the driveway lamp post up.

We humoured him, arranged for a Telehandler, Dave D as driver, and some slings.

 

 

After some wriggling past the tower scaffold in the background, we managed to extract the lamp post from its resting place beside the signal box. 

This one was one of a pair donated by a supporter, from the Frome area. It's twin is already up, at the bottom of the P2 steps. Now this one will go on the island by the station entrance, where one used to stand. 

 

 

Dave carefully manoeuvered the post up the drive, over to the little traffic island between our two gates.

In 1905 there was a pair of wooden gates behind the Telehandler (the cast iron gate posts are still in situ) and these closed off the goods yard.

The right hand side was actually open (we have fenced it off) and led to a fenced area around the entrance to the station. A lamp post stood in the middle. 

 

 

The lamp post went down without too much trouble. The post is a No.2, so 8ft high, with a ladder arm. It is unusual in that it has no casting below ground (usually a 2ft extension) but sits on a concrete pad with 4 bolts. This was a later design alteration, but the above ground look, with the Acanthus leaves, is unchanged. 

 Here it is, in place. It still has to be adjusted to be perfectly vertical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After being lifted on to its bolts, Dave and Paul inserted shims underneath until it was vertical. Then they filled the space under it with a thin mix. 

 

 

 

The next item of interest is the area around the foot of the post. We took out a full 2x3ft slab to cast the base, so now we have to cover the remaining area with smaller slabs, cut to size.

 

 

 

 

 

This was more difficult than we first thought, because the surrounding kerb stones had moved, and were not parallel. We will sort that next time.

Why put a lamp post at this precise spot? Because we saw that there was one, in this old photograph of the Winchcombe station approach. 

 

It's right in the middle there. You can see how the gates (open) on the right gave access to the goods yard, while the station approach was always open (albeit fenced off from the yard). On the right is the weighbridge hut (with chimney) with coal merchants and acetylene hut adjacent.

There is another lamp post in the foreground, outside the stationmaster's house. We've got no plans for that though.

If you have a GWR lamp post and want to donate it, we'd be happy to come and collect it. You can see that we really use them!

At the end of the day Paul and Dave decided to fetch Maxie the Usk hut petrol mixer, and store it by the weighbridge. Dave hopes to sell the mixer on eBay, unless someone reading this can use it?

We also caught sight of Andy, seen here preparing rail end cut offs for sale. This, and donations to our tool fund by kind readers, have allowed us to buy the Milwaukee electric tools, which have been incredibly popular.

Sales of these rail end cut offs continue briskly, and one can be yours for £25.  Other lengths are available. Door stops, anvils, book ends, there are lots of potential purposes, and you'd be helping the railway.

Then, what do we do at the end of every Wednesday? Join the PWay gang for their end of day cuppa. 

 Atmosphere aplenty. Or did you say orange?

 

 

Broadway on Wednesday.

We called in to arrange the next volunteering days, and see how John and Neal had done.

John's been on forced leave of absence for a couple of weeks recently, so that explains the lack of visible progress.

Now he's back with a vengeance. 

They've been laying bricks both along the second half of the back, as well as, more recently, along the northern facade. This is the one that will have two large poster boards on it. We haven't made those yet, nor found suitable contemporary posters for it. Pressure !

This is a little snapshot of John on the north end. He's used up all the headers we cut in half for him, so that's another job for later this week. 

 

 

 

A look over the fence - Northern Italy.

Not exactly a preserved railway, but readers might be interested in what we saw, in railway terms, during our 14 days away. It's always interesting to compare.

We have seen the three big lakes, so went to stay near two other, smaller ones. The first was Lago di Santa Giustina in the Trentino, and the second was Lake Iseo, in Lombardy, both at the foothills of the Alps. 

Our knowledge of modern stock is somewhat limited, so bear with us if we have limited information .

 

 

The first is an Alsthom TT class ETI 400 set, very modern.

As it happens, both lakes were near a railway line - what a coincidence! 

This line is metre gauge, and runs from Trento up one valley, then along another, to Mezzano.

This is it in our 'home station' of Cles. 

 

 

 

 

 

Your blogger was quite keen to have a go on one, either direction would do, so Mrs. Blogger opted for a day in the town of Trento. We will spare you the tourist snaps, but it's certainly pretty, and as always in Italy, we ate particularly well.

Worth seeing on the station was this 2-6-0 with outside valve chests, a class 625 known as Signorinas, as they are rather elegant.  

 

 

 

 

The narrow gauge terminus is next to the standard gauge one, so you get to see interesting main line stuff too.

 This is a doubled headed freight train crossing the Alps from Austria, loaded with lorry trailers. Innsbruck is the nearest big town in Austria for this train, then Muenchen in Germany, as to possible provenance. The route is known as the Brenner line (from the pass). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our return journey on the narrow gauge line we stopped here at Mezzolombardo. We are about to leave the valley of the Adige river, and cross to the next one, of the river Noce. This one has been dammed, to form Lake Santa Giustina. The line crosses the deep gorge of the river right in front of the dam (see below).

 

 

 

 

The next day we took the line in the other direction, further up the line. The scenery here is stunning, as you can see. A bunch of white water rafts floated by here, just before the train appeared.

