A happy day

A special day today, the shelter was going to be lifted in. The weather was beautiful, the doughnuts plentiful, the tea hot. We sat outside on the 'terrace' and marvelled.

Our neighbours DLF Seeds were very kind and gave us two big bags of grass seeds, some of which you can see John spreading here on the slopes, which he has prepared with a rotavator.

In the foreground, some edging has also been applied to the rear of the platform surface.

It's looking very neat here. The growing grass should suppress the weeds.

Inside the corrugated iron shelter much banging and drilling could be heard.

It was Tim and Jim who were fitting the angle iron bottom frame that was missing here.

Hurry up, Tim and Jim, a big Telehandler is due shortly to lift this little beauty up in the air!

Here is the new bottom frame that was made. It was measured up here, cut and drilled at Toddy, and fitted on site. This will make the shelter stable again, it wobbled awfully when we moved it here.

Julian and Dave made a little construction at each end of the platform slopes to finish of the ends, which had a bit of an awkward drop into nowhere before.

Paul brought his lead shaping kit and made these little caps for the handrail posts.

It looks like they will be better than the originals!

Lunch was sausages in Tiger rolls with ketchup. We had to fight off the rest of the volunteers to keep two for Stevie, who was working at Broadway this morning, but was expected at lunch time to guide the placing of the shelter on the platform.

Today was Jim's birthday! Jim was looking quite content, everything is going swimmingly and the Heritage Group is earning a good reputation for itself with its first project. Let there be more! Of course the smiles may also be due to the fistfuls of sausage rolls and the warmth of the sun.

Stevie arrived in time to snatch the last two sausages out of the frying pan (in the face of vigorous competition) and soon after our local farmer arrived with his Telehandler. This one had an extended reach and outriggers, and was ideal for the job of lifting the shelter over the fence and on to its new base.

Gingerly the big green machine lifted up the hut and crept over to the fence, from which we all had to remove our cars to a more distant location.

Down on the platform a reception committee of experts was waiting for the big event. All other work came to a halt.

Just then an A400 roared over at tree top height. Could this be a coincidence, with this big event? We think not!

As it flew over and up to the Cotswolds Edge, Steve was re-fitting the straps to the forks of the Telehandler. The machine had put the shelter down to change sides, otherwise it would go down back to front (we thought about this, you know!)

Then up it went, high over the fence....

... and down the other side. Would the Telehandler reach?

Of course the last few inches had to be manhandled this way and that, as it had to stand exactly on the row of bricks on the pad, with the corrugated iron projecting over and beyond the bricks to prevent any water from getting in.

Here it is in position. Now get out your guidebooks of the line, and see if it isn't just like the original.

This shot from the southern end of the platform shows the other rebuild of the end, done earlier in the day. Looks much better.

Loud bangs came out of the shelter, to persuade the new frame to sit exactly on the bricks. They were persuasive, it worked, with a thump the shelter came down the last two inches in the northern corner and now sits squarely on its new foundations.

This shot shows you the interior, and how the new ring round the bottom sits on the single row of bricks.

A call for a group photograph.... OK then:

This is the gang that put the shelter back in its place. Steve and the farmer were a bit camera shy and preferred a cup of tea by the container to celebrate. But we owe them too. Say 'Hi', guys.

As we were tidying up for the day, there was a loud claxon call from the road bridge, and a familiar Dalmatian rolled by.

It was Lucky, accompanied by its owner in a classic car that was being taken out for a spin.

Lucky is now familiar with us (and our left over bacon rinds and bits of last week's doughnuts) so gave Jim a friendly welcome with a few gruff barks.

What is this car then? It was a Lagonda, with a curious radiator cap.

This turns out to be a thermometer, which you can read through the windscreen. What a marvellous idea.

The car was a 1980s barn find, and is completely restored. The paintwork, now over 30 years old, is thick and like new.

The engine is spotless. It has a very advanced DOHC, but alas only a single carburettor.

Lucky and the proud owner enjoy our admiration.

Lucky was very well behaved, and sat meekly in his co driver's seat, getting out only when the tiny little door was opened.

Jim, the birthday boy, is thinking to himself - I wish I could have a go in that....

Two seconds later, and he was invited to go for a spin, sitting in the back like Lord Muck. We took the dayglow orange jacket off him, and at the last minute, just before the car puttered off, we also rememberd his hard hat. You don't go for a drive in a Lagonda in a hard hat.

Happiness!

It was a brilliant day today, and in the warm afternoon light the gang makes grateful use of the new handrail, which we know is just the right height.

In the not too distant future we are planning to have an official opening for the halt, and we are cooking up something special and very suitable. Can't say what yet, but you'll like it.

