Two GWR lamp posts found.

Saturday, out with the gang.

Fourteen of us at CRC, on what turned out to be our last day on the turnout there. We're an efficient team, and thanks to quite large numbers, we got the job done ahead of time. 

Once STEVIE had arrived at CRC under the bridge, we opened the doors of the 'Cube' and were met with a flood of ferrules, that poured out. Was the sack put in upside down?

 

 

 

 

Another puzzling thing was that Dave noticed himself standing in a pool of oil. Whaaat? It was pouring out into the well of the trolley, which was now filled with slippery ferrules.

We unpacked each item carefully, checking for cracks, frost damage etc, until the culprit was finally discovered: The pressurised vessel that supplies cutting oil to the rail drill had been loaded, still pumped up, with the exit valve on the end of the supply pipe half open... 

With all that sorted out, Dave was able to start work with the RRV, and scooped up buckets of still usable ballast. This was carefully dropped in between the timbers, ready for packing.

 

A row of Duff jacks was then set up and adjusted to the correct height. Two extra Robels (this time with a Kawasaki two stroke) had been hired in, to make up for two of our company ones that were in maintenance.

 

 

 

 

As the task was rather repetitive - the Robels buzzed away most of the day - and photography was difficult, there were few interesting photo opportunities. In the bottom of the cutting the ground remained dark and frozen until the afternoon, while bright sunlight played above our heads. 

 Every time we needed something, or wanted to go for a break, we had to ascend this 'Stairway to Heaven'.

For those who puffed their way up for the nth time, thoughts turned to Stannah. Do they sponsor railways perhaps?

Although the cutting was cold and dark, the terrace outside the original booking office was bright and inviting in the sunlight on Saturday.

There were ample supplies of tea (made by Nick), cupcakes, mini bites, doughnuts, pains chocolats and even a small carrot cake. Energy for the workers indeed. 

With energy supplies replenished we returned to the cold cutting. We soon warmed up by shovelling ballast for the robellers.

At 3pm the job was considered complete. The last holes were drilled and bolted, gauge adjustments made, and the correct fishplates fitted. The new turnout was handed over to the S&T department for reconnection. 

STEVIE lingered briefly to unload the overhauled point motor, as 4 of us hastened to Winchcombe to answer a complaint about a noisy fishplate in the Defford straight cutting.

It's a bit difficult for the driver of a passing train to pinpoint the exact fishplate from a moving train, so we stopped at the platform for additional geographical details - bridge, lineside cabinet, tree etc.

 

3850 was out on Saturday with a single train, to address the half term holiday opportunities. The train ran between Winchcombe and Broadway only, as the PWay was refurbishing turnouts and Gotherington and CRC as part of their winter works. 

A few moments later we were by the lineside cabinet in question. The suspected broken fishplate turned out to be a rough piece of rail (all fishplates intact). which for some reason was being noisier than usual. We're giving that some thought, as there are various options.

 

 

Monday at Broadway.

Three of us on the waiting room site. It was cold and wet. Periods of rain were forecast. We almost gave up after the first mix, but a cup of coffee in the signal box and a bit of patience found us in drier surroundings a bit later on, and in the end two mixes were used.

 

 

 

John spent most of the day building up the inside wall around the fireplace in the waiting room itself, to match the height of the concrete blocks in the store room.

 

Neal here is drilling a hole for conduits from the future electrical cabinet into the waiting room, and then up to the ceiling above it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John's working area looked like this part way into the day. Monday's blocks have the fresher looking mortar around them.

The mortar is very wet, due to the rain showers that we had, hence the props to hold the blocks in place.

It got better in the afternoon. 

 

 

 

 

The morning was interupted by a delivery.

 

It was a bit like receiving a parcel at Christmas - what was in it?

It turned out to be chimney liners and lintels. We had the pallet put on the truck, and it was then pushed up one platform, and back down the other. 

The lintels were keenly awaited, and Neal got going as soon as the pallet was over on the other side. 

Here you can see two of the three lintels that he placed, with a row of blocks already over the top. We are now up to roof level, which is part of our plan. We want a dry storage area for our kit, and somewhere to shelter (nearby) if it rains. 

