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) and mention the PWay tool fund as the purpose. That will sort us out.

Many thanks ! 

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