Week 11

As Groucho Marx once announced:

'I've good good news and I've got bad news.
The bad news is, there is no good news.
The good news is - there is no bad news'.

Well, it's not quite as drab as that, as there is a little bit of movement behind the scenes. We have just been requested via a GWSR survey whether we are ready to return to work, and that is certainly the case with this blogger! More than two months of inactivity now. What the country has achieved is the flattening of the curve for the NHS, but the virus has not gone away, and it may never go away. We need to be sensible about it, as you would with the flu, or a STD, or any tropical disease when you go on holiday.

The Trust's appeal for £250.000 help with paying for the Gotherington landslip has reached its target! We now have all the money we need for that, so the appeal has been closed. We could not have done the works without our supporters, so here is a heart felt THANK YOU to you all!

The slip repair is almost complete now.

The hand rails along the top of the sheet piles have been attached, and in this picture you can see the mini digger back filling the downhill side with spoil, which is being brought in by dumper.

Here's a view along the top, with those hand rails, and the mini digger working behind.

The contractor hopes to finish by Friday this week. Network Rail and at least one other steam line we can think of have had similar problems, but perhaps with deeper pockets than we have.







Bits of heritage

During the enforced absence from the railway we have continued in the off site 'workshop' with the production of various bits to improve the look of Broadway station.

This is the third of three Quad Royal poster boards just completed. It is now ready for lettering with 'GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY' on the shiny part along the top. This one will replace the temporary plywood board that was put up to speed the opening of the station.

The materials for a couple more of the big boards, and several smaller ones, are in stock, and these are earmarked for the P2 building, as well as its signage.

P1 boards completed, we have moved on to the timber for the P2 steps, those for P1 all being done and just awaiting fitting, as soon as we are allowed to.

In the foreground are 9 timbers which will serve as the uprights between the panels.

The two longer pieces in the background have been treated with a fungicide and were primered this morning as well.







News from the Toddington Standard

There's been a further news bulletin from the group restoring 76077, the frames of which were sent to Locomotive Maintenance Services Ltd at Loughborough.

You can read all about the update here:

https://standard76077.com/milestone-reached-as-pony-truck-is-completed

Your blogger has set up a monthly standing order to them of £25, so that makes £150 donated this year already, a monthly amount which went through the bank statements almost unnoticed. This sort of small but steady stream of income is really helpful to the group, but it needs lots of us. So do consider it. The means of donating are on their website above.

We've got two original pictures of the kit of parts as they were waiting patiently for someone to rescue them from the end of the Toddington north carriage siding.

Boiler and smokebox at Toddington north.

Frames and wheels at Toddington north.

It was this project, which had already been started, which created great excitement when a new group announced that they would now finally complete the job. From the update at LMS Loughborough you can see that we are well launched, although we are far from fully funded yet.


In other news

There is another project which is close to your blogger's heart. You have almost certainly heard of the Lynton and Barnstaple railway project at Woody Bay, where they have perfectly recreated the station and rebuilt nearly a mile of track. In addition, they have not only built from scratch a replica Baldwin, but based on the success of that, they have launched into the reproduction of three brand new Manning Wardles. This is clearly a group with confidence and a vision.

What you may not know is that there is a sister group which supports the re-opening of the 19 mile railway. This is Exmoor Associates Ltd, a small company with the sole purpose of buying wherever possible the 100 odd pieces of land that were sold off in the 1930s when the railway closed. It's behind the scenes stuff, but they have have quietly made good progress. Indeed, two bits they bought some time ago were duly transferred to the operating company in 2018, in preparation for the extension of the track southwards from the operating bit at Woody Bay.

In this rather useful map you can see the route and in green, the pieces currently owned by Exmoor Associates, and in red, those by the operating company.

http://www.exmoor-associates.co.uk/land-property/

The exciting piece of news today is that one small intermediate station has just been put up for sale by its private owners. This is Bratton Fleming, much added to since the 1930s but the original core is still there, inside what is today a 2 bedroom bungalow.

Here it is in its glory days, just by a road bridge and a short cutting. What is for sale is pretty much what you see in the picture, it comes with 0.63 of an acre, being basically the trackbed in front of the building. The road bridge in the background is also still there today.