 

 

 

Near the end of the afternoon Neal suddenly realised that he had the time to get the joists from storage at Toddington. 

An hour later he was back, and we carried them across the tracks.

Then we stored them under the steps. 

 

 

 

 

But then Neal got itchy fingers, and started test fitting them in pairs.

There will be boards, insulation and on top a glass fibre sheet (if we remember correctly) which will wrap up against the outer walls, which will rise another course, to hide the roof. The roof will fall towards the rear, to drain into gutters there.

The original toilets here had no roof, a common arrangement at the time 

 

 

 

Tuesday with the Usketeers.

A switch from Wednesday, which the BBC forecast said would have sleet, then rain, then sleet again. And Tuesday was indeed sunny, so we went for that. It was almost windstill, and quite pleasant down there in the cutting.

 

Somewhat to our surprise, we are already  running out of bricks. Due to the change of day there was no opportunity to ask STEVIE to take a load of bricks, so there was nothing for it but to load up the two barrows with as many as we could carry at one go.

These we humped up the steep station drive, and then bumpety-bump across the field and finally along the track. 

 

 

 

 

Feeling a bit puffed on arrival at the tunnel mouth, our first thoughts were to get the chairs out and have a cuppa. 

This picture also shows you the state of play at the start of the day - the fireplace is being corbelled back. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is a sideways-on view of the start, with the fresh supplies of bricks piled up on the concrete blocks along the edge.

They didn't last very long... 

 

 

 

Here we have Paul and Dave discussing the joints, and tactics for the next course of bricks. As the fireplace narrows, the narrower chimney will emerge from it. Dave's excellent 'flaunching' is particularly evident.

We are running during half term on an orange timetable, which means one train between Winchcombe and Broadway. (Gotherington and CRC being worked on) 

In the distance there was a 'PEEP', and we just caught a glimpse of 3850 running round.

 

To encourage visitors with children, we had a room full of railway related toys at Winchcombe. This is an external facility that you can hire. (we did).

Staff here reported a very busy day, which was good to hear.

The little train in the foreground was self propelled, and started by pressing a button. Very popular! 

(to avoid being accused of heineous crimes, we waited with our picture until the very end of the day) 

Lunch was taken back in the weighbridge, which gave us the opportunity of bringing in another barrow of bricks. In fact we probably need another 80 of them, we calculated at the end of the day.

Paul lays the first paver.

 

 

On Tuesday we started to think about the next phase, that of the sleepers.

To avoid the bottoms rotting we will stand them on a row of pavers. The sleepers are 5 inch and the pavers 4 inch, so the sleepers will overhang by 1 inch, and so allow water to drip straight down and not under the sleeper ends. They will also stand on a damp proof membrane. 

 

 

 

At the end of the afternoon we had laid 4 courses, and reached the first course of the actual chimney itself.

Next time we will put up a little framework to represent the sleepers, and the roof line. This will allow us to work out what height sleepers we will need at each end (and in between) so that the sleepers can be cut off-site in readiness.

 

 

Tuesday at Broadway

Neal and John busy on Tuesday. 

 

The store room end of the building is now looking very respectable. You can see both windows in, lintels placed over the top, the interior concrete block wall right up to the top (another course to go eventually) and the roof joists are in.

This is the view of the roof joists from the inside. They went up really quick, but Neal is a trained joiner after all.

Inside, John was raising the blocks behind the fireplace, and was also nearly up to the top there.



Then there was some exciting news at Toddington:

Hawksworth Inspection Saloon 80975 has arrived on the railway. It was completed by newly formed BR at Swindon in 1948, and withdrawn in 1993. It came to us from the Llangollen Railway. It seats 23 in two large end saloons, and has a toilet, guard's cubicle and a small kitchen in the centre.

Picture by Alex Caulfield

Seven examples are known to remain preserved, with this one the last to be withdrawn. The future purpose with us is for private hire, small parties and special occasions.

Up to 2013 we had a similar inspection saloon, but of the LMS variety - M45048, built at Wolverton in 1940. Unfortunately it was then sold.

