Roof works.

Thursday on the Broadway P2 roof.

Two of us, in nice sunshine.

 

 

 

 

Yours Truly painted woodwork that Neal had cut, while the man himself attached it to the canopy girders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After completing the supporting timber along the fascia board, Neal went up a level and can be seen here bolting a length of timber on to the purlin.

The idea is to start with the roof at the overhang end. There is still more work to do, so it won't be next week, but perhaps the week after? 

 

 

 

 

 

A second timber was fitted to the purlin, this one with the angle cut to fit the angle of the glazing.

At the rear is the ridge, still without any supporting timber (but see below).

 

 

 

 

 

To our surpise, during this sunny Thursday, Neal also brought out a long timber in light stone, which he started to fix to the gable end. This really outlines the shape of the roof here.

There will be dagger boards of increasing sizes along here. 

 

 

 

Neal had also made special brackets to support the timber end along the bottom. These were the ones we cleaned and primered in the last blog post. On Thursday we put on an undercoat, and before this had gone off completely, Neal already had it and was bolting it down. We don't hang about.

Our last shot of Thursday was looking back from the platform, where we saw Neal fitting the timber on top of the ridge. He's got the mag drill out, to drill the fixing holes into the ridge.

 

 

 

Monday at Broadway.

A wet start, so we kinda lost the first hour.

 

 

 

Here the rain is just receding. Work on the roof currently focuses on the woodwork on top of the steels. On the right you can see half of the triangular wooden frame that will support the dagger boards on the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday John came to rectify the third arch he had been building. He wasn't totally happy with how it went before, but it certainly looks fine now.

 

 

 

 

 

With the sun now out, Neal showed us where the braces will go between the posts at the bottom of the staircase. Some fairly chunky cross-like structure will go in there, and more on the left. A small segment has already been fitted on the right.

We were very excited to be contacted by a blog reader, who offered to sponsor the manufacture of these pieces. As they are quite large, we will have to clean and paint them where they are being made - in the Toddington loco shed. Then they can be brought up finished, ready for fitting. 

 

 

 

 

Neal then spent most of Monday drilling and fitting the wooden supports along the ridge.

Such a support has already been placed on the purlin in the foreground. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the last few days Neal has also been back in the loco shed and made supports for part of the glazing structure over the north side canopy extension.

These came in bare metal with millscale on it. We cleaned and primered these, and put them in the container, where it's dry (rain forecast).

You should be able to see three green primered pieces. 

 

 

 

 

We also spent some time cleaning blue bricks of mortar. These came from the work extending the Toddington P2 platform, and were brought up for us to salvage, or use as infill. We can use blue bricks on the future rear wall around the canopy overhang.

Curently we have scaffolding up for installing the roof and canopy on P2, but did you realise that the footprint is much smaller than when we did P1 in the summer of 2017?

This is the footprint in 2017. Note how the scaffolding stands on the nearest trackbed (no track yet) so that work can be done to the outside of the fascia board.

 

And this is what we have today - the scaffolding is strictly limited to the platform only. Unfortunately we were not given permission for a winter line block for the loop line, as there are more and more trains running now during what used to be the 'non-running' season. They have priority.

 

How we are going to work on the fascia board now is not very clear at the moment. It needs painting on the outside, supporting woodwork for the dagger boards needs attaching and holes drilling, the dagger boards have to be attached and given a top coat, and the guttering has to be mounted.

 

 

 

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A wet day, one of several due as storm Austen passes through. Cancel, or go on regardless? We carried on regardless, meeting at Winchcombe to pick up a second hand length of 4x2 to replace the bottom frame member of the Gotherington ground frame hut.

As we cannot currently use the weighbridge hut as a base due to redecorating, we had our initial coffee and a piece of Mrs. Dave's excellent fruitcake on the rather chilly platform. After a while a very kind member of the cafe staff came out and offered to take us into the warmth and sit inside. We really appreciated that.

The other way of looking at volunteers occurred at Broadway last Thursday, the fourth day that week that Neal and your blogger were working there. We sat in the cafe for a coffee and a bun after the first train had left, and in our civvies. After a while we were asked to leave, as were were 'scruffy' and 'talked in a loud voice'. We should 'get back to work' ! It left us speechless.

 

At Gotherington we found that Bryan had already purchased the necessary T&G for the front of the hut, so we took that with us, ready for applying primer. He very kindly agreed to let us use the pagoda platform shelter.

 

 

 

As part of site reinstatement Paul and Dave re-planted the fence post they had removed to get at the corner foundation block.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julian did back filling around the hut, making sure that any earth was below the level of the woodwork.

 

From the parts bin at Winchcombe we brought with us another length of 3 inch downpipe, so that we can work out a way of redirecting the rainwater away from the building, and perhaps down the embankment slope.

Previously the downpipe just stopped at the bottom of the corner, and the damp had badly affected the woodwork there. 

 

 

 

Bryan's agreement for us to use the Pagoda - a genuine Honeybourne line one, as it had once stood at Willersey halt, before going to a farmer and then on to Winchcombe, where it ailed a while in the yard before Bryan bought it off the railway - was a great move for us, as we had wondered how we could take our breaks and work on any carpentry once the winter weather started.

Here is the Pagoda, at 'Gotherington West'. The Black 5 is just steaming by. Sadly, it will leave us again soon, but there will be a last minute opportunity to drive the loco - a one-off gold footplate experience on Friday 6th November. 

 

 

 

 

Prior to accepting temporary occupation of the Pagoda, we had a test sitting.

Not at all too bad, was the verdict. Dry, with seating, and close to power. We'll take it ! 

 

 

 

Our picnic table, chairs, coffee and Mississippi toffee cake were all transfered to the Pagoda, the event duly recorded by Yours Truly.

 

 And for once your blogger was recorded too. So this is how he does it....

 

The Black 5 chugged past again, picking up some intrepid walkers from Gotherington platform.

 

 

The Bubble car came past too, well filled on Wednesday. Good to see.

 

 

 

With all our tools and the necessary woodwork installed in the corrugated iron hut, Paul got to work trimming the 4 skirting board planks that Dave had brought, so that they had a bevelled edge.

 

These will go round the bottom of the T&G. The previous planks, being so close to the ground, had all rotted.