Faster and faster

We had a lot of rain these last days. Monday was a complete washout, so there isn't much to say about Broadway, although we did go.

Wednesday on the goods platform at Winchcombe was better, although it started wet.

How wet? Just look at the puddles in this picture, and the low clouds obscuring the top of the Cotswolds edge.

It was damp this morning.

Here's Dave in the Telehandler picking up the last of the three pallets of blocks delivered a week ago. Jules is staying well clear of the wet puddles.

The others were 'at school' this morning, doing their bi-annual PTS training and exam. We're having to hold several of these sessions, as not all can come on the same day.

But those working on the goods platform wall had already done theirs, so we were off to an early start.

Dave had taken the pallet picked up on the C&W side over to the PWay side of the yard and dropped it straight on to our Permaquip trolley.

Just a quick push along the platform, and we were ready.

Now to get Maxie out of bed.

Maxie was well, but today had taken to sucking sweets.

We don't mind that, but at the business end there was consternation when the blocks wouldn't sit down properly, with Maxie's sweets found to be the cause.

You'll have to stop eating sweets, Maxie, they are bad for you!

The first train of the day came by, headed by 35006. An easy job for her, 8 coaches, but the wisp of steam between the tender and the first Mk1 betrays the use of steam heating - we said it was cold and damp today - so it was good to have a boiler with a bit of capacity at the head.

A couple of milestones on the wall today. We reached level 11 on the first section, so that's all the blocks laid there. Only to platform edging bricks to go. We are close to reaching agreement with the owner of a station that has two redundant platforms, topped off by exactly the cross hatched edging bricks we need, plus a good source of blues that could go into the turntable pit. You need to grab your chances when you get them!

To the right of Neil pushing the trolley here is the first section of wall, now fully blocked up. Neil has got a second trolley of bricks and we are moving on to the second section now.

This pallet must weigh a good tonne, so it's quite a push here.

Later, the second steamer of the day rolled by. This was 2807, which crossed at Winchcombe with the Pacific and the first train with passengers out of CRC this morning.

More steam heating in evidence. It must be nice to sit in the carriages with a bacon roll and enjoy the warmth, as the Cotswolds roll by.

After their exams the rest of the team worked at Defford digging out cribs (to be packed on Saturday) and here we have a proud Mike.

He's had his fishplate identifying training and is now allowed out completely on his own. Such management confidence.

Objective of his mission was to gather together as many lifter fishplates as he could find, for labelling and storage in the GUV.

Then the lunch bell rang. or so you'd think, because suddenly Maxie was on her own, as the whole gang of Usketeers suddenly marched off in the direction of the mess coach. Hunger! And it was only 10 past 12.

After lunch a fresh start was made on the section nearest to the stop block. That's the low one, the one that currently has only a single row of blocks on it.

The second section is now also up to row 11 of the blocks, and fully 'blocked up'. Such energy in this gang, it is breathtaking.

The mobile trolley is so handy, you can just roll that tonne of blocs up and down to wherever you need it.

We had a visitor hiding between the fishplates, and it climbed on board Mike for a ride. Mike was very cool about it, he even cradled the visitor in the palm of his hand. Not everyone would be prepared to do that.

Here are the chaps making good progress on the fourth section (or the first, if you are looking from the stop block) and while Paul was spooning on the mortar there were no fewer than three volunteers helping with the heavy lifting of the blocks.

They are making rapid progress here.

2807 ran by again, heading south. Here you can see her in front of Winchcombe box, which we recovered from Hall Green. You'd never know, would you?






A couple of pictures of the crew of 35006.

They had a friendly contact with an interested passenger.

As they pulled away towards Toddington, they gave a big smile.

And so would you, at the controls of that big Pacific.

At intervals during the day Paul would produce a large bag of lemon sweets.

Have a sweet !
I don't really want one....
Go on ! 
My wife says I'm on a diet, so I shouldn't really...
 Go on ! Have one !!
Oh, alright then, if you say so...

 We carried on with the fourth section, and soon had a new course on it.

As the first pallet was used up, we resorted to the second.

At the end of the day we had laid 3 courses on the fourth section, bringing it to one level below the third. Almost equal then, and between 7 and 8 courses still to go. We calculated a total of 165 blocks laid for the day, a very good result.