The new saloon is now being checked over, and a MO devised for its future operation.

Could this exception to our years long practice of running only Mk1s signal a relaxation of that policy? There is a privately owned GWR TK waiting just a few miles away....


 

SVRWiki

This photograph, taken from SVRWiki, shows the stunning interior of similar vehicle 80969 at the SVR. It's breathtakingly beautiful. It will open up a new market for us - would you like to hire it for that special occasion? Betton Grange as traction will be extra though...

 

 

 

We have found, and purchased for Winchcombe, two genuine GWR platform lamp posts.

This was quite a voyage of discovery, a real detective story.

While idly watching one of Henry Cole's Petronalia buying stories, we saw two GWR platform lamp posts flash by on the TV screen. Whoa - what was that ??? They seemed to be stood loose on the ground, not buried in someone's patio or garden.

The moment we saw a couple of GWR platform posts flash by on TV.

The programme does not reveal the exact locations of the visits, all we had was a first name of Francis, and the fact that it was not that far away from Henry's base. Frustration....

A couple of years passed, then we saw a repeat of the programme. Dang, what if the posts are still there?

Conflab with a member of the RATs Trust. We decided to send an enquiry to Henry Cole TV, could they put us in touch perhaps, if the other party was willing? A pro-Forma 'No' came back. What now?

Saturday a week ago there was a breakthrough. A RATs member had been to a swapmeet in the area, and asked if anyone knew a Francis that was visited by Henry. Oh, that must be Francis Barber, said a stallholder. Lives in Kelmscott you know. He even gave us the exact address.

We decided on a reconnaissance visit, and a timid knock on the door. Maybe he would be cross by a blunt visit to his front door? But we had no contact details, so it was nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A visit to Kelmscott found the posts still standing there in the yard, (phew!) but no one answered the door. We were practically forced to have a slap up lunch in the Blake's Kitchen cafe in nearby Clanfield, a great bakery with bakery related meals. (recommended!)

After lunch, a second attempt at the door. This time with success! Francis and his wife Sarah welcomed us very warmly, with offers of coffee and a comfy seat. They are not at all opposed to visitors, au contraire. They run a small architectural salvage business from their garden, and if you want the remains of a WW2 radial engine washed up on a beach, Francis is your man.

 

  

 

We were shown round the yard, which was full of interesting things.

 

Up against the garage were the famous two GWR lamp posts, still there. The exact origin is currently unknown, but they came from another salvage dealer in nearby Lechlade (but not Lechlade station, which had a different type of post).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a bit of haggling a price was agreed. The two posts were paid for privately by the two railway volunteers (the railway having no budget for this sort of embellishment).

Francis very kindly offered to deliver them, and they came on Friday, in the rain and sleet.

No matter, our enthusiasm was high ! 

 

Here they are, in store by the signal box in Winchcombe. Of course we have a purpose for them, in fact we could do with further such GWR platform lamp posts. So if you think you have one you'd like to pass on to the railway (where it will be put to good heritage use) then drop us a line (blogger contact form).

 

  

 

We have a longer term ambition to replace the 1980s garden type mini lamp posts at Winchcombe with genuine GWR ones. We have already installed three genuine ones on P1, and are now looking at the last 'garden' type on P1, and the next one would be one of the ones on P2, like these here.

There is also a plan to extend the platforms at Toddington, for which another 6 posts are required. Our historic platforms there are now too short for the trains that we run, obliging us to lock the doors on those coaches that do not quite make it into the station.

 

 

 

 

Other news from Friday.

 

A road accident outside the station garage last Wednesday! A van from the Broadway direction was about to turn into the garage, when it was overtaken by a car, which bounced off and hit a parked car on the pavement, pushing it into a street light. There was a loud bang, causing the volunteers to run down the station approach to investigate a suspected bridge strike.

 

John and Neal with the heavy bench, under the canopy.

 

 

 

What with services now booked on Saturday for half term, we had to remove the newly upholstered bench from the Gents', and find it a new, dry home. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That bench is made of proper wood - it is pretty heavy.