An important train

Eight volunteers today, but not your blogger, who was ferrying ballast for Broadway north. Annoyingly, he also had a camera battery failure, so a big thanks for Jim H and Paul for today's Hayles photographs.

Here we go then.

First thing, a committee met to muse about the shelter foundations. This can best be viewed from track level. A ring of bricks, you say? How many? Really? Well, I wouldn't start from there if I was you.

Up inside the shelter, Jim and Tim were hard at work cutting the lower edge to size (all the moth eaten bits were cut off) and working out how to reinforce the legs.

Here's the lovely straight edge that they cut.

The foreground is the old doors, which were put in at Usk, but which were not original. They now make a useful working surface.






It was decided that a bit more work was needed at Toddington, to give the corner posts some proper feet to stand on, a slight change of design from last week's ideas (keep up at the back there, no falling asleep!)

Jim and Tim (we like the name of this team) then moved on to the handrails. These need joining together, and last week's attempt at screwed on sleeves failed because we ended up with different sizes.
In order to stick with the heritage idea of sleeves to hold the pipes together, we had a rethink, and came up with this version:

The sleeves are held on with grub screws, which looks the same, and it's not the welds that were first proposed.

We were warned about a 'stock movement' and to our joy (the majority of the Hayles gang being from the PWay department) it was our mess coach and a tools van that were being brought up from Winchcombe to Toddington. Here they come!

Here it is: the PWay mess van, a Mk1 brake, converted to a kitchen and 'dining room' in which we have enjoyed many a sausage and chips, but unfortunately far from the extension 'coal face'.
It is being moved nearer, to be parked in the 'Parlour Road' at Toddington. That's the short siding by the building, formerly the cattle dock. More extension materials are also being moved up from Winchcombe to the 'coal face'. One day we would like to take the coach up to the extension whenever we work there.

Lunch was a bacon buttie, but this time with egg. It ran down your fingers, which accounts for the concentrations on the faces of these volunteers. A photograph? No time mate, it's dribbling down on my trousers....

After lunch, the shelter base!

The idea, explained last week, was to build a ring of bricks, on which the corrugated iron shelter would sit.

Here it is then, that didn't take very long. We have our ring of bricks and the shelter will sit on top of it. The corrugated iron sheets were cut a little longer, and these should project over the bricks, and make the bottom water proof from the rain. We are now ready to lift the shelter on it, once the shelter itself is ready (not yet though).

The other job today was to lay some edging to the rear of the platform. The other four volunteers started fitting the boarding at the back edge of the platform on the Winchcombe end, but very quickly realised that the infill was already much too high. The fixing stakes had to be put as it was below ground level to ensure they would be level with the platform edge. A considerable amount of fill had to be shifted before the first boards could be fitted. This got better as we worked towards the platform centre where the fill top was much lower. This group also set to work removing the weeds from the slope and regrading, removing any large stones. We must get ready for the grass seeds here.

By the end of the day the rear edging was about 60% done. Notice also the neat slope at the back. The seed for it is expected next week. A bonfire was lit to reduce the now large volume of weeds, many of which were of triffid proportions when dug out.

The last handrail post at the top was also concreted in, while we had the mixer out.

Here Paul is cuting the pipe to length to fit the last post, which was later concreted in.

When the container has been removed, we intend to place a bench at the top, so that walkers can sit down and enjoy the view of the trains.

We are aiming for a summer opening date (the actual date is being worked on, so stay in touch).

Then it's on to the next project for the Heritage Group. What will it be? Pencils are being sharpened as we write. It should be a good one, we have shown that we can do it. Especially if we have your support.

Following the making up of this post, your blogger's camera has recovered, so we should be able to show some more extension work at Broadway tomorrow evening.

The base gets bigger

The weather forecast for today was rather dire, with double raindrops on the icons all day, with a bit of sunshine supposed to be emerging at dusk. Well, we won't be there anymore then, will we !

It was a modest number of volunteers that turned up - only seven of us. Four 'rain wimps' were absent - we know your names! It did rather lead to an 'embarras de richesse' in doughnuts, and there were 4 left over at the end of the day, with no one willing to eat or take them, as we were all full up with cheeseburger.

Still clutching his mug of tea, Paul watches the arrival of a dumpy bag of ballast.

We sat and discussed the low numbers of volunteers today, and of course Nicola Sturgeon, a popular topic when Paul is there.

A toot sent us out to see what there was, and it was BPS with a back-up load of ballast, needed to complete the concrete base for the shelter.

With the extra ballast unloaded, concrete mixing could begin, and just in time Dave P arrived with the Telehandler from Winchcombe with a load of hardcore. This was delivered just to the right spot, thanks to the telescopic boom with which it is fitted.

