Woodwork today

Another fine, at moments balmy day at Hayles today. A gang of 11 made great progress again, but not before having a jolly good sit outside with a cup of tea and a doughnut in the sun.

Paul, ever solicitous of our welfare, was 'mother'.

'' TEA UP ''

Paul has a loud voice. It carries. It has to, it's a long site. We gallop towards the sound.

The tea is poured, the doughnuts are lined up. Men amble around with their hands in their pockets, waiting.

We don't linger after tea, but set to work while the going is good and the sun is out. It's a good day, perhaps the last chance, to put a better and stronger tarpaulin on the roof. The thin blue one had frayed and was leaking, and the fungi were starting to break out again in the container ceiling. Meanwhile, BPS were back to deliver 4 more bags of ballast, and 20 bags of cement. Would the driver like a cuppa and a doughnut? He would. (if your blogger has correctly interpreted 'does a bear s..t in the woods?')

On his way to loading sleepers at Gotherington, Steve brought a pallet of blues for us. Good thinking, we will need quite a few of these when we start corbelling, which is soon.

Steve carefully deposited the 400 odd bricks on the platform, and continued on his way. The cigar lighter on his JCB isn't fixed yet, so he's in the Telehandler today.

Shortly after, also headed for Gotherington, Neil passed through in the class 73 with 6 empty Dogfish and the two Warflats ready for another supply of 300 sleepers. There was a quick chinwag with Steve and Paul to coordinate the day, and then he moved on.

The new platform - will it fit? Neil eases by very carefully.

There were several teams at work today, a luxury you can afford with 11 volunteers.

Tim and Lyndon inspect the inspection hatch, and add a little mortar here and there to finish it off.

A second, quite large team started fixing the boards to the sleeper uprights in front of the platform block wall. More uprights stretch out behind Julian, busy here with a wheel brace tightening the threaded bolts that tie them to the blocks.

Thanks to the prompt delivery of the ballast, a third team set out making concrete. There is a very large number of holes, up to 5 blocks deep, in two rows, that need filling with concrete.

Here is Dave at the northern end of the platform, filling in the last of the holes along here.

The mixer was very recalcitrant today, cutting out when swivelled, or sometimes just on a whim. Five minutes with a cup of tea in hand usually cured it, but then it would do it again. Arghhh !

Along the same northern section, Tim was dealing with the slope. Blocks had to be cut at an angle to make the slope, but some places made the cut blocks too thin, so mortar and concrete were used to achieve the transition from level to slope.

Just a handful of blocks now need laying here, and that's it for block laying, with the exception of the access gap in the middle.

At 11.30 Paul vanished from the work site and we find him, here, in the container, cooking sausages. He is good to us, our Paul. A pile of baps can be seen in the foreground, ready for two sausages and ketchup in each.
Tim is first in the queue.

After lunch, our construction manager Jim G inspects Tim's work on the inspection hatch. Two men peer down a hole. Are there still newts down there? See anything, Jim?

Tim had a go at levelling the ash and ballast infill with a shovel. It's quite a job, one that you would rather see done by a JCB, but no can do today.

Tim did rather well, don't you think?

Shortly afterwards came a toot, and the class 73 paused at the fixed distant to await a sign from us. A rain cloud drifted up from Cleve Hill, on the point of overtaking the sun in the foreground here.

The newly loaded sleepers will be taken up to Little Buckland, and the Dogfish then drawn forward to Stanton for loading of a further delivery of ballast, expected on Thursday.

With the class 73 out of the way again, a couple of the guys decided to 'have a board meeting', we heard.

This was called because we had come across an issue last week when we did the first test fitting. After the first 4 boards were in, it turned out that the posts were leaning sideways. Surely not? But they were.

Further investigation revealed that the boards had been sawn in half, slightly off centre. This meant that we had two stacks of boards, some this long, and some that. There was an inch of difference.

Here the boards are being laid out to have the lengths equalised with a circular saw.

Once all were the correct length, Jim H and Julian  painted them in Creosote. This not only helps to preserve them, but also gives the right colour effect, as if they were a row of railway sleepers. Sticky work though, it gets everywhere.

This is what it looks like when its finished. Quite convincing for a sleeper built platform, don't you think? We still have to add the corbelling and platform slabs, hence the recess in the blockwork. Originally the halt didn't have these, but today it has to have the overhang, so we can't get round it.

Here's today's closing view. You can see that a good start has been made on attaching the wooden boards and sleepers. More are being cut to length in the background, and creosoted in the foreground.
With the boards now really starting to go up, we reckon that we can start some corbelling very shortly.

Next week - bacon butties !

