Canopy preparations.

Thursday on the cushions.

A quick trip on a diesel hauled train to CRC with visiting friends.

On our return to Toddington, we had a quick look at the state of the canopy steelwork, behind the fence.

Neal, with some assistance from the loco dept, has painted three of the four trusses in dark stone undercoat. A fourth truss has weather damage, and needs a bit more treatment first. 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides the 4 big trusses, there is plenty of other steel and woodwork to paint.

 

Here we are looking at the fascia boards.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was interesting to see that Neal had annotated some of these, to help with the assembly on site, later in August. The day is drawing near!

 

 

 

We took the car to Broadway (for logistical reasons) and were in time to see D6948 arrive with its train.

We were delighted to see that the trains were pretty busy. Some days rather less so, there seems to be no logic to it.

D6948 about to set off.

 

We took a short video of the Growler setting off, having explained to our visitor why the big diesel had that name. After a wink to the driver we heard the reason too...

 

 https://youtu.be/VuxoMZtsuPY

 

 

Friday in the yard at Winchcombe

A few photographs by Paul of the delicate operation to move a site container from one part of Winchcombe yard to another.

 

 

 

Here it is being removed by STEVIE from its original position by the gate. It was in use as a store room.

Prior to that - some readers might recognise this - it was the site mess room for when we rebuilt P2 at CRC.

That was a long time ago ! 

 

 

 

 

A new container is believed to be coming to replace it.

Here it is, half way down the yard to its new destination.

Two vehicles had to be involved in moving it, as a couple of nasty turns were involved. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new location is the gardening centre behind the old Building & Services shed. 

Going out with out of town visitors on Thursday, it struck us how beautiful the Cotswolds are, and why many people chose to travel on the nearby 'Cotswolds Line' GWSR.

 

 

This is the 13th C wool Church of St. James in Chipping Campden. A peal of bells was going as we passed, with some difficulty - 8 bells are harder to ring than the usual 6.

 

On  the left are the alms houses, with their famous 2-in-1 doors. In the middle distance the lovely pepperpot gate houses, marking the entrance to the site of Campden House. Only one wall of it remains, sadly, as it was deliberately burned to the ground in 1645 to prevent its use by the advancing Roundheads.

Idea: Why not restore the gardens, the site of which is still there? Surely a perfect volunteer project? 

 

Chipping Campden High street, on a quiet evening. The liveliest place is now the Italian restaurant, which - shock! - has installed tables on the pavement !

A quiet scene, with bustling traffic only a few feet away. Can readers guess where this is?

 

 

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the bubble car was out. It was performing a shuttle service between the two regular trains, between Winchcombe (childrens' train play area in the visitor centre) and Toddington (large car park).

 

 

 

Monday at Toddington.

A day with Neal, drilling and painting parts of the Broadway P2 canopy. The Hymek was waiting by the unloading road for road transport.

 

 

 

Painting the canopy parts in undercoat involved a lot of shuffling around. It's a small site, things are stacked together, and for a painter, unreachable.

Three of the trusses have been done, by the steam dept team. The fourth one needed finishing on Tuesday, then came 6 purlins to do.

Neal has one in the strops here. 

 

 

 

 

Here is the reason we can't just forge ahead and paint them just like that. After storage outdoors for some years now, they are covered in dust, wood shavings and drilling detritus.

Also, despite painting in primer, the driving rain has breached the coating in some places, and started some rust. Each moving of an item causes scratches and blistering back to bare metal.

 

 

 

 

After a morning at Broadway digging a hole into hard, dry ground, and painting half a truss, we were able to point to these two purlins painted on one side, and the two ends. The underside is still to go, then the other four, on the right.

 

 

 

 

The 47 cab nearby now sports this notice. So be patient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers. 

Three of us. The hut is nearly done, so we had a chat with the PWay lads in the mess coach to see what we could do next. We'll have a look at a suggestion next week.

 

We had a surprise last night - rain ! 

 

 

 

 

 This morning things were damp and humid. Let's hope the rain did some good.

 

 

It's still diesel days on the railway, due to the fire risk. Here's the class 20, bringing people from CRC. 

 

 

 

After discussions in the PWay mess coach we moved our kit up to the hut, and flopped down on the chairs. Time for a cuppa, we said. 

 

 

 

With Jules and Paul working away inside, we spent a couple of hours breaking up the broken concrete blocks on the site. We want to leave it nice and tidy. What we really need is a trip with STEVIE and his trolley, to take all our excess kit back.

 

 

 

 Growler 37 215 did the honours on the second train.

 

 

Will it fit my drawing room?

 

 We still had the second bench sleeper to go in. Paul had it measured, just to make sure.

 

 

 

 

 

Then they carried the sleeper inside. This will make the second bench. The sleeper comes from a re-sleepering job inside the tunnel, and is one of the better second hand examples.

 

 

 

Sitting on a raw wooden sleeper is a bit hard on the backside, so we accepted Dave's offer of a length of redundant carpet to sit on.

Here they are, cutting it to size. 

Now, what we need is a test sitting.... The grins say that it's OK to sit on.

The benches are removed a short distance from the wall, as it's not comfortable to sit right up against a hard wall. 

A drone's eye view of the hut, on the approach to Greet tunnel.

We have a joker among us - this hut is finished, and now for sale...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PWay on Wednesday.

 

Work at the siding alongside the C&W shed. It's another of the 1980s stretches of rail that we'd like to replace with some economy concrete sleepers, ex Didbrook.

 

 

 

We're talking about two panels here, so the two sets of rails have been dragged north and south. The far end is already in economy concrete sleepers.

 

 

 

 Rails removed here, but sleepers still in place.

 

 

 

 Sleepers being lifted out by Dave D in STEVIE, seen from the north, and then the south end.

 

 The redundant sleepers were lifted out on to the trolley behind STEVIE.

 

 

At the end of the morning that trolley was looking pretty full.

 

Subsequently the bed of the two panels was graded by STEVIE with a bucket, but with some difficulty, as it was from a track alongside, not on the bed itself.

Also, the bed of ash was peppered with old bricks and bits of broken concrete. Track laying in the 1980s was with whatever means you could find... 

 

 The camera was elsewhere when the grading took place. Rebuilding the two panels is now for the next time.

 

Our last picture shows the freshly graded trackbed (with all its lumps of concrete and brick) just as the class 20 was passing by with its train.

 

By the way, we've just put up another post of the Yeo Valley Lines blog, the one about the lower end of the Lynton & Barnstaple railway:

 https://yeovalleylines.blogspot.com/2026/08/july-update.html