To avoid a long carry in the rain, Neal had brought a small trolley with him.

It was really a bit too small, but we managed by balancing it on two legs. Not ideal, but we got there.

 

 

 

 

With permission from Sam, our PWay colleague who is now also the new head of our S&T department, we stored the upholstered bench in the signal box, which is dry (unlike the old mess cabin, which has leaks)

Here are the two GWR benches that we have saved so far - the upholstered one at the back (6 legs) and a plain four legged one at the front, formerly at Eynsham and donated by a supporter. 

 

On the way back, in the pouring rain, we paused to photograph the store room end of the new building, now with interior block walls up to the top, and the last window in.

It's looking quite substantial now, isn't it?

Plans are being made for joists and its flat roof, hidden behind a low wall. 

A last look at the new building, in the rain, from the footbridge. Once the weather improves we will finish off the interior blocks, then resume with the bricks.

On Friday we also spent half a day grinding millscale off the three posts at Toddington, ready for galvanising. Neal also welded on the bottom plates, and reamed out holes for vertical adjustment, once they are up. 

Chimney works.

With the Friday gang at Gotherington South 

Five of us, a little specialised team at Gotherington, to swap out the crossing, without the usual large crowd implied with the full gang working on this one.

 

 

The same 5 also screwed down a number of base plates, until the drill got jammed in one of the holes - typically, the sort of thing that happens when you think you are doing really well.

It took ages to get the drill bit back out, with the limited small tools we had with us. 

 

 

 

 

 

STEVIE then lifted the new crossing close to its position.

The old one was unacceptably worn. The new one also has an improvement, in that it is slightly inclined, to fin into the curve in which it sits. The old one was flat, having come from elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

As you can probably see from the picture above, the new crossing is longer than the old one, so two rails had to be cut to make it fit.

 

Dave D, looking like a pirate with an eye patch, heaved this baby sideways with a bar. 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the new crossing, inscribed with an addressee, and the inclination that it has. It is fitted temporarily on to the old timbers - the replacement of the old timbers is currently at the half way stage, with about 10 being done per day (out of 53 in total).

 

 

 

With the other rails cut to size, STEVIE was able to lift in the new crossing. The fit was perfect!

As STEVIE needs to get across the turnout on his way to CRC the next day, the crossing was attached temporarily. Just enough for the RRV to cross. 

 

 

 

 

The crossing was fly fished at one end, and this end, still loose, will have a set of temporary plates and clamps fitted before Saturday.

The GWSR is a rural railway (when not encroached by compulsory housing estates growing like mushrooms) and we were amused by this farmer's wife, who walked into the middle of a field (a flock of ewes being on the far side) but no further, and rattled a bucket of sheep nuts. The ewes promptly gambled over, and she led them out of this field into the next one. They never got the sheep nuts !

Or how to corral sheep, if you haven't got a sheepdog. 

Clever stuff.

Before fitting the temporary fish plates, we tested the connection with one set of wheels of STEVIE. No probs there, they rolled straight across.

The above was all recorded with the new Blogger camera. It worked OK, it's just a bit more cumbersome at home when uploading the result onto the desktop. The camera is waterproof, so all the connections are hidden behind a cover that is rather difficult to open. We worked it out in the end, as you can see.

 

Prior to joining the gang at Gotherington, we were asked to show a wood carver and a welder around the shed at Toddington. They are preparing for a Honeybourne line artistic commission, and wanted to get to know our railway.

Here they are, looking at two of the three columns for P21 at Broadway, which Neal is preparing in the loco shed (attaching steel plates top and bottom).

They were thrilled by what we had achieved. They had never seen a shed full of steam engines before. You forget how normal we think this is, working here, and seeing the old kettles most days.

This picture was done with the phone camera, so still has that aura. Sadly, the mild acid solution to cement dust didn't work in our case. We tried. Thanks though for suggesting it. We'll probably work with a combination of the two.

 

 

Monday at Toddington.

More work on the steels for Broadway. But last Wednesday Neal and John had a successful day's block laying in the 'Gents' at the south end of the building.

How did they do?