A hungry visitor

What a wonderful, crisp, sunny morning. The sun was out, the frost alarm went in the car, and the morning mist was hanging in the hills above Stanton. As one of the volunteers mused: ''If only we could bottle this''.

We decided to watch the mist swirl about the hills, sitting with tea outside the container.

An unexpected visitor suddenly took a great interest in our doughnuts. Well, not entirely unexpected, because he showed the same intense interest only last week. Quick, save the doughnuts, put them away!

No, dog, no.
No !!!
Well, just the one then....

We started the day with concrete infilling of the front row on the southern third.
Jim H worked through two bags of ballast, while Jim G, Paul and John shoveled it in the holes and tamped it down.

Jim G brought his radio and balanced it between two of the deep holes. There, it led a charmed existence. Several times it nearly plunged to the bottom of one, neatly followed by a shovel full of concrete. We wondered if you would still hear it then, perhaps a little muffled?

A second team consisting of Tim and Lyndon made a stab at completing the block laying today.

Here you see them finishing the fifth row on the southern slope.

They then moved on to the northern slope.

Due to the fact that loading of concrete sleepers at Gotherington has had to be delayed today, the Telehandler was available for service at Hayles. Dave P leaped at the opportunity and brought it over from Winchcombe, with bucket attached. Great strides forward were made then in further back filling the new platform wall.

Readers now know that the Hayles job is done with great humour. Here is John regaling the infill crew with one of his 'high quality' anecdotes. The punchline went:

''Did you hear that Lions do it three times a day?
Hell no, and I've just joined the Rotary.....''

The exact quality of this joke is illustrated by the fact (or maybe it's the age of the volunteers here) that it took Jim over a minute to realise the meaning of the punchline. Oh dear. Back to work, you lot.

Before John had the chance to tell another, we were saved by Neil and the class 73. On Saturday, the PWay team were only able to empty one of the two sleeper trucks, and today the other was taken down the line with various spares, purpose unknown.

Moving swiftly on, a start was made today in setting out the reproduction sleeper platform wall.

Here a site meeting is in progress, with a sample sleeper upright, and a strip over the top to hold it in place.

How's this going to work then? Neal has the answer, see further down the post how we did it.

Further down the platform, Dave has moved the back filling to the southern half. It's very satisfying, this.

Julian is giving precise hand signals, so that only a minimum of shovel work is required afterwards.

Neal is the man with the shovel, ready to pounce.

Neal needs a team of three to watch, and tell him where he is doing it wrong. Isn't it always like this, three to one?

After lunch, Tim and Lyndon moved north and made a start on the remainder of the slope there. It still needs the last angled blocks placing, which Neal cut to shape for them.

At the end of the day, this job was completed, with the exception of the last 5 blocks.

It means that all the block laying is now complete, bar the hole we left in the middle to access the trackbed. We're quite chuffed about that.

After a while, the class 73 returned, light engine. It paused at the fixed distant, gave a careful toot, and then the way was clear. We waved it on.

Here's a view of the last few blocks going on at the northern end. Behind Tim, a row of sleeper uprights has been put in the approximate places, to see how it would all fit together.

Another site meeting. Jim G explains to Tim how this would work. We have a drawing, but on site things need a bit of final adjustment. Is the height right? How does it fit in with the corbelling?
The upright sleepers are held back by strips screwed to the back of the block wall, which will eventually become hidden.

Finally, 'X' marks the spot, and the first upright sleeper is screwed into place.

Above it, a line of planks has been laid out so that they can be creosoted and test fitted, to work out the spacings.

Once again the weather becomes a little more threatening. Dark clouds began to draw in, interupted by  wonderful bursts of sunlight. Here Dave puts in one of the last loads of infill. We have now used it all up, we need some more though. The new platform now has infill all along all of its length, varying from half filled to three quarters. It is right to do this now, as the fill needs quite a few months to settle and compact.

Dave likes driving the Telehandler. Like the Pinball Wizzard, he seems to work by sense of smell.Works, too, he didn't hit a thing and no punctures either. A great performance.

Well away from 'Eyes Wide Shut' Dave, Paul, Jim G and Tim have put up two upright sleepers, spaced apart enough to accommodate the planks which will simulate the horizontal sleepers that the verticals 'hold back'.

The planks are being creosoted to give the right colour, and three rows of them will be fixed to the front, one above the other. See how that would look? (the ones in the picture are not yet in their place, just laid there to get the spacing right)

Here is an overview taken near the end of the day. Dave is finishing off the infill as far as he can, while the sleeper team has laid out the vertical sleepers and has set up two of them, near the middle of the picture.

Next week, the last of the concreting. We hope. Another 4 bags of ballast are being ordered, as once again there is none left.

