Getting Christmassy

Friday at Broadway.

And just Friday. That's yer lot, this time. No PWay work on Saturday, it's the start of the Christmas season and that means Christmas dinners! Or training sessions on the Pway, where a further 8 are being taught lookout duties.

It was a grim day at Broadway today. Although our stuff was under the canopy, everything was nonetheless wet, from spray with the high winds.

At one point you could barely see the end of the line, it was raining so hard.

No matter though, because we already had a kind of indoor job in mind, which was to pick up the door for the Usk weighbridge hut from our friendly joiner at Willersey.

In the picture you can see that he has made it a completely new frame, using reclaimed wood at the top, and new wood down the sides.

At some stage the door needs rubbing down and the frame needs the application of several layers of preservative, but there is probably no hurry as we won't be starting the build until the frost is over.

In return we took the large replacement window up, for a similar but smaller repair to a corner of the frame.

Back at Broadway station around lunch time, we found the tower scaffold erected outside the front door. What's going on here then?

Oh, right, they're going to (finally) put up the WAY IN sign that we made a few months back.

The double V board is all new, manufactured in house, the BOOKING OFFICE letters are from a smaller V board that we bought but used only the letters, and the WAY IN and & are new castings in aluminium, using some WAY OUT originals that we had. The metal work for the suspension was made in house again, and so we have a new board that suits our particular purposes.

The new V board was opened out and offered up to the front door, where the ends were attached to the wall, and the nose was suspended from the canopy.


























While John and Neal were fiddling with the hanging of the V board, another volunteer 'planted' a GWR boundary post at the point where the two drives part company. Some grass seed was mixed in, so that this area should be weed free in the spring. The post adds a bit of colour.

The boundary post was donated by the RAT Railway Archiving Trust. It is an unusual angular design. Most GWR boundary posts were in the form of an old medallion type roundel on top of a length of bridge rail. This style looks more modern, can anyone say something more about it?

After the fierce downpour we were treated to after lunch, we had 10 minutes with this shaft of sunlight illuminating the otherwise deserted station.

We had a little poke round the station to see if there were any other interesting sunset pictures possible.

By putting the lamp post in front of the orb of the sun, you get the lovely orange glow in the glass of the lamp top. The platforms were wet, with large puddles, and these too reflected the orange sunlight.

Turning the other way....

...you get this amazing orange glow on the station building. It lasted just a few moments.

Step back, and admire the 'light and dark stone'. Now light and dark orange.

And then the sun was gone. It was cold and windy again, and getting dark too, Neal and John finished hanging the V board, so now passengers will know where the way in is. Apparently, some do not know this, hence the board. The old station didn't have such a board, as the entrance was round the side and on to the platform.

Two WAY OUT signs, with a pointing finger, are next on the 'to do' list. We already have the letters - and the finger !

No Saturday report then, due to other activities. Reporting looks likely to be a bit intermittent over the Christmas period.

76077 AGM

Monday at Broadway

An ice cold start on Monday, and although the painting job was under cover outside the station building, there was a nasty little wind that gave us all a chill factor. We stopped every 30 minutes to warm up our cold and stiff fingers in the mess hut.

During the day we gave this pile of timber for the footbridge sides a first coat of primer. It's already been knotted, and had three coats of preservative put on it too.

Soon Neal will start using it for the sides of the steps. He will start on the P1 side, at the bottom, and work up.

Neal once again was a lonely figure on the P2 side, where he slowly worked his way down the steps, fixing on the treads, after drilling in new holes on each timber and reaming out the top so that the bolts can be countersunk. Slow and steady, he was on step No. 10 out of the 28 on this side here.

As the sun went down half way through the afternoon we were so cold that thoughts turned to some warmer activity, so it was decided to move the remaining wooden treads, mostly spares, from a pile on the grass to inside the P2 tower. That will look neater, and there is a limited amount of shelter there too.

The Broadway gang also did physical stuff to keep warm, such as digging soil along the drive, sweeping leaves along the platform, and this team here, which was sweeping up the needles along the track through the platforms.