We have sections 3 and 4 to finish then, plus the return around the stop block. We decided to order another delivery of pallets, as we would get through what was left during the next session in a week's time.

It was tiring stuff. Maxie made up 8 or 9 mixes, that's a lot of shovel fulls to feed her hungry mouth. We were pretty beat at the end of the day.

Just because we stopped laying doesn't mean we can go home. Now we have to wash the tools, clean Maxie inside and out (that tickles!) and push her back home. Maxie wobbles a lot as we push her, as her wheels aren't on very tight.

Spirits remained high though, as Jules with the empty barrow meets Dave, returning the Telehandler back to its stable.

See you next week.

A roof over our heads

Monday at Broadway

One man down again, so the two of us decided to start mounting the straight corrugated iron sheets to the roof of the steps on P1.

We had 6 sheets that qualified, having 4 coats of paint/bitumen on each side. And dry.

We walked them up to the steps, and can report that they made your arms a lot longer - they are thin, but nonetheless very heavy.

There are three sheets per length of roof, and we reckoned that the six we had would do the upper half of the P1 steps.

Here is Neal just measuring the overhang of the first one. We need a 5 inch overhang, as that protects the moulding that goes underneath.

After the first one we put on the middle one, and then the outer one on the Cotswolds side.

Neal is just drilling a hole for the screws that hold everything down.

The bottom of the sheet has a comfortable overlap with the angled sheets on the intermediate landing, which itself is on a slope, so the water should run well here.

The best view, we felt, was from underneath. It is looking quite homely in there.

Then we put on the top 3 sheets. These slide under the sheets over the centre span, so we had to unscrew the bottom ends of these to get the new sheets well under.

In this picture all 6 of the upper sheets are on, and screwed down. Just a final sheet to replace along the top.

After this we had no more sheets that were ready, so resorted to painting some more. However, the rain - not forecast - quickly put paid to that, so we moved the remaining, partially painted, sheets into one of the containers to dry out for Wednesday.

Our last look is taken from a few steps back. It's difficult to photograph the top of the sheets in an overview, so this is the best we can do.

There's one more set of three sheets to go on to the bottom, then you are in the area of the canopy extension overhang, which we are leaving clear for the moment.

Behind the Broadway mess room at the far end of P1, in the weeds, lie the sad remains of Minnie the Mixer.

She served us well, but eventually succumbed to a fractured engine casing, which wasn't repairable.

Maxie has taken over the baton and is running well though.


Given half an hour to spare, we fitted the GWR replica varnished poster boards inside the booking office.

They're on the left and right here. The black board in the middle is temporary and will, in due course, be replaced by a similarly sized double poster board, varnished and with red painted letters. The woodwork is already cut, but we have paused final assembly to let the wood season a bit more.

Note the full sized 1944 GWR timetable on the right. That was a great find. The Honeybourne line is somewhere near the bottom on the left, you have to look for it.

The timetable was supplied by a supporter who gave us an excellent pdf of it, which another kind supporter managed to run off on a large printer that he was able to use. The quality of the print is excellent, it's all perfectly readable. Want to go to Worcester from Oxford by train? Or along the line from Kingham to Chipping Norton? Check your train times here. You can even see that there was a school train from Honeybourne that terminated at Broadway, school holidays excepted. Amazing.

Another bit of heritage that has been secured is this fabulous GWR partners desk:

A partners desk was designed to be usable by two people at once, so would be stood in the middle of an office. The two blocks of drawers are loose, and the desk top, with a leather insert, was positioned by means of 4 pegs on the drawer blocks. The latter had opening doors at the rear, for use by the other partner. The desk measures 5ft by 3ft and fits through any door as it comes in three constituent parts. The chair is thought to come from a restaurant car and was bought at auction. It does look the part though.

The desk is currently stored and, if permission were granted, would look great in one of our stationmaster's offices.

Notice the 'GWR' embossed on the lock.

Unfortunately we don't know its exact origin, but is was purchased by the kind donor from an antique shop in Woodstock about 20 years ago.

We were also given this largish cast iron plate. It's purpose is unclear, and it's not necessarily a railway item. It is marked S C and 6FT, possibly for a stop cock?

