Lockdown V.2. looms

Saturday on the PWay 

Saturday's job was to complete the relaying of the unloading road at Toddington. Somewhat surprisingly the majority of gang members did not volunteer that morning.  With just a track walker, a PIC (Person in Charge) and one worker the job could not be progressed, and the day's work was cancelled. Our chirpy contractor Stevie was sent home. No doughnuts and no work!

Trains still ran of course, and quite well filled it looked, so and alternative emploi was found for the worker, which was to pick up the track walker on completion of his Winchcombe - Gotherington inspection walk.

The weather started very windy and rainy this morning, and luckily our passengers were all safely indoors in steam heated carriages, as the first train of the day, headed by 4270, made its way south along the tall embankment after Gretton Halt.

An hour later 4270 returned, this time chimney first. We see it here at Gotherington Manor Lane, where the track worker was met, windswept and wet. The warm car ride back to Winchcombe was very welcome.

Tuesday on the Broadway canopy fabrication

Last week the team completed the manufacture of the angles for the unloading road, so this week we were free again to resume fabricating the remaining bits of the canopy due to be completed at Broadway.

This bracket, actually a pair of brackets back to back, now has a pair of braces bolted to it.

It was being readied for painting in grey primer. Eventually the bolts will be removed and replaced with rivets.

A new job was started on Tuesday, which was the fabrication of the decorative slabs at the bottom of the uprights. They will be made out of this length of plate.

We did not find it practical to have new uprights cast (the Henley in Arden ones are in store, but are too short) and our replica uprights will be made of box section steel, with slabs welded to the bottom to replicate the shape of the original castings.

First the plate was cut into four sections....

Job done.... four sections ready, now waiting to be cut into two each.

The job of cutting each section into two unequal pairs.

Why of unequal width? This puzzled us too, but not Neal, he has it all in his head.

Two narrower sections will each fit between two wider ones, thus creating a box like this.

This box will be fitted around the uprights to simulate a change in the size of the casting.

Having made the two boxes, we tuned our fabrication efforts towards the manufacture of short sections of beading. As we don't have any beading, but we do have round bar, we cut off 4 sections of bar and then sawed each one in half, lengthwise.

Two sections of round bar cut to length.

The pieces of bar were tack welded onto some scrap bits of channel, and those were then clamped on to the saw.

Sawing then commenced.... would they all be of the same width? We held our breath, as the saw went round and round.

At the end of the afternoon we had converted 4 lengths of round bar into 8 lengths of moulding. Four of them were indeed very slightly smaller than the other 4 but no matter, we will group them into two sets of four, so you won't be able to see any difference.

In the background are the 8 plates that we cut earlier in the day, and these with the half rounds will make up the lower half of the uprights, to look like original cast iron columns.

More pictures from Verney Junction

Derek Palmer, a reader of this blog, has very kindly sent us some photographs he took in 1963 of Buckingham and Verney Junction stations. He has given permission to show them on the blog, although note that Derek retains the copyright.

M79900 at Buckingham on 5th June 1963.

Buckingham station has since been demolished. The platform edges are still visible, with a footpath in between.

The DMU driver hands the token for the Buckingham section back to the Verney Junction signalman.

As the signalbox rodding all points backwards, one assumes that there was a second signalbox where the route to Aylesbury veered off in the distance.

Note also the footbridge, from which the next picture was taken.

42105 at Verney Junction, 14th September 1963.

Derek's pictures are really super, and we will see some more of them in future blogs. In the picture above you can see the Aylesbury line, unused, curving away to the right. On the platform you can see a strange white bird-like statue, which is also visible in the B&W picture last week.

And then some up to date ones of the situation today, with demolition in progress (with thanks to Jim for the pictures):

 

Verney Junction:

Here demolition started as forecast, pretty much the first working day after our second and last go at brick retrieval.

 

Here the 360 is attacking the westbound platform, at the level crossing end, near where the bird statue stood.

Before you say, why can't you take those bricks: Our experience is that if you accept demolition rubble, this is what you get. Few of the bricks are intact, only broken ones are loose, and the good ones are surrounded by broken ones glued to them. It just doesn't work.

Here is what we salvaged on the last day, after the Transits were full.

We may have a delivery of these on Wednesday, thanks to the donor making a bit of free transport come our way.

The westbound platform is no more. On the right was a third platform face, which was for the Aylesbury trains from Buckingham.

Swanbourne.

Here too demolition has been total, and when you swish through here on your modern train you will never realise that there was ever a station here, with a booking office and a stationmaster's house.