The site was about to be sold to another bidder but the deal has fallen through, giving L&B supporters the chance to make a bid. The site is in a narrow valley on a slope, so you can't really work around it if you don't own that station. You can see that it is important that the railway seizes this rare chance to acquire the site.

Exmoor Associates have launched an appeal for help here:

http://www.exmoor-associates.co.uk/2020/06/bf-station-for-sale-again/

in which they are asking for help in the form of 700 donations of £500, or multiples thereof. A Just Giving page has also been set up if you can help with a smaller amount. Yours truly has contributed one of these slots of £500, but many more are needed. What is so encouraging with this appeal is that it is for something you can actually see and visit - a small station in rural North Devon, a beautiful area of nature and really worth visiting. It's a real asset, and a critical piece in the big puzzle of putting the Lynton & Barnstaple back together again.

To give you a quick idea of the surroundings, here are two pictures of the area:

The mouth of Heddon gorge, not far from Woody Bay station

Chelfham viaduct, in excellent condition

We hope you are as enthused about this project as we are. Let's all get together and help them buy Bratton Fleming station!

Week 10

Still no material change - the railway is still closed to visitors, and no one is permitted work.


Heritage matters

We have almost completed the third of the Quad Royal poster boards for Broadway.



One is awaiting lettering to be applied, the one for the booking hall (replacing a temporary one) is varnished and visible in the picture by the broom on the left, and the third, with a chocolate brown frame and a blackboard black surface, is in the process of being painted on the table. (in grey primer in the picture)

A surprise delivery was for 9 machined uprights and two 2.5m long timbers (also on the table) which will form part of the steps on P2 at Broadway. The P1 timberwork is ready for mounting. If only....





The instructions were to apply 3 coats of preservative, two of primer and one of undercoat.

That should get things moving along.



GWR Stationmaster's hat

Success! Thanks to readers of the blog we have been offered a genuine example of a GWR stationmaster's hat on loan. What a relief.

Here it is. It's dark blue, with gold braid and a sort of beehive crown on top, all surrounded by an oakleaf design lace band.

The cap badge can be either as in the picture (post 1935) or scripted, as seen in the bench ends at Broadway for 1904. We are going for the scripted design.

The generous offer of a loan came from the museum of the SDR, to whom we are very grateful indeed. Isn't it great how these GWR railways help each other out!

The hat came in a shoe box with acid free paper, and was immediately dispatched on further to the costumier in London.

We're still not quite ready to go, as some of the subcontractors (cap badges, gold braid etc) are in lockdown, but we think that this will soon change.

We don't know the cost of a replica hat yet, but if anyone else is interested in a copy of this hat, now is the time to say so. Contact breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk. You can't buy them in the shops.


A GWR lamp post

This original lamp post came from the Cheltenham - Kingham line, was moved to a nearby garden upon its closure, and in this second generation move was heaved across another garden today for its new, third home.

The top for it is original, and has survived in good condition.




Note that the design of this post is different from the type we have on the GWSR. This one has no Acanthus leaves on it (the Acanthus leaf is a common architectural motif which symbolises enduring life). It's simply a fluted column which splays slightly towards the bottom, and we think it is an earlier design to the one in use around the turn of the last century.






Gotherington Landslip

With the fantastic weather we've been having the repair work at Gotherington has made great progress. It's really been a week of uninterrupted sun, and there is more on the cards, leading us to wish for (say it not too loudly) a little bit of rain for our dried out lawns and veggie plots.

That said, Mrs. Blogger tried her hand - for the first time ever - at planting some runner beans, and she was immediately punished by a sharp frost (!) which killed the little seedlings stone dead in just one night. So there!


The landslip repair then....

The 5m and 10m piles are all in, but there's a bit more soil nailing to do to finish. The mini digger and the dumper are back filling the lower row.

You may well wonder, how did they manage to drive the piles down so level, so that they all stick out to the same height?

They cheated - cut off the sticky-out ones with a gas axe. Oh.

Here are the levelled piles, and a start on back filling has been made along the top, track side.