The Broadway gang also assembled the bench ends we bought at auction a while back. The whole kit is there now, so with the help of the stainless steel nuts and bolts the bench was put together. Now it just needs a couple more coats of paint to complete the job.

These bench ends are originals, and a bit scarce, as they have pierced backs, as you can see in the pictures. All the others we have are solid in that area.




Standard 76077 AGM

Saturday saw the first ever AGM of the new company that will see through the completion of this attractive and most useful engine for our railway. We met in Toddington village hall.

This is the company board, the people who are going to see the restoration through, with our support. They're all GWSR volunteers.

Andy Meredith, our Engineering Director (centre), gave an overview of where we are with the locomotive at this stage. The loco is 95% complete (not counting the missing tender) and in relatively good condition too, as of course it was one of the newer locos at Barry. The condition of the boiler is very good, although as all second hand boilers it will need work doing to it. The loco will initially be restored without the tender, and we hope to run with a borrowed one until further funds have been raised to pay for a new one. We already have many parts for a new tender frame.

The principal items missing are the reverser box and screw. If you know of one.... get in touch! We had a newly manufactured smokebox door at Toddington, but after hunting round the yard we were unable to find it, so we will need a sponsor for a replacement. If anyone knows where it is then we would love to know.

The frames were shotblasted at Toddington and have been sent to Loughborough to Locomotive Maintenance Services (LMS), who just outshopped Pitchford Hall. As a result, our frames have now been taken indoors for the restoration to start. We have enough shareholder funds for the first year's work. This will include the manufacture of a new front bufferbeam (damaged in a collision), a new dragbox, re-wheeling and a cab. By the end of next year then the frames should see the smokebox at one end, and the cab at the other, with a big gap in the middle. This is for the boiler, and for that we need further financial support.

Standard 76077 behind the Toddington goods shed (where the new mess room is now being built) shortly after arrival on the GWSR.

Now we need your help. Many, but not yet enough, people have purchased a block of 500 £1 shares, and this will see us through the first year. Please consider helping us, we can't do it on our own. If you can afford a block of £500 shares that would be great. What would really help is to have an income stream of say £25 a month. We can plan with that, know what we can afford. If you set up a standing order and fill in the share application form, you will slowly accumulate a growing block of shares, converted to an annual certificate, but with a modest monthly outlay.

Share application form

Standing order form

These two links will take you to the share application form. On the form you can opt for either a single purchase of shares (minimum £500) or an ongoing purchase of shares in £25 increments. Yours truly purchased his block in the summer, and now feels he can afford £25 per month, so signed up for the standing order. Could you do that too? Let's get this loco back up and running, it's ideal for the GWSR and we are all GWSR members - it's going to be our engine.




Wednesday Usketeers

It was a bright morning, but also ice cold. Paul broke out the seasonal mince pies, and you can gauge the temperature in the mess coach by the steam coming off the tea. It's a seasonal picture for you.

You had to be quick to get a mince pie though.

8 of us were off on a course, one of many we now have to undergo.

Others sorted out a delivery of lifter fishplates with the Telehandler, while more went to Hayles to start ballast boxing south towards the team that is working north from Chicken curve. They should meet half way down the Defford straight then.

It was difficult getting into Winchcombe yard today, not only because of the increasingly heavy traffic. An Alleleys low loader was waiting at the top of station drive, unable to enter because of residents' cars parked at the top of the road. This despite the double yellow lines.

The purpose of the low loader was to pick up Foremarke Hall for a trip to Tyseley for a repair job. This is cheaper than having the Tyseley team come down to us over several days.

The unloading road at Toddington is currently blocked with the scaffolding for the mess room extension, so the pick up today was from Winchcombe.

Here the loco is being brought in by the class 73.

Clearly some thought had gone into this manoeuvre, because by propelling the loco down from Toddington, the class 73 was in the right position to push it up against the trailer.

Here they are just passing the C&W extension, with the trailer parked just out of sight to the left.

After a reversal by the stop block, the class 73 was once again able to propel the loco past the pit and up to the end of the trailer.