The site of the stationmaster's house.

This is the site of the two platforms, and the source of our 800 bull nosed bricks with the diamond pattern. We swooped just in time!

Wednesday on the Usk platform.

A cold, crisp but very sunny day. Good brick laying conditions, and we had two teams on the job along the platforms.

 

The day started alarmingly as several large patches of red were discovered on the roadway by the signal box.

Blood? Some awful injury? An accident?

Fear not, the patches were discovered to be doughnut jam. Once again someone didn't hold his doughnut properly, and the sticky stuff dribbled down his jacket and all over the road. Tsk!

 

Two teams today then. The first was a contingent from our Construction and Maintenance group, who decided to finish off building up the end wall around the stop block.

Bob, in the morning mist.

The second group was our usual Usk gang, and for our part we decided to finish off the return around the northern end. Just Paul and yours truly to start with....

.... as Dave and John decided to locate to the pile of bricks from Verney Junction, to start cleaning them up for further use.

To our happy surprise, the team from C&M came over to collect several barrow loads of freshly cleaned Verney bricks.

That is quick! Last week in a wall in Buckinghamshire, this week already in a wall in Gloucestershire.

We don't hang around here.

 

The main reason Dave put himself on brick cleaning was to be near the yard gate, as a delivery of bricks from Verney Junction was expected. Eventually a Transit and a pickup with a trailer arrived, bringing us 5 of the expected 8 pallets. 

Hence there are 3 more pallets still to bring, as well as a promised supply of roof slates and ridge tiles, set aside for us at Swanbourne.

We didn't have the company Telehandler to hand (it was busy on the unloading road at Toddington) so had to borrow one from a neighbour. On top of that the trailer that came was found to have a flat tire and had to be unloaded from where it stood. But nonetheless we got everything off, and safely stored.

By lunch time Paul had gone right round the end of the platform wall. The hole at the top will be covered by more bull noses, to make the end neat. The afternoon was spent pointing the work.

As it was a sunny day, we decided to have our lunch break sitting on the trolley, and we actually got quite warm, in this idyllic spot.

Chief bricklayer Bob from C&M at the other end was making a jolly good job of the end wall too. He decided to limit the brick laying to three rows, any more being difficult to keep straight as the bricks are very heavy and they would squash the mortar on the lowest row.

 

 

Meanwhile, after the brick unloading Dave was about to return the Telehandler to the neighbour when a lorry loaded with huge boxes arrived.

These were presents for Santa, so we can't say what was in them...

There was a large number of elves in civvies to unwrap the big black plastic parcels, and retrieve the individual boxes of presents within. These were all taken to the grotto at the North Pole.

Our Santa Specials this year are definitely on, during the month of December, immediately after the current lockdown. Check our website if you want to treat the kids.

After lunch Bob built up the corners, and the pointed his work for the day.

Yours truly had a couple of errands to run, the first one being at Toddington in the yard, where this morning's gang was busy putting in the last two rails on the unloading road.

Only one more rail remains to be laid in the picture, taken mid afternoon.

 

 

But this time of year the sun drops over the horizon quickly, leading to some strong colours as the evening nears.

The yard was busy today, and principally with diesels being shunted about.

Here is an all-diesel picture of the activities, taken just before the sun dropped beneath the horizon.

Then a last stop at Broadway to drop some kit off.

 

 

Thanks to Terry for the photograph, you can see that the Broadway gang made another great leap forward with the P2 spearhead fencing. They placed 3 panels at the southern end, leaving room for a gate, and 5 panels to the north, marching off to the site of the future P2 building.

A great effort!

 

 

Due to the lockdown there will be no further Heritage activities, as these are 'non-essential' and only essential maintenance is permitted by the lockdown regulations. However, regular postings of the blog will continue, and we should have a story to tell each time, so don't forget to tune in on Wednesdays.

Bratton Fleming

Great news from Exmoor Associates about Bratton Fleming! The little station is finally saved definitely, after a wait of 6 months. Contracts were exchanged on November 2nd, and the ever present risk of gazumping is now over at last. The delay was caused by an onward purchase by the vendor falling through, COVID staffing problems with local government and finally so much local property activity that the solicitor being used had to resort to refusing further conveyancing!

So the little station is saved. Another piece of good news is that a regular tenant has been found who is willing to rent the premises to live in for several years. This will guarantee an income stream, although in the first instance more money needs to be spent on a full rewire to make the premises safe for the new tenant.

