Heritage Herald: Stinky.

Saturday, out with the gang.

Ten of us on Saturday, to deal with a long dip and three sleeper replacements at Townsend Farm bridge (Gretton) .

To start with, a snapshot of the infill train for the landslip. Three Dogfish filled with ballast - is this left over? The TSR over the slip site has been raised a bit, so the work is almost done.

As we had our early morning tea there was a low rumble, and we caught sight of the GWR rail car. with its AEC engines.

The rail car was returning to Toddington, unfortunately right into the sun from where we were standing. This journey was fully booked. A late afternoon one was almost empty though.

We loaded up 4 replacement sleepers, and a load of kit into a Transit and two Rangers. Due to the need to put out site working boards we entered the line in different places, erected our boards at the extremities of the site, and met in the middle, where the actual work was.

BETTON GRANGE came by, a reliable performer so far, and a good exhaust bark.

The work on Saturday was to correct a two panel dip, for which some ballast had been dropped. So it was a case of jacking up to the correct level, and Robelling a lot. We had 4 machines with us, and took it in turns to do the job.

The other train engine out on Saturday was visitor MANSTON. With its air smoothd casing, it looks like a big black box coming towards you.

Unfortunately we have to stay together as a gang, so the pictures are more often than not into the sun. Sorry about that.

The driver looked quite pleased... it must be a great honour to be allowed to take charge of one of our visitors.

This picture shows where we parked to be out of the way - the wider site, marking the spot of Gretton Halt.

After dealing with the dip (possibly not all of it, all these sleepers look the same) we moved a few yards along, to find 4 sleepers marked for replacement.

We dug these out. At least two of them had traces of a derailment, and almost certainly went in like this. Now we are changing them.

We dug out, changed and Robelled three of the four marked sleepers.

As it was surprisingly hot on Saturday afternoon, and some of the guys looked rather weary, we decided to leave the spare fourth sleeper on site for next time.

We dropped off the three used ones - still in fairly robust condition - with our neighbour, who was glad to have them.

Back at Winchcombe the GWR rail car was about to leave. We really like this vehicle, being a supporter of sister vehicle No.20 on the KESR. We even have an old roneoed guide of how to operate it, from back in the 1970s.

This trip, sadly, had vitually no passengers in it. The popular one seems to be the full line trip, first thing.

The best part of the day was tea in the corner by the Coffeepot.

We asked if there was any out of date cake, but there wasn't.

Bless them, but the cafe staff did turn out with some little samples of cereal tray bake, one for each of us. That was lovely !

Monday at Broadway.

There was a bit of a whiff in the air on Monday. A tractor drawing a large vat went by in the field next door. The whiff got worse.

It chugged up and down, going back down to the road to replenish the tank.

It seemed to do a more distant field, but mid morning it did the one immediately behind our building. It unfolded giant wings, with lots of little pipes dribbling black stinky stuff on to the grass.

Down on the road, more black stinky stuff was being pumped into a holding tank, from which the tractor replenished itself. This took all day... no issue for the tractor driver, who was in a sealed cab on his mobile, but the canopy gang was in the 'thick' of it. Yuk !

So here was the opening situation on Monday. Almost all of the launch pads for the arches are now ready, with just a bit to do on the far left one.

John began the day plugging the last hole.

The roofer has been and gone, and the store room roof is complete. It's water tight, but the door is not yet hung. We've given both the door and the door frame two coats of undercoat.

Neal swept out vast amounts of construction debris, and we now have a nice clean room.

After plugging the last hole by the far left arch, John carried on in the area, profiting from the tower scaffold in situ, to add two more courses to the corbelling by the front of the store room. Check out the corner, that is some beautiful brickwork there. We don't do that any more.

Neal knew exactly which brick John would need next, and here he is with the corner corbel, a special brick that cost £40 when we bought it 10 years ago.

During our lunch break, taken inside the building, we received the visit of Graham.

Graham is the owner of the big red Routemaster double decker bus, that on occasion ferries passengers between stations, or up to the village. You may have met him then. Unfortunately Graham is not well, and can't drive the bus any more, so it is for sale, should anyone be interested. Should someone reading this like to take it over, we can pass a message on, through a Blogger Contact Form.

During Monday John added the second and third corbelling course to the front of the store room, continuing round the corner in the afternoon. We just love this brick detail

Yours Truly gave 4 of the door and window frames a second coat of undercoat. Eventually they will be painted chocolate brown, the colour used on opening in 1904. In later years, white or cream was also used.

Tuesday at Toddington.

While John and Neal continued with the corbelling at Broadway, Yours Truly spent most of the day at Toddington by the 'Greenhouse'.

On arrival we found this tender being unloaded. GWR on the side, black....?

The works plate on the back gives a build date of 1908, which suggests 2807.