A hand rail will be fixed to the top of the piles, as there is a bit of a drop down to the next level, and a great surface for your local Banksy to show their talents. If they can get in. The nearest underpass is actually quite well protected, with a steel paling fence.






We're very proud of our mighty 5m and 10m piles with the vibrating pile driver, but that is nothing compared to this real one:

https://youtu.be/RpyeIghu3I8

That is a pile driver. It's diesel powered; that is, the head is a single cylinder diesel engine which has compression ignition - as diesel engines do - when the head comes down for the blow, and the diesel ignition stroke sends it back up. Neat. And those aren't the wimpy little 5m or 10m piles that we have, they are 25m piles. Their job is not to hold something back as at Gotherington, but to act as foundation feet for a building to stand on, in marshy conditions (such as in Holland).

When their 25m piles have been driven 24 1/2 m into the ground, little bits of varying lengths still stick out of the ground. Along comes a man in a van with a specialised task: the 'Koppensneller', or head hunter. His job is to cut the concrete piles to length (i.e. cut the heads off) and expose the reinforcement rodding, so that it can be bound in with the ring beam rodding that will be located on top.

Other people's lives, eh?


Our appeal.

No news! Officially we're still at £243.000 as per 19.5.2020. No doubt we may well have hit the target by now, but that will pay for the works, what will pay for the months of non-running? Don't hold back, donate something to keep us going. We are not earning any money until at least the end of August, thus missing the entire summer peak. It's a catastrophe, a miniature version of the entire British economy. Surely we can't go on like this?

Here is our appeal page again:

https://www.gwsr.com/supporting_the_railway/Emergency_Embankment_Appeal.html

Any help with staying alive is greatly appreciated.





Answers to the quiz:


Got your answer sheets from last week ready? No cribbing! Be honest.

1.      Lime Street station is in which city?                                                                              Liverpool    
     

2.      What’s the gauge of the Toddington Narrow Gauge Railway?                                   2ft gauge                                                                              

3.      What did 6000, King George V, carry which was unique to main line UK steam locos?  A bell                                                      

4.      How long before an approaching train arrives must we be in a position of safety on the PWay?                                                                                                                         10 seconds

5.      Webb was the CME of which railway from 1871 to 1903?                                         LNWR

6.      How many platforms will there be at Worcestershire Parkway?                                    3                             

7.      In joke. Sorry!                         

8.      How many cylinders does 35006, P&O, have?                                                             3

9.      Class 55 diesels are more commonly known as what?                                                  Deltics

10.   Introduced in 1959, what’s 110A?                                                                          Flat bottomed rail                                            

11.   If 4-6-2 is Pacific, what’s Atlantic?                                                                               4-4-2

12.   What’s the predominant colour of Network Rail trains?                                         Yellow

13.   In what operating circumstance did the 1951 version of the GWR rule book, state that “passengers in the leading vehicles should be warned of the advisibility of keeping windows closed?”                 

                                                                                                              When approaching water troughs

14.   What class of locomotive hauls the Hogwarts Express?                                                Hall class                           

15.   In 1985, Class 50 diesel locomotive, 50007, Sir Edward Elgar, was painted in what livery?   Green                                                                                                          

16.   The titled train, The Elizabethan, ran between London and where?         Kings Cross - Edinburgh Waverley

17.   What’s the name of the steam loco number 60163?                                                         Tornado

18.   Shed code 1A was where?                                                                                                 Willesden

19.   Which GWR station never had any track?                                                                         Dartmouth

                                                 

20. At what inconvenient time (for the PWay gang) does the Winchcombe Coffee Pot Café close?   4.00 pm :-(        






No quiz this week, we'll give you a rest. Maybe you'd like to spend the time more fruitfully, sitting in the evening sun with a cold beer? Well, we would.


One last thing then, a picture from Brian Parsons:

It's a mighty 9 F, thundering towards Broadway station with a mixed freight. Yes, that's the sort of traffic we used to have on our line. The headcode of two lamps, one above the other, says 'Express Freight'.

The horse dock on the right has been lifted, but the signals are still there. The signal box closed in October 1960, after the blanketing in the area was completed. The date of the picture is August 23rd, 1960, and the loco is 92214. She was allocated to Banbury shed at the time, and was less than a year old at the time Brian took the picture, having been completed in October 1959. She was withdrawn after only 5 years and 10 months service, in October 1965.