What next? Well, EA are always on the lookout for other pieces of trackbed that come up, so it's a waiting game. Keep your eyes on their website, as sometimes they need help.

A last question:

One of our volunteers, who just happens to have the initials 'BRW', is keen to acquire a set of these bench ends. You don't often see these BR Western Region examples, copies of the GWR roundel bench ends. We can't imagine why BR went to the trouble of casting these specially, as there must have been many redundant GWR bench ends around, with all the station closures. But they did, so occasionally you run into them.

Sometimes the bench ends are even mixed up, such as this one at.... shall we let you guess where?

The scripted bench end is on the left, the GWR roundel one is on the right. What a mixture!

 

 

Anyway, should you have a bench or ends with BR (W) on them and are interested in selling, get in touch with breva2011 at hotmail.co.uk, and you could make a volunteer on the GWSR very happy!

We wish you a merry lockdown, let's show some solidarity to beat back the virus, and see you in a month.

Station 'X' - all is revealed.

Saturday at Station 'X'

Seven of us set off a second and last time to 'Station X'. It was our last day to grab as many bricks as we could, before the platforms are demolished and the crusher comes in.

Due to the delicate nature of our 2 1/2 year discussions with the parties involved, we did not want anything to get in the way at the last minute, so we kept our destination discreet.

 

Quite a few people guessed rightly that it was Verney Junction, two stations west of Swanbourne.

Swanbourne and its 800 bull noses was the main target for us, but the 10.000s of bricks at Verney Junction would be a nice added extra to save from the crusher, and useful somewhere on our railway.

Need to be careful with photography though, in case it reveals the name....

As the layout of the lines in Metroland is a bit complicated this map will help to show where Verney Junction is. Swanbourne is the next station east after Winslow, just off the map. The whole of the disused line from Oxford to Cambridge (Varsity line) is being rebuilt. Oxford to Bicester is already done, and this next bit where work has just started is the stretch from Bicester to Bletchley. It should (re-) open in 2025.

The north/south line through Verney Junction was the Aylesbury to Buckingham (and Banbury) line, and was actually owned by London Underground at one point. Traces of that are still quite visible in the area, in the form of lines of trees leading away from the junction, and bridge abutments on the Winslow road.

The station was open between 1868 and 1968, and occasional freight traffic used the line until 1993, after which it became covered in weeds. The remaining single line was lifted only quite recently.

Verney Junction lost its purpose when the Aylesbury-Buckingham line closed, and with few houses in the area it no longer had a reason to be. Hence it will not be rebuilt when the line is reinstated (nor will Swanbourne be).

On YouTube you can see a useful drone video of the site, which also shows the Aylesbury-Buckingham line joining and branching off again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOIKw7QXgaM&list=WL&index=2

Off to work at the junction then.

Despite the absence of any traffic the level crossing still has modern warning signs all over it. It is very rural though and beyond the crossing there is only a track to a local farm. If you stop and listen, you will hear - nothing.

After a 5.30 alarm at home and loading up at Winchcombe, still in the dark, the three Transits arrived at Verney Junction just after the security officer opened the gate for us. In the picture the station was on the left, together with the station master's house, which is still there.

 

Looking towards the right you can see the trackbed running straight, in flat countryside, towards Winslow, with the former line to Quainton Road branching off on the right after the bushes.

We set off again to dislodge the low hanging fruit of facing bricks and corbels.

You needed to pick your spot with soft mortar, because this clearly wasn't one!

Mortar was like concrete here, and the brick (hardly a crumbly one) would rather break in half than let go of the one underneath.

Move on to an easier spot...

John found one of those easier spots. He's not only got the three corbelling courses off, but has worked his way down the face of the platform. And what was coming off was basically clean.

BTW the stationmaster's house is top left, and there is another platform face on the other side of the lump on which John is working.

Just too much for us to take all.

Once we had loaded the three Transits again, we started piling extra bricks on to pallets at the end. The donor of the bricks is helping us with transport of this supplement and we had a useful chat with the transport manager on how this will be achieved.

In the background you can see the 360s that have already moved in for the final job.

We had an interesting chat with one of the ecologists (if that is the right word) that are dealing with the wildlife on the site. They check the site daily for invertebrates, but the trawl on Saturday was negligible, most having already been re-housed.

We already mentioned the new bat house built at Swanbourne, and this paling wall is interesting at Verney Junction. It is a new badger sett, but a wildlife monitoring camera revealed a more interesting new occupant: A Polecat! 