 

 

 

Well, they built the interior block wall to within one course of the top. 

The fireplace side now needs to follow, in the Thermalite ones. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a shot from inside the 'Gents' upwards, to show how high they got.

One more course of blocks to go here then. 

 

 

 

Seen from the outside, it becomes clear that we still need to put in the last window, and that depends on the specials that we ordered.

The weather remains very disturbed still, so brick laying will be hit and miss for a while yet. 

 

At Toddington:

Work was going on to remove redundant BT phone wires, and associated telegraph poles. 

This will improve the look of the area, provided that the CCTV camera isn't screwed to our historic building instead.

 

Outside the loco shed it was good to see the 'Bubble Car' getting an airing. 

It's had a lot of work done to it, most recently fault finding and rectification. There is no official news of an entry to service, but 2026 looks like the year (fingers crossed)

 

The purpose of the visit to Toddington was to work on the stanchions for Broadway, which need to go to galvanising soon. Despite being 'in the greenhouse' they have gone rusty. Surprise! It is actually damp under that glass, and the wind blows the rain in. Luckily the galvanisation process can stand a little light rust, but we took off what we could. Under the rust were still some traces of millscale, so we took that off too, at least on one of them. Two more to go.

The next pictures are a little out of focus, as we are still getting accustomed to the new camera. It looks like the shutter speed was set too low for indoors, so apologies for that.

 

 

 

Neal here can be seen preparing the base plates for the bottoms of the stanchions. He put the tops on earlier.

The bases too were covered in millscale, which is what he is grinding off here. 

 

 

 

 

 

Yours truly cleaned all three stanchions of surface rust, and then the LH one of millscale.

Two more to go, for next time. 

 

 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

Up to full strength today, with three on site.

Surprise: We are about to be joined by a fourth, a repentant Julian, who is coming back, after 'going on furlough' during the Usk hut build. People are very welcome to return once personal circumstances change again, but they do have to jump through a number of administrative hoops first.

Maybe we will see him next week? In any case, we already prepared a fourth chair for him, both on site, and in the weighbridge. Julian is great company.

 

 

 

The Usketeers had a heavily loaded wheelbarrow to take up to the tunnel, so maybe Walt in STEVIE would do us a favour?

We waited at the 'bus stop'.

 

Next to us the team from C&M was attending to another sink hole in the platform. What on earth did they use to fill it, back in the day? (1989) 

 

Walt did indeed help us. Here we are, back on site. The fireplace looks quite substantial, but much of this is the back curtain, which is going to rise right up to the roof, to give the adjoining sleepers a straight wall to abut on.

Around us on Wednesday was a crashing and whirring noise - our contractor with a remote control flail, strimming the sides of the cutting. 

(this is a phone picture, hence the halo) 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the contractor has moved above the tunnel mouth, while Paul and Dave start on the corbelling inwards, to form the chimney above the fireplace. 

 

 

 

About 11am a certain need for tea arose, so we sat down on 3 of the 4 chairs that we had. Julian's is waiting - will he get his permit by next week? 

Then we resumed brick laying, using the reclaimed reds from Winchcombe station yard.

We actually have two brick layers on the job. 

From this picture you can see that we have finished the fireplace as such, and are starting on corbelling towards the chimney proper.

We are now quite a way above the arch that we placed last week, and indeed the former was taken away today. (the arch stayed up, in case you ask)

Yours Truly kept himself busy by digging out the area in front of the 'verrandah'.

This had been dug out before, but had succumbed to subsidence. We found a few souvenirs in it; bits of glass bottle, and a valve for a Tilley lamp.

We've been offered a grindstone, which could historically be justified to be placed here. PWay workers would have sharpened their scythes on it.

Near the end of the afternoon Paul was working on the rear curtain wall. You can see how the corbelling is reducing towards the future chimney stack.

A little detail shot to show how the rear curtain wall is being raised, to meet the sides of the sleeper that will stand here.

Then it was time to come home, and we passed the flail, now working on the lower levels.

Next time: The story of how we spotted two GWR lamp posts on TV ! What to do? Can we find them? Where are they? Are they for sale at all?