If anyone is interested in acquiring it, we would be pleased to pass it on for a donation.

(via breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk )





Wednesday on the goods platform

A good turnout of 'Usketeers' today, and a celebration. It was Paul's birthday, and we were treated to the remains of his 'Unicorn' cake, three bags of doughnuts and some Swiss rolls thrown in for good measure.

Late arrivals missed out on the Unicorn cake, so let that be a lesson to you!

Languish....

We were very keen to lay blocks, but there were none to lay. Oh dear. They had been ordered OK, but there was no sign of them when we started, so we rang the supplier to hurry the delivery along a bit.

What to do while we waited? Talk about stuff. Suppose the blocks never came today, what alternative jobs could we do without them?

One useful job that came to mind was to clear the site of the weighbridge hut of a number of pallets of stone that had been dropped on it.

We now have a design for the foundation slab, so are in the process of ordering the rebar sheet that goes into them.

At last, at last, the blocks arrived. Not the 400 ordered, but all the supplier had in stock, which was 100 of them. Losers can't be chosers, we took them.

The B1 has gone home, but the big blue King is still there.

The other loco for the day was the MN Pacific, so it was a large engine policy as it were. Hope you all appreciated that.

We teased Maxie out of bed, and today she was bright and rosy faced, and started second pull. She was soon chuntering away making an early mix, as the newly arrived blocks were being positioned on the trolley for the block laying team.

These didn't fall off. Surprise !

Arriving with the first barrow load of mix, we found Jim here hosing down the top of the wall.

It's not so clear from the picture, but you can't see the hosepipe and it looked as if Jim had a prodigeous pressure on. Or so we told him.

You see, these are called 'fish plates'...

Out in the yard, Clive and Mike were sorting out second hand fish plates, ready for labelling in sets and storage for future re-use. Someone has to do it. The pairs of fish plates are heavy, so the pair was spotted finding themselves a wheelbarrow to make things go a little easier.

The section of wall on which we worked today was the nearest one. We think we added 4 courses to it. This was a little unclear because the pointing made it look like more, but we only had 100 blocks to play with.

Paul was back on top of the wall, a little like goats that always want to occupy the highest point.

Jules did the pointing, using a shovel to hold his supply of mortar. This non-standard mortar support was not approved of by Paul, but it did the job and was near to hand.

Peter pushed the mortar into the joints from above.

At lunch time the King finally made an appearance, on its own, at the head of a train, and chimney first. Yessssss!

Here is the result, taken as it waited for the crossing with P&O heading south.

35006 eventually appeared, a few minutes late, and allowed us to take this picture of both of our large engines in service today. There can't be many railways where you get such a choice of traction. What a change from 1984, when an 0-4-0 industrial tank pulled a single Mk1 along 700 yards of recently laid track. The volunteers on this railway have worked miracles.

Robin the signalman is waiting patiently with the token for the next section south.

Finally King Edward II got 'the peg' and pulled away, leaving us to muse over the ignomy of the name. Of all the Kings to be preserved, this one died by being tortured to death with a red hot poker, but at least it was in Gloucestershire. (Berkeley Castle, should you ask)

One last look at the wall today. Having consumed 900 blocks so far, we are about half way, as you can see from the picture. There are a lot more to go! Once the block wall is up, it will be fronted by reclaimed engineering blues.

Having used up the temporary supply of blocks, we decided to do some work on the stop block at the end.

There was a big point timber dropped in the hole, which Dave removed for us in the Telehandler.

While waiting earlier in the day we discussed how to seal off the back of the stop block from the infill that was due to go in there, and we decided to lay a wall of redundant concrete sleepers against it.

Here is Dave with the first one.

We put a row into the bottom, which will support the ones to be laid on the slope.

The concrete sleepers were very manky, but no matter, as they will be covered in spoil, and it's a good way to recycle them.

We laid 3 along the bottom, and three up the slope. We decided to stop there, as they will be topped off by a row of blues. The area on top of the sleepers will be infilled and this will improve the rather tight bend, adjacent to a deep hole, that used to mark this area.

Some thought has obviously gone into all this.

Finally we treated ourselves to mugs of tea in the Coffepot, just as the class 26 was passing.

Cheers!