 

 

 

 

Despite its name, this is actually a cousin of the Ferret and after becoming severely reduced in England the animal is now recovering in Central and Southern England. So the rebuild of Verney Junction has one clear benefit already.

The Transit team, with a 90 minute journey before them, left again after lunch, loaded with a total of 4 1/2 tons of good Brindles. The other 4 team members stayed on to load up the pallets, finishing with the 7th as the rain slowly rose in intensity.

We in our Transits of course suffered not at all, as we put on the windscreen wipers and turned up the heating....

Our smugness was repaid in spades as the heavens burst open as we unloaded at Winchcombe. At least the water washed the bricks; they are all nice and clean and shiny in this picture. We got soaked. No mechanical handling was possible as we needed the pallets at Verney Junction, and the Telehandler was in use at Toddington on the unloading road anyway.

So 1000 bricks were loaded by hand, and then again unloaded by hand. But it was a successful mission, and our satisfaction at the end of the day was great.

 

 

 

To round off the Verney Junction recovery exercise, here is a picture of the station when it was still in use. If you watch the YouTube video you can see why no one ever used the station in its latter days - no one lives there, and the other railway line that crossed it was closed.

Source: Wikipedia - Creative Commons.

An eastward panorama from the footbridge at Verney Junction railway station showing wagons in the former Met exchange sidings, the overgrown Met platform and an Oxford-bound 'bubble car' Derby DMU approaching the down platform with its weed-strewn flower display. Dated 1960s.

Tuesday at Toddington

On arrival at the loco shed we found the unloading road partly relaid. More to come on Wednesday, when it may be fully assembled, but not yet packed.

There will be a concrete apron over the top, and a central Arco drain, to dry this area out a bit and keep the water away from the buildings.

After tea and a lengthy debate, we set to work on the angles that are required for this unloading road. They will keep the concrete off the flangeway.

 

All the bits of rebar with which the angle will be secured to the concrete need bending in different directions first, before welding. 

John on the left is welding the rebar on, while Neal and yours truly have been doing the cutting and bending of the rebar triangles. That was a complicated job, as there are several planes that need to be respected, otherwise the can't be welded on.

As yours truly had to nip off the Cheltenham for a couple of hours, Neal found a way of doing the job solo, as well as an easy way of getting the angles right. Each piece of rebar has to be heated up three times.

Outside, Dinmore Manor was manoeuvering to get itself filled with coal again.

That is a spectacle easily viewed by our travelling public directly from the car park.

 

 

 

Wednesday on the Usk platform.

Rain belting down over Winchcombe

 

The day promised rain and sunshine, but it was rain straight away. Instead of milling around the cars, we all took shelter underneath the visitor centre awning.

Lord Kitchener wants - YOU !

Jim assembled the PWay troops for today, and they set off for Toddington to continue with the relaying of the unloading road.

Oops!     I didn't do it!

As the gentlemen from the Construction & Maintenance dept. are going to complete the outer edge of the stop block surround, they brought over a dumpy bag of sand on the sharp forks of the Telehandler. Half way across the foot crossing there was an ominous creak... 

You know when you're going to trip and you still manage to stagger for a few more yards before dropping what you were carrying? Well, it was a bit like that. One dumpy bag strap let go, and the rest of the bag lasted another couple of yards before the whole thing let go at the bottom of the ramp.

Nil desperandum, the sun had come out now and we soon had the sand transported to its destination round the corner with a couple of wheelbarrows.

The bright sun cheered us up and we decided to give block laying a go, having first concluded that it was impossible today.

We received moral support from Jules, who is recovering from an injury and has to stand on the sidelines for a couple of weeks.

Then the 10 o'clock from Toddington arrived, headed by our mighty Pacific. We were pleased to see that just about every compartment/table block available was filled.

We had round about 20 blocks (from Swanbourne) to lay before we got to the end of our little goods platform.

Paul is laying, while Dave is pointing here.

As we now have enough bull nosed blocks for the goods platform (the remainder is pencilled in for a turntable pit, when that project gets the go-ahead) John moved his cleaning activity to the other side of the yard, where he had a good go at cleaning the first bricks recovered from Verney Junction.

They certainly look good in this picture.

After dodging yet another shower (and nervously consulting our weather radar for gaps in the rain) we resumed with the last few blocks on the straight.

Here is Paul just tapping one down, with just 3 or 4 blocks still left to go.

INTERMISSION

There will now be a short intermission in the block laying, while the blogger takes the kit for a tower scaffold back to the Broadway footbridge, from whence it was borrowed to repaint the Winchcombe one.