Amazingly, Brian was able to tape record the passing of a 9F at Broadway, and if you want to know what that sounds like, it's here:

https://youtu.be/t0lL0LdNRCE

And the loco survived too! It is currently on the Great Central Railway.

Week 9

Amazing weather makes this stay at home pleasant, but no less frustrating. Many of us want to get back to work, particularly outdoors, or in low density situations.

We have good communications from the company management, and here is a video sent by our chairman, which is available on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/N-XOcaDlL0I

There seems to be general scientific agreement that transmission outdoors is very unlikely, and an interesting study of a number of 'super spreader' cases traced these to similar circumstances: Close proximity, long contact, and - don't laugh - heavy breathing. The size of the dose you get is important, according to the study. Three such super spreader events were a choir, an exercise class, and an evening in a bar with drinking games. Passing someone in the street, or a visit to a supermarket, were seen as much lower risk, so a pattern is beginning to form. We hope that our volunteering activities can be accommodated within these likely scenarios.

Gotherington slip.

The repair works are back in full swing, and of course accrueing bills!

The top row of piles - the 10m long ones - have been put in, nearly hiding the contractors' vans parked behind, as you can see in this picture.

 Bolting together is going on, there'll be some back filling, and a handrail along the top.

Looking over the top, this is the hillside along the bottom of which the railway embankment is built. It's very rural, but nature abhors a slope and there are bumps and undulations all over it, suggesting some movement.

How is the appeal going then? It looks like we might be able to reach our target, with a bit of a last push. The balance yesterday was £243.000.

Our slip appeal of course is still open:

https://www.gwsr.com/supporting_the_railway/Emergency_Embankment_Appeal.html

Of course the amount of the appeal was pitched at paying for the repair works, not having a railway line without a single customer for months on end. Unusually, we are not asking for help with staying alive, but no doubt a bit more help than the minimum would be very welcome. The neighbouring SVR raised more than double the amount that they asked for. Impressive!





GWR Stationmaster's hat appeal

No luck yet with the loan (or purchase) of an original GWR stationmaster's hat. Blog readers are willing to help - we've had a tip for an auction (lots of hats, but all modern), and a loan of this hat shown below:

Unfortunately, this one too is modern. It has a 'Ferret & Dartboard' cap badge on the front, and an interesting provenance. It was found in the Broadway goods shed, stuck up in the rafters.

How on earth did it get up there? Delight on the closure of the station in 1960, or horseplay?

Can anyone say what rank the wearer would have been? We don't think it belonged to the stationmaster.

Just to remind you, this is the one we are looking for, the pill box type.

We have made progress with the costumier who will make us a replica, but she really needs an original to work from.

Any offers to breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk gratefully received!









Solution to last week's quiz:

Got your answer sheets? No conferring please....

2018 Christmas Quiz:

1. What colour is Dinmore Manor?                                                                            Black                     

2. In joke - don't ask!                                                                                                                

3. Mallard recorded what speed on its record run in 1938?                                       126mph                

4. Are we, as volunteers, employees of the GWSR?                                                 Yes

5. Which is Britain’s busiest railway station by passenger numbers?                       London Waterloo

6. Brexit question. Who is the Minister for Transport?    (in 2018)                          Chris Grayling                                                                

7. You were travelling to Whitby on 14 June 2018 on the 10.30 from Birmingham New Street. You arrive before those travelling on the 10.03. How much did your journey cost?   (in joke, but an actual case, so have a go)                                                                                 £0 (absolutely true! After a refund for a missed connection)

8. What is the locomotive number of P&O?                                                             35006

9. Charles Collett was Chief Mechanical Engineer of which railway?                    Great Western Rly                     

10. Britain’s worst railway accident was on 22 May 1915 when 227 people were killed. Where did it happen?                                                                                                                      Quintinshill

11. In the diesel shed we have D6948? What class number of locomotive is it?       Class 37      

12. Which was the first preserved railway in the world?                                           Talyllyn Railway

13. An annual Senior Railcard costs £30. How much does the 3 year card cost?  (in 2018)   £70.         

14. 2807 was shedded at 86E. Where was that?                                                  Severn Tunnel Junction

15. (In joke, involving a sly dig at another railway over which we will draw a veil)                                                                                                                               (we are awful)

16. What was the longest, at 704 yards, on the UK railway network?              Water troughs (Bawtry)

17. What was the name of the GWR terminus at Cheltenham Spa?                     St. James                     

18. On a steam locomotive, what is a 4-6-2 wheel arrangement called?                         Pacific             

19. What is the length of a railway sleeper?                                                                 8 foot 6 inches





This week's quiz is from 2019, so quite recent.