There the class 73 was unhooked (just as well....) and from that point on the loco was slowly winched on board with a cable.

A careful eye was kept on the point where the loco's wheels left the rails.

With the two changes of angle from track to slope and then the top of the trailer, the frames of the locos are subjected to some stress, as you can see in this picture. However, all went well.

While Foremarke Hall was being secured to the trailer, the Usk team took to splitting engineering blues int two, so that we could build the wall with an English bond (or apparently so, as the skin is actually only one brick deep.)

Eventually we had a team of three doing this (Jules is at the rear, collecting a further supply) while Paul gave us a brief 'acte de presence'. In fact Paul was away for most of the morning on an urgent shopping trip, and was unable to contribute to the build today, leaving only instructions to divide a lot of bricks in two.

We have all sorts of bricks from many different sources, and here is one with a clear source cast into the inside. It's a fairly local company. If you have a brick with an inscription and want to know what it means, you can look it up here:
http://www.brocross.com/Bricks/Penmorfa/Pages/england15a.htm

It's a jolly useful reference site. Scroll down, and it says this about our brick:

Mobberley & Perry was at The Hayes, Lye, Stourbridge, West Midlands.  The brickworks for building bricks was on the main Stourbridge Road in Wollacote and the Firebrick works was in Hayes Lane.  George Attwood worked the brickworks untill 1840, then Fisher Bros. worked the brickworks until Mobberley & Perry took over the brickworks, the works closed in the late 1960's.

Of course we had our own brickworks at Greet, just down the lane from the station in fact. That pit produced the clay for some of the archway specials we found at Broadway - they had a 'W' cast into them. The GWR didn't go far for these to build our line then.

One construction job we could do today was to extend the foundations of the brick skin a few feet round the back of the platform end. This is to avoid showing concrete blocks exposed by the slope of the terrain at the back.

Neil is seen digging here.

In a spare moment, Jules decided to sweep the millions of leaves off our foundations. Whose Idea was it to build right underneath an oak tree anyway?

Concrete in at the end of the day.

Santa, stop here to let our happy children off.

Once Foremarke Hall was safely secured to the trailer, the tractor turned around, coupled back on to the end from which the loco was loaded, and then slowly reversed back out of the yard.

What a blessing it is that we now have a concrete roadway for the larger part of it.

Here is Foremarke Hall being propelled past the signal box. The man in orange is in charge of steering the rear wheels of the trailer, with a remote control box in his hand.

A tricky zig-zag was required at the yard gate, in view of cars parked just outside.

But that was not a big thing, again with the rear wheel steering the combination skipped neatly around the obstruction.

As with the approach by the lorry first thing, the throat of the yard was the problem area again. To straighten out the 'S' bend by the gate post (this used to divide the goods yard from the passenger forecourt, and had a lamp post beside it) the second gate was opened, something we don't see that often.

Another car was parked awkwardly in the road, this time outside the B&B.

Double yellow lines are apparent here too, but to no avail.

The last photograph, a little unsharp due to the digital zoom, shows the loco being taken across the railway bridge on the Greet road.

She'll be back again soon.

Gi's a fag.

Monday at Broadway

A drizzly day, but no matter, we were up on the footbridge, in a container, and under the canopy. Nice and dry.




Neal was involved in a P2 site meeting first thing, then spent the afternoon trimming the treads that touched the corners of the upper landing, where they still wobbled on the gussets.

All is stable now, the treads are nice and tight on the centre span.











Painting of the underside of the centre span roof is finally completed.

This picture shows the final effect, after 3 coats of paint on everything. Light stone corrugated sheets, and dark stone supporting roof hoops.

Afterwards Neal and Dave allowed themselves a few minutes looking out over the site and chewing the cud.

Dave has been making more wooden leaflet holders for the booking office. We managed to replace almost all of the plastic ones with replica wooden ones of a GWR type, but more plastic ones have appeared.

While yours truly gave the 20 timbers prepared by C&W a second coat of primer during the day, John and new recruit Ian attacked the timbers prepared by the joiner in Willersey.