Dinmore Manor and a train were in the platform as we arrived, and it was good to see a busy scene.

Even better was the erection of the spearhead fence along the southern part of P2 on the other side.

This section of fence has been sponsored, very generously, by a supporter so that we can all see that work on completing P2 at Broadway is not forgotten.

This is what it used to look like, before Broadway station was demolished:

Broadway after closure to passengers. Copyright: GW Trust Collection.

Originally the spearhead fencing extended down both platforms from end to end. Note how the running in board is leaning back. This is because the platform is on made up ground, and our today's board is busy trying to emulate this lean. Nothing escapes our drive to be authentic...

While waiting for the train to leave again, we caught the Broadway construction gang carrying the heavy fencing panels, manufactured on site by one of the volunteers, to the site of installation.

Just then, Dinmore Manor appeared while running round the train.

We hope to be able to add to the fencing some of the GWR cast iron ball topped fence posts, and we're currently talking to a foundry to make these, using a pattern that we have. If you are interested in any additional examples, we could include some with our order - send an email to: breva2011 at hotmail.co.uk.

This is your standard passenger shot from the end of the platform, but at times the lighting is rather good from here.

ACT II on the Usk goods platform

We returned the empty Transit to the C&M yard at Winchcombe, and back on the Usk platform site we found that Dave and Paul had finished laying the blocks, and were now looking at how they would fit on the wall around the stop block.

We could have a small one and a large one, back to back, or two large ones....

The bull nosed blocks on the straight piece of the platform were indeed now all laid. What a milestone! They even found a use for the rare half block that we discovered at Swanbourne. Thought that was worth taking with us....

At the end of the day the main platform was finished, with all the blocks (about 200 of them) installed on top. Next week, we will be working on the brickwork inside the stop block wall, while the men from C&M will be on the outside.
 

 

A couple of shots taken by Jules show the magnificent row of blocks, lifted just a few weeks ago from far away Swanbourne, now forming the edge of our new platform.

Having helped to lay the last block on the platform wall, Dave cited Winston Churchill as saying that this was not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning! We've still got the whole stone building to put up yet.

A look into the past

A correspondent sent us a number of interesting historical photographs of Staverton from the Steve Bartlett collection. Steve retains the copyright, but kindly allowed us to share them with you. (Note that they should not be used in magazines, articles or books for which a fee or reward is paid)

Steve's great great grandfather Edwin Bartlett was stationmaster at Staverton for 25 years, from 1898 to 1923.

This first one shows a train from Totnes entering Staverton station (now on the SDR ). The level crossing is in the foreground, together with two very relaxed employees.

This second one shows Staverton station from the side. The picture is thought to date from 1907 or thereabouts. Look at the large number of barrels on the platform! Some of these would be good to display next to the Usk hut and platform, when they are finished.

This one shows at train in the station, and about to leave for Ashburton. The picture was taken in the early 1900s. The loco is clearly No. 217 and it is thought that it was built in 1876, unless someone has more detail? Steve would love to hear.

Here is the station staff: Signalman Baker, Stationmaster Edwin Bartlett and Lad Porter Len Napper.

LH picture:

A proud stationmaster Edwin Bartlett, thought to be posing for a retirement picture in 1923. This shows the classic GWR stationmaster's uniform of the early 20th century, with double breasted jacket and pillbox GWR cap.

RH picture:

The same people as those seated in the picture above: Stationmaster Bartlett with signalman and lad porter, in 1923.

Staverton Station c1904 - a Dart fisherman on the left, former station master R. Tope (with long white beard), Porter Harry Maynard & young Station Master Edwin Bartlett. Another good view of the station buildings as then and a very early photo.

The PWay gang at Staverton!

From L to right: gangers Baskerville, unknown, Harvey and Fred Hill.

This last picture shows timber loading in Staverton goods yard in 1909. The Plymouth Loading Inspector is on extreme left, Edwin Bartlett is 2nd from the right, in front of the crane.

We hope you enjoyed these  turn of the century pictures of Staverton. If you have any similar ones of our railway we would always be interested to see them. (breva2011 at hotmail.co.uk)

Post Scriptum

Here's a picture taken from the opposite view, by a passenger in a passing train:

Copyright: David Brookes-Howells

From left to right, the whole gang (with the exception of John, who was cleaning bricks in the other half of the yard)

Paul and Dave by the wall, Jo, Jules and Bob (with the bucket)

Thanks to the passenger David for the picture, and thank you for supporting us with your custom.