Sharpen your pencils, and here we go:

1.      Lime Street station is in what city?                                                                                       

2.      What’s the gauge of the Toddington Narrow Gauge Railway?                                                                                                                 

3.      What did 6000, King George V, carry which was unique to main line UK steam locos?                                                        

4.      How long before an approaching train arrives must we be in a position of safety on the PWay?                 

5.      Webb was the CME of which railway from 1871 to 1903? 

6.      How many platforms will there be at Worcestershire Parkway?                                                                 

7.      In joke. Sorry!                         

8.      How many cylinders does 35006, P&O, have?                                                    

9.      Class 55 diesels are more commonly known as what?                       

10.   Introduced in 1959, what’s 110A?                                                                                                                      

11.   If 4-6-2 is Pacific, what’s Atlantic?            

12.   What’s the predominant colour of Network Rail trains?                                         

13.   In what operating circumstance did the 1951 version of the GWR rule book, state that “passengers in the leading vehicles should be warned of the advisibility of keeping windows closed?”                 

14.   What class of locomotive hauls the Hogwarts Express?                                                  

15.   In 1985, Class 50 diesel locomotive, 50007, Sir Edward Elgar, was painted in what livery?                                                                                                             

16.   The titled train, The Elizabethan, ran between London and where?         

17.   What’s the name of the steam loco number 60163?                         

18.   Shed code 1A was where?            

19.   Which GWR station never had any track?    

                                                 

20. At what inconvenient time (for the PWay gang) does the Winchcombe Coffee Pot Café close?            



Snippets:


This interesting wartime poster seems to anticipate our COVID19 predicament, with the railway shut until at least the end of August:

So that you will have a whole engine to pull your train when we re-open, we hope that, in line with other activities around the country, some volunteering will be permitted in the not too distant future.
















From the archives (well, on-line, anyway)

Here is a large and powerful US locomotive that you probably haven't seen before:

Photo: Bud Laws

It's one of 30 locomotives built by Lima in 1930 to a very heavy duty wheel arrangement: a 2-10-4 arrangement which was so large, it didn't feature in the 1906 Whyte list, which couldn't imagine anyone would build a locomotive this big. It was built for the Chesapeake & Ohio railway and the new wheel arrangement was given the name 'Texas', with the locomotive type referred to as a 'T1'. It was said to have the largest heating surface of any 2 cylinder locomotive ever built.

Typically these heavy freight locos would pull coal trains of up to 13.000 tons, with just a single engine. The loco and tender weighed in at nearly 450 tons together, and they needed track of at least 124lbs/yard (ours is 110lbs at best). Our own GWR heavy freight locomotive 2807 has a combined weight of 116 tons, for comparison. All the T1s were scrapped in the early 1950s.


Can you imagine the result when one of these suffered a catastrophic boiler failure? This happened on 12th May 1948 to C&O No. 3020 at Chillicothe, a small town in Ohio between Cincinnati and Columbus. The result is apparent in the picture below:

We don't know the precise cause of the accident, in which the smokebox door was ripped out, and all the tubes, flues and superheaters were ejected from the boiler barrel. Comments associated with the picture suggest that there was a front tubeplate failure, possibly due to thermal shock as the injector was put on, with a low water level on a rising grade.

Unfortunately all three crewmen were killed. Although the cab looks intact, there would have been a huge volume of HP steam being ejected backwards.

Fortunately, these sort of accidents are extremely rare, and feature in photographs only because there were 10s of thousands of locomotives in service in any large country. The nearest similar event we can think of was a firebox crown collapse at Honeybourne during the war, also caused by low water.