They set up a small production area under the canopy, where during the day all these timbers received a first coat of preservative. Only 2 more coats to go, keep plugging away! Then it's two coats of primer....





Wednesday on the Usk weighbridge.

Track walkers and ballast sweepers were out today along our railway, while a small handful of Usketeers studied the block wall of the platform, and tried to work out why the courses of our little brick towers last week were not at the height they should have been.

Last week we had measured the spacing for the courses from below, and this week Paul devised an alternative, where we measured the spacings for the bricks from above, using a fixed post with each line of bricks marked off on it.

The posts then were suspended from above.
Behind Paul you can see a line of them, as the last one is screwed to the blocks at the southern end of the platform.

Dave supervised...

With the posts and their markings for each course of bricks in place, Paul was able to start again and we see him here laying a corner of bricks.

The others moved on ahead and laid out a dry first course, along which Paul could work with mortar.

'It was this big, at least. Maybe bigger'.    'Oh really?'

Jules entertained us from time to time with tales from the financial world, in which he used to work. Credit margins were this big, he seems to say, but not everyone swallowed that tale.

The Winchcombe site was very busy today, with lots of large lorries coming and going.
This one delivered 20T of 20mm to nil ballast, which is destined to be used at Toddington.

It's an easy life, up there in the cab, you don't even have to get out. Rob signed off the delivery sheet.

Elsewhere, a similar lorry delivered stone ballast destined to fill the gabions being used to stabilise the banks of the Isbourne. This work is being done by contractors, and will be subject to a separate blog report when there's a decent bit to say about it.

The infill delivered by the lorry was then dumpered down to the site by the river itself, a tricky drive along a very muddy and rutted track.

The recent heavy rainfall is not doing the contractor any favours, as the ruts are so deep in places the differentials on the dumper are scraping along the ground. But they are tough all-terrain vehicles, so every load did arrive down there on the site beside the river.

A short while later, with both lorries gone again, the Telehandler took a bite out of the new pile of 20mm ballast, and emptied it on to the C&M truck. Pete then drove it to Toddington, where part of the gang was rebuilding the pavement and kerbs along the drive, to cure the flooding that would occur there in times of heavy rain.

We hope to have a C&M blog update soon, perhaps after the weekend. Things have been a bit hectic for the authors, the railway is not the only thing in their life.

Meanwhile, back on the Usk project... the new posts with the markings for the courses revealed that it was the bottom row of blocks that was incorrect. Even with a fat bed of mortar, we were not going to be able to make up the shortfall, at least not at this end.

It was reluctantly decided to strip out about 10 of the bottom row of blocks, and relay them on a thicker, very dry bed.

Jules' efforts to prise the last one loose caused some merriment. We had fixed it down well.

We then put all the blocks back, and now, finally, the height was correct. When we lay the bricks next week, they will start off from the correct level, and will arrive at the correct level at the top.

The level problem at the northern end was traced to a last minute dip in the concrete foundations as they stopped at the end. We have now compensated for that.

This end of day picture shows the row of blocks back in place, with the marker posts also ready, and a symbolic diamond pattern coper on top, which will be the finished surface level.

Finally we took delivery of 4 replica GWR platform lamp posts, which are destined for a fellow GWR railway. 



The GWSR has a pattern for these, and can supply more of the same if required. We do not supply the tops, as there is a large variety and choice on the market. But we can do the castings. If interested, drop a line to breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk.

The railway also needs 3 of these, and we have an expression of interest from another railway for a further two. We have an original, which we lend to the foundry to make more.

If anyone else wants to join in the purchase, let us know.





For the uninitiated, these are the cast iron finials that go on top of the running in board posts, and Gents' modesty screen posts. It's not something you see at auction, or, to our knowledge, something you can usually buy, so this is an opportunity to get something rare for your GWR station.




The Usk hut door.


The Willersey joiner dealing with the Usk weighbridge door took it off its hinges in order to repair the frame. What he found underneath the hinges was a little surprise, and very interesting too.