Minnie the Mixer was reported to be struggling to start, and this was because she was not used to the new team of Dave P and Paul who were 'using' her today. They also cheated, by using two shovels at once to feed her, which made her cough.

Julian then galloped the load of freshly mixed concrete down the ramp, missed the little plank set out to allow the wheelbarrow to run over the ring, hit the end, came to an abrupt stop, and did an elegant sort of stagger to save the load. Unfortunately for our viewers he refused to do a re-run for the video option on your blogger's camera. You'll have to be satisfied with this photograph of the load going in normally. All the exciting stuff happens off-camera, doesn't it.

'Upstairs' as it were Neal was a welcome arrival, taking a couple of hours' break from fabricating the heritage Broadway canopy. He came with one of his many specialist tools (he has virtually everything you could imagine you might ever need, picked up for next to nothing at car boot sales and Ebay) and here he is turning a thread on to the end of one of the pipes that make up the handrails. We want these to look the same as the originals, which were held together by threaded sleeves.


We'd like to be able to say that he did this succesfully, but life is a bumpy ride and it turned out that our lengths of galvanised pipe are of a different diameter to the originals (one of which we found in the undergrowth) but worse still, different to the sleeves we had bought. He cut off the end with the wrong sized thread, and went back to the drawing board (in this case, the loco shed).
We await the results next week with great interest !

It then started to rain rather horribly. So badly, that you couldn't see the Cotswolds just half a mile away. So the forecast was right...


No matter, as two of us had chosen the right job for the day, that is, the repair of the underside of the shelter. This underside is not only moth-eaten, but the corner posts are all of different lengths, and yet the building is meant to stand on them. The first thing to do - in the pouring rain, but we didn't mind this inside - was to measure the actual lengths of the uprights, and mark a constant line on the sheeting, above which we are going to keep it, cutting off the moth-eaten bit underneath.

This shot shows you the jagged underside of the sheets, and also how the grey corner post is visibly shorter than the pink intermediate one on the left. The donor of the shelter swears on a stack of bibles that it wasn't him who cut the corner posts so randomly. We do know that he obtained it out of the goods yard at Usk, and it seems likely that it was at a different location prior to that, which is when perhaps the legs were cut to remove it from its first location. Anyhow, our plan is to get a regular length all round, and then to fit the underside of the shelter with a ring of angle iron sections, on which it will then rest when lowered on to the new base. This will have a single row of bricks laid on it, and the bottom of the shelter will rest on the bricks, with the sheets slightly longer, so that rain does not seep in underneath.

Meanwhile, concrete pouring ground to a halt, due to the heavy rain.

We knew this, because we suddenly had visitors with their hands in their pockets!

Tim eventually discouraged them from hanging around by starting to cut off the lower edge of the corrugated iron sheets, during which conversation was impossible.

Tim did one side of this, and we must admit, it looked very neat afterwards. We will do the rest next week, as Tim ran out of cutting disks.

Underneath, you can just make out a length of original handrail, buried in the bushes.

We also took off the old wooden door frame, which was not original. The shelter now looks much better from the outside.

Inside we will have a bench, and a notice board. This still needs making by someone, to fill the space in the upper photograph at the rear.

Meanwhile, the gang had given up and retreated to the container, to watch Paul make lunch. It was beefburgers with melted cheese on top, with second helpings for all.

It was rather atmospheric inside, with the sizzeling beefburgers, steaming mugs of tea and rain beating down outside.

In the afternoon, the rain moved off and the sun started to come out. Great ! This led two of us to investigate the end of the ivy laden fence by the roadside, where we suspected an original GWR bridge rail fence post. Would it still be there?

With a considerable amount of determination we managed to wrest the invasive ivy away from the  mound at the end, and yes indeed, there was a GWR post underneath.

The old posts was still there, in good condition, but completely covered by the octopus like ivy, which covered every square inch of it in a thick tangle of roots.

The post was linked to another at the top of the slope leading down to the shelter. Somewhere along this line there must have been a gate, and we will reproduce this. The roadside was post and rail, which linked the post to the corner of the bridge. All currently covered by ivy and brambles.

Our picture for the end of the day shows the site looking very neat, and the whole of the base of the shelter now finished, except for a row of blues we still need to lay. The shelter will stand on them, and so doing lift itself off the ground, so that the rain cannot sit underneath it.

We hope to be able to lift the shelter on to its base in 2 - 3 weeks time, using a large forklift borrowed from a friendly farmer. It also still needs cleaning and painting. The running in board is being made up by B&S; there will also be two Trespass notices, one of which will be an original found on site. We still need two 8ft lengths of rail for them.