This line used to run from Trento to Male, and was actually extended in 2002 further up the same valley to the Marilleva ski resort, where we took the picture. Then, in 2016, it was extended again to Mezzana, and there are plans to extend it further to Fucine. 

 

 

This shot shows the start of the 2016 extension, at Marilleva.

Fucine, the proposed new terminus, is at the foot of the mountain in the distance.

We were impressed by the modernity of it all. There has clearly been a lot of investment in the region.

 

 

 

 

 

We had a handy pocket timetable with us, which helped some of the photo opportunities, but sometimes it surprised us.

This previous generation unit was not programmed at all. It stopped, the door opened to reveal a family standing in the vestibule, then the doors closed again and it moved on. Strange.

 

 

The same pocket timetable was consulted for this picture at Mostizzolo, taken just after a heavy thunderstorm had passed over. The expected unit was supposed to come out of a long tunnel from Cles in the trees on the right, but it never. 

Strange as well. Lovely colours though.

As this used to be border country with Austria (which was given to Italy after WW1) there were many castles in the area. 

 

 

The intended castle visit near this station was frustrated by a sign we met at the end of its approach road. It said something like: Did you book a private visit? If not, we're closed. And don't park here, drive back down to the village, and walk up !

All part of the fun. We parked Mrs Blogger at Tassullo, and sought permission to penetrate an apple grove for an attempt at a viaduct picture. 

 

 

Permission granted ! Here it is, taken at great personal risk, as we tetered on the very edge of this enormous, deep gorge, blocked off by the dam (just visible behind the LH pier of the bridge).

The hole in the rock below is the exit of the overflow spillway. 

At the end of an adventurous week we drove our hire car beyond Mezzana up the Passo del Tonale, and back down the other side to Iseo, which is in Lombardy.

 

 

Quite by accident this location also had a railway line.... It ran from Brescia, alongside Lake Iseo and up to Edolo in the foothills of the Alps.

This line was standard gauge, and was also equipped with impressive, new rolling stock. These are Stadler built and diesel powered, what some call 'two rooms and a bath', with two driving trailers separated by a small twin engine unit in the middle.

The station is Sale Marasino, on the lake.

 

 

A little S&T curiosity we noticed is that stations are equipped with three bells. Top right is the classic telephone system bell, while the two lower ones announce the arrival of the train, from two directions. For this there are two shapes of bells: on the left, a sort of cow bell (sphere with a slit in it) and on the right, half a sphere, rather like our block bells. Sadly, we did not hear them ring - possibly an abandoned idea? The stations were by now unmanned, and tickets were sold in a nearby cafe. You had to know that of course, and which one !

 

 

Here too we had the idea of taking a train each way.

Edolo, the terminus up the valley did not appeal, as the flat valley bottom was full of industrial units. However, a short trip to Pisogne at the northern end of the lake was great. We arrived in the ATR 125, and just had the time to snap an example of the previous generation DMU leave the station. 

 

 

 

 

A bit of local industrial archaeology was this ramp, which allowed loaded wagons to be taken across the lake by boat.

The only reason we could imagine was an enormous cement plant on the other shore, which did not have a railway line along it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What really appealed to your blogger at Pisogne was the up close and personal nature of the line through the town.

Here it is running along the lakeside promenade.

£1000 trespass warnings? Not here.... 

 

 

 

At the end of the promenade the line dived in between two houses. One was a bar.

Idea ! 

 

Shouldn't we set out some tables and chairs so close to our railway line? Some Aperols beside the portal of Greet tunnel would be very popular.

Our intended journey along the other direction of the line, to its terminus at Brescia, was foiled. A week long festival on Iseo island meant that almost all of the parking spaces near our railway station were out of use, and in the end we had to resort to taking the car to Brescia.  

 

 

 

Here we parked up in the citadel on a hill, and to our surprise, found this plinthed locomotive near the top.

It's marked SNFT No.1, and actually used to run on the Brescia-Edolo line until the 1960s, when it was replaced by rail cars.

It was then dragged up the hill to Brescia citadel, where it is described as its 'prisoner'. 

 

A day meandering through Iseo town offered this excellent vantage point from a footbridge across Iseo station:

 

 

It got rather busy below us, as not only did the up and down trains cross here, but a third one arrived, to sow a little confusion among the passengers.

This used to be a junction to Rovato, but the service (according to Google) was suspended in 2018. 

 

 

 

 

People quite happily crossed from one line to another, right in front of the trains. These even left without the familiar warning toot, to which we are accustomed here. It all rather gelled in an easy going manner. No passengers were hurt in the taking of this photograph!

 

 

After all the passengers had sorted themselves out, one unit headed north, and the other, a double Stadler, headed south, to Brescia. 

Where the third one went to was not clear to your correspondent.

 

Once again tickets were sold at a nearby cafe. It seemed that the owners of the cafe were about as well informed about the train movements as we were!

We loved it. 

And another cultural observation: During our two week stay we saw no wheelchairs anywhere (other than at the religious festival on the island), and not a single mobility scooter. 

And no potholes, nor road closures, nor roadside traffic lights for 'safety zones'.

It's another world.