Front

He said that when he was an apprentice, people used to joke that if you wanted to adjust the hinges of a door, you needed to be a smoker. And in the 1950s, when the door was (re-)packed, that carpenter certainly was.

We carefully prised all the packings apart again, and this is what we found.




The front of the cigarette packet (above) had a sailor on it, surrounded by a lifebelt. You can't quite make out the sailor on the picture. There were two sailing ships L and R of him. Medium Cut was the most popular of three varieties, the others being Mild and Gold Leaf.

Back

The back of the packet shows Nottingham castle at the top. John Player and Sons was founded in Nottingham in 1877. Navy Cut is supposed to refer to the habit of sailors of binding different tobacco leaves together tightly, and then slicing off a 'cut'.

This is the front and back of a small packet of 10 Woodbines, folded open and then cut down the middle - in the picture the cut halves have been reunited. The cigarettes were also available in packets of 5, and 20.

Woodbines was a cheap brand and the name refers to a type of flower, such as Honeysuckle and Virginia creeper. Stylistic images of the flowers appear over the packet. The cigarette was strong and unfiltered, and was popular in the trenches in WW1. The style of packet remained unchanged until the 1960s.

In popular parlance strong cigarettes were known as 'Gaspers' and this one no doubt qualified as one of them.






Sometimes our 1950s joiner fancied a little luxury, as the two halves of this packet demonstrate:

This was a packet of 'Senior Service', or 'The Perfection of Cigarette Luxury' as the slogan at the bottom proclaims. The name refers to the nickname of the royal navy, and on the front is a sailing ship with a crown above it. In the picture the narrow packet of 10 was opened out, then sliced crossways to suit the width of the hinge. An advertising slogan of the company, which had its factory in Hyde near Manchester, was 'Senior Service satisfy' - remember that?

Lifting the second hinge, things got more interesting still. After splitting everything apart again (there were several layers of packing) we found two parts of of a label sent with articles for exchange.

It's not a practice we had heard of before, perhaps someone can say more about it?

The BR-WR suggests a time in the early 1950s and it's clearly from Usk, a station which closed well before Dr. Beeching, in 1955.

The articles in question (see below) were sent to Newport, and there is a serrated edge at the bottom of the label. Would this be related to the next item, pictured below, which also has a serrated edge?






This label, also pieced together from two bits of packing, reveals a rather charming, bucolic character of the little Welsh railway line between Monmouth Troy (of course the source of our station building at Winchcombe) and Pontypool. People must have had a lot of time in those days, to fill in forms for minor stuff such as this.

It looks like a request form to central stores for bits in daily use at a station that wear out. A sentence in capitals along the side requires the numbers to be expressed in words, so we have:

Burners. Cones, Disc lamp: ONE

...and a little further down, that essential station cleaning item:

Brooms:  Bass  ONE

The bass broom (we had to look this up) is yer classic broom with rough bristles made from a palm tree. This is clearly quite separate from your platform brush, which had apparently not yet worn out, but down in the goods yard at Usk there was no platform to sweep. Maybe the station building, across the river Usk, had its own requisitioning.

Also available were stove polishing brushes, deck scrubbing brushes, shunting sticks, and lamps, including one for the stop block. If an item of wear, perhaps it was often crushed by a rough shunt in the yard.


The last chitty we found was still firmly attached to the hinge and would not be removed, hence the finger in the picture holding it up against the other half.

This is also labelled BR-WR and the date is pre-printed for the 1950s. USK-WR is added with an inked stamp, and the chitty is from the Traffic Dept, one supposes in Newport.

The advice is to check the article (Broom: ONE) on receipt.

At the bottom is a neat hand written note in cursive style, in ink, requesting that the article (Broom: ONE) is put in the weighbridge for Usk Zonal.




As a post scriptum, the back of this strip from a Woodbine packet mentions the 'Weighbridge Door & frame' with a reference number. It's not clear what the meaning of that is though.

Hope you enjoyed this little bit of the Usk weighbridge hut history, all extracted from under a couple of hinges.