Finally, a question.

What is this cast iron object, found on site?

It seems to be broken off at the top, and has a T shaped groove cut into it in the middle. There is a bolt hole on the left. Something from a  signal box frame perhaps? Any ideas? Jim's radio gives an idea of the scale.

Hunting, buts

A crisp and sunny day today, great for making good progress. There was a full team, although we missed Dave D, who was helping to load the sleeper train at Gotherington.

Dave P kept the promise made last week, and brought his metal detector. Here you can see three volunteers staring intensely at the ground - see anything?

We investigated the area where the GWR cast iron notice was found last week. The metal detector bleeped a great deal, and we unearthed several bits of wire, a bolt and - two more pieces of the shattered corner of the sign. Success!

We put all the pieces we had into the corner, and this is what it produced.

Then we set to work again to see if we could find the missing oval piece, but alas, no luck. We had a lot of false readings, as the cutting side is covered with ash which contains lumps with a high metal content.

Today we decided to make concrete and fill in the fifth row of blocks positioned so far. Thanks to the new infill, positioning the wheelbarrow was a breeze and we soon shoveled the stuff down the holes.

Paul made the mixes, and attacked the bags of ballast with vigour, reducing them by two whole bags, an enormous effort.

After a while he began to slow down a bit, and Neal took over, Yours Truly also having several goes.

All in all we got through three bags of the stuff, and filled in all the fifth row right up to the northern end.

More concrete infill is needed at the southern end, where Tim and Lyndon were working

Tim arrived bearing a large mattock, and dug a trench to carry the drainpipe directly into the catch pit on the end.

They then back filled this area with gravel, and started to lay the rest of the fifth row of blocks along and then down the slope just visible here.

This brings us near to the end of block laying.

A bit more work is needed on the northern end, where Neal was cutting blocks to size with his disk cutter.

After an hour of work, Neil came along with the PWay train, heading for Gotherington, where a small group waited, ready to load the next consignment of concrete sleepers for Little Buckland. Would they be able to do this, and was the Telehandler puncture repaired again? We would have to wait and see when or if the train came back at the end of the day.

Just as the train was accelerating away from us, still visible in the picture, a number of riders trotted across the road bridge. What's that all about then?
The mystery was soon solved when we saw a pack of hounds in the distance, spread out over the trackbed where the train had passed only seconds earlier.

A quad bike carrying an eagle (!) was also spotted on the bridge. Fascinating. Well, we build a railway, this is what they do, each to his own. It's what you find in the Cotswolds.

A short while later the hunt galloped across the fields at the foot of the Cotswolds edge, and then they were gone.

We resumed filling the fifth row of blocks with concrete, which was very satisfying.

It was such a perfect day, and lunch 'on the patio' outside the container was a real pleasure.

A study in orange

Of course Brexit, the Labour party, traffic at Tewksbury and various leading politicians were discussed with great hilarity, and good, honest Worcestershire directness. If only we were in charge.

After lunch, more concreting and block laying, while Neal and Dave P resumed their metal detecting, but this time on the other side. We are not sure if there were two or four cast iron notices here, but we failed to find any more. The haul was restricted to pieces of barbed wire, and various bolts from previous PWay generations. What price a fangbolt, anyone?

At three o'clock Neil came back with the PWay train, and yes, it was duly loaded with a full consignment of concrete sleepers. Phew. The gang can continue laying track on Saturday then. Six Dogfish were also attached, whereas three went down. Hmm.
These will be filled from 14 lorry loads of ballast just received at Stanton.

Finally, following a tip off from a reader, we have found two colour photographs of trains coming through Hayles Abbey Halt when it was still open. For Copyright reasons we can only show you a low resolution version, but you can buy your own better quality image from Colour Rail, it's only £1.15.

The loco number is 6990 Witherslack Hall, and the reporting number of 710 tells us that it is the 9.10am Saturdays only Birmingham to Pembroke Dock train, a typical long distance holiday train often seen on our line. The date is 29th July 1959; seven months later the passenger services were withdrawn and the stations closed. Hayles Abbey Halt was pretty comprehensively demolished and grubbed out.

What is interesting about this first colour picture is that it tells us the definite colour scheme of the buildings, and the material used for the platform surface - granite chippings, not ash as we had supposed. You can clearly see the hooks on the poles that carried the hurricane lamps at night.

A similar photo that we have also acquired shows the Cornishman coming through, and a glimpse of the running in board on the left. The background colour scheme was dark brown, not black. Does anyone know why? The pictures were taken on the same day, only minutes apart.

In the not too distant future we will be able to replicate this scene with Foremarke Hall, and our rake of Maroon Mk1s.