The job for the day was to put these three stanchions for Broadway into a coat of primer. They recently came back from the galvaniser's, and were very shiny. This means that paint won't stick, so a special treatment is required to make the surface dull and a bit rougher.

The picture shows the result after applying a special fluid for this. The instructions for this said wait an hour, then wash it off. What to do for an hour?

Only one thing to do - visit the Halt cafe. They have nice tiffins, and real espresso coffee. Can't do anything but wait for the stuff to go off.

The little DMU was out today, and at times looked quite busy. Certainly lunch time at the Halt was busy, there was even a queue. The former volunteers' messing room, converted to a bar, has now been re-converted into a little shop.

Filming for TV was going on elsewhere, on the footplate and in the loco shed.

When the hour was up we needed to wash the special fluid off again. This meant shuttling back and forth between the station building and the 'greenhouse' with buckets of water.

Then, fingers crossed, the sun would come out and dry everything off again, ready for primer to be applied.

Here is the result - three Broadway P2 stanchions in green primer. Now we need another dry day to apply a first dark stone undercoat, and they wil be ready for transporting to Broadway.

A roofer by the tunnel mouth.

A day of sunshine, showers, hail and thunder was forecast. We thought it best to put at least part of the roof on.

On the way to the tunnel we came across this plant. Never seen one of these before. Does anyone know what it is? There were no others like it anywhere.

The first thing we did was to complete the attachment of the back wall to the chimney stack. We don't want the hut to open up like a clamshell.

Next came the final adjustment of the rafters. They all needed to stick out a bit, as the sleeper lengths are slightly uneven.

We then had a rain shower, quite short but heavy.

Here it is - going away. See the Cotswolds edge? Neither can we....

This sort of heavy shower interfered with our secondary mission of giving the roof sheets a second coat of bitumen black, before they go on. It's easier on the ground.

Here's Paul fixing the second rafter The rafters are fairly close together, as the corrugated iron (wriggly tin in local parlance) is very thin these days, and not suitable for walking on, unless there is a lot of support.

The much thicker sheets for Broadway were a special order, and that quality is now no longer available. We were lucky with P2 to get the last available lot.

In between showers we were able to give a second coat to almost all of the sheets.

There is still a PWay possession on this part of the line, although the embankment works are now complete (see latest Infrastructure blog)

While we were still painting bitumen, an order came from above for a first sheet for the roof. Oh-oh. We picked the driest, and offered it up. Here it is, in situ.

Something caught our eye here - this plank is marked Hitchen.... Jim Hitchen was a dear friend, who died of cancer last year. He had the endearing habit of labelling everything he owned with his name, even a dustpan and brush. So now we remember him. Jim led the expedition to recover platform edging blocks from Swanbourne, on the revitalised East-West line.

The platelayer's hut is just too long for a single sheet of wriggly tin, so a second sheet is needed, and there is a big overlap. Here the second sheet has just been offered up.

We're going to have to cut the other sheets to size, to fit round the chimney. A puzzle for next week.

During another cloudburst we saw the water pour off the end of the first sheets we put on. Our plan for this involves some second hand guttering that Dave has. It'll be plastic... there's not enough money in the kitty to buy luxury cast iron gutters for a simple platelayer's hut. We just want the water to be sent away, and not land on the concrete base.

STEVIE the RRV was out today, doing multiple jobs. He took a quantity of redundant concrete sleepers up to our Skew Bridge site for LT storage, then proceeded onwards to the slip site to pick up the ballast unloading sheet, then back to Gretton to attach the repaired second parapet, and bring back the temporary one.

STEVIE emerges from Greet tunnel.

We called STEVIE on his way and asked if he could take MAXIE the mixer back to Winchcombe. He could. That saved us a lot of pushing and shoving over half a mile. Thanks, Walt !

STEVIE pauses by the platelayers' hut, with three roof sheets on.

MAXIE is heaved on to the trolley. Paul and Dave wish her a good bye. Although a bit tatty, this petrol engined mixer has been remarkably reliable (in Dave's good hands) and will no doubt help us once again in the future.

MINNIE, MAXIE's predecessor on the Usk hut, died of a broken heart (the final drive snapped off).

Our last look from a distance, the platelayers' hut by the tunnel mouth. Half the roof is on. Isn't it beautiful round there? And quite windstill, and balmy too. A lovely place to hang around in.

Looking further into the future, we need a new project for the Usketeers. One day the hut will be finished. What can we get up to next?

STEVIE's day on Wednesday.

A more detailed view of STEVIE's day at Skew Bridge and the Cleeve slip site.

Pictures by Walt, with thanks.

Unloading concrete sleepers at Skew Bridge.

Attaching the second refurbished parapet at Gretton.

Loading the ballast slide at Cleeve; the land slip job having been completed. The slide looked a bit out of gauge, so careful progress was on the agenda.