Paviours part II

 

Saturday - at CRC, Gotherington and Winchcombe.

Quite a good gang on Saturday, despite the holidays. No storm Antoni either. We split into two:

- One gang set off to Working Lane to cure a recently reported twist fault, and the other...

- Went to CRC to check the measurements of the platform and track interfaces, with a view to the anticipated arrival of a tamper along the line.

How does this work anyway? It must be from IKEA...

 

 

 

We had several brand new track gauges with us on Saturday. They fold flat in different ways.

How to put this one together?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ask a younger person!

David stands with the fully assembled gauge. We compared the measurements of one with the other.

Here are both gauges, ready to go. One for each platform, and two sub-teams.

We couldn't set off straight away as a train was coming of course. It was ever so.

We then worked our way along both platforms, one partly original and repaired prior to opening, the other brand new as it was beyond repair in 2000 when the tracks reached CRC. You may recall the Cheltenham P2 blog when part of the Broadway construction gang split off to rebuild P2 on Mondays for a couple of years.

Nothing special came up, we are taking notes principally for use in determining what the tamper can do inside the platforms.

On the way back David was seen practising for Jesus Christ Superstar...

We then moved on to the next station along, Bishops Cleeve being without a station nowadays.

 

 

Here the platforms are very short. They were grubbed out by BR a long time ago, and rebuilt by the private owners of the station buildings.

To respect their privacy we run along the down platform, and the job here was soon done.

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was back home to Winchcombe for lunch.

 

There we met the other half of the gang, who had been to Working Lane to sort out a new twist, and also change a fractured set of fishplates. 

We had a good chinwag, as you can see.

With lunch consumed, we had a slightly larger gang doing the next survey, of Winchcombe itself. We still have Toddington and Broadway to do.

While the train was in the station we couldn't work, so another chinwag was prescribed.

Dinmore Manor then pulled in, and we were pleased to observe that all trains were well filled on Saturday. Well, this is high season after all, and reasonably good weather too.

 

 

 

 

 

Monday at Winchcombe.

Two volunteers today, just about a minimum. Paul was also there to assist, we even split into two teams.

Paul Robelled out a couple of reported dipped joints at Gotherington Skew, then painted out some graffiti that had been reported in the tunnel mouth.

Yours truly and Walt spent the day on site at Winchcombe.

The first job was to finish loading the Warflat with the last 40 sleepers.

Here is Walt digging his forks into the pile in the yard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That didn't take too long, so the Warflat is now ready to go to Hayles for unloading, if we can find a train free day - possibly on Friday. We shall see.

A really useful accessory that Walt has found is a set of intercom headphones, by which we can talk to each other, even if just out of sight. In the picture you can just make out that Walt is wearing his in the cab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what they look like close up. Particularly with the Telehandler, because of its boom and cab on one side, it isn't always easy for the slinger to signal to his operator, so the little headphones are a boon.

One drawback is that other people can now hear it if you mutter, or hum, or even sing to yourself. (or what you thought was yourself!)

 

A small problem that we had is that some of our bearers are not long enough

This shows a new-ish bearer in situ, with an older one alongside. The bearer should be longer than the 4 sleepers are wide, because the sleepers to not stack perfectly square and if the bearer is too short then the sleeper on it can wobble.

 

We discovered a bit of nature today - a frog! Or was it a toad?

These two creatures hopped out from underneath rails that we were moving. On uploading these pictures it became clear that the two are not the same, so we googled them. The first is a common frog, and the second a common toad. Both appeared in the same habitat though. We carefully put them aside (one species is called the edible frog, but rest assured we did not eat either of the two we found.)

With the warflat fully stacked and strapped down, we moved on to the second job in the yard, which was to continue with the clearing of the site for the mess coach, nearer to the Usk hut and indeed civilisation (or so it seems down that long siding where we are now)

Walt fired up Stevie, the RRV and brought two camlocks on straps. The pile to be moved is just to the left of the RRV.

We need a decent path along the right here, so that we can get into the mess coach via the steps. One day we could actually lengthen the Usk goods platform, then we would no longer need the steps and ladders to climb into our stock. How's that for an idea? We already have all the bricks and diamond pattern copers.

So these rails are mostly going to a new pile on the left in this picture, (Bullhead rail) but some (FB rail) went further back in the yard on an exisiting FB pile, so the RRV had to move up and down and eventually we put it on rails, which was simpler to organise.

This was the scene at the end of the day. We moved about 15 rails on to the new pile in the foreground, with another 5 FB elsewhere on site.

What is still left to move is a number (maybe a dozen) of 60ft lengths of Manganese rail, in good condition. We don't use Manganese rail, so it will be scrapped unless someone reading this wants it?

Tuesday on Broadway steels.

The Macaw is back! What a great relief. The Macaw bogie flat with our other half of steel supplies is back from the wilderness that is the Toddington north carriage siding. Now we can empty it.

 

The first thing we got off it was a pile of 5 big steel strips, which will eventually form the fascia boards on the Broadway P2 platform.

Neal gingerly inserted the Telehandler forks under the pile, and took it down to the shed area.

 

Once in the shed area, and away from the general public, we were able to put it down and extract one sheet for further treatment. The other 4 need to wait.

The first sheet is in fact destined to be cut into short lengths, so this is how we did it, with the saw outside the building to profit from the extra space, and of course the sun, plentiful yesterday.

It wasn't clear to Yours Truly why we had 5 sheets of steel, and why we were cutting this one up. Neal explained it all with pencil and paper. Or sheet steel, in this case.

It seems that 4 sheets will be used to make up 4 fascia boards - three at the front, and one at the back - and the fifth one will be sut into suitably sized bits to lengthen the rest to 7.25m, longer than the length in which they come from the steel supplier.

We couldn't help looking at the passing trains. We love the little Standard, it's a pity we have to give it back at the end of the hire period.

And here is a question for the experts among us: From which locomotive is this firebox?

Back to work with Neal though. Here he is with one of the shorter bits we cut with the saw, which is going to be welded on to one of the 4 longer pieces

Yours truly was responsible for preparing the ends for welding with the angle grinder, we hope you notice!

After much pushing and shoving with trolleys, trestles, a sack truck and the forklift, we were in a position to weld a short bit to a long bit.

Despite the risk of wind blowing away the gas from the MIG welder, the weld went fine and the result looked very satisfactory.

The extra piece was welded on both sides, and then the excess was ground down again. Two lengths of angle were clamped to the rear to prevent heat distortion.

We then put the first length away, and got the next one out, with the help of a kind volunteer from the steam dept.

Mid afternoon is the time the diesel engine comes out to attach to the rear of the Broadway train, and this time it was a Growler, our favourite (diesel-) engine.

It looks magnificent in this green colour scheme, with polished metal highlights.

During the afternoon we managed a second fascia board. Now two of the four have been welded up to the correct length, with two more to go for next time.

A successful day for us, it felt good at the end of the day.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A grand day, with hot sunshine. And a cross Paul, right first thing in the morning: When are you going to fetch that counter I made from out of my garage! Ooh-er, how about today, if we can get a truck?

Although Wednesday is the busiest day for all departments in the yard, there was a 90 minute window for the blue Transit, which we quickly borrowed to go to Paul's house.

Now just look at this counter that he built! Lord knows how it fit his garage, and it wasn't easy getting it out. And would it fit the Transit? Pass through the door of the Usk hut? We could only set off and see.

 

 

The counter went on the back of the Transit Ok, and we reversed it up to the site.

We got some much appreciated help from Paul C, who popped over to see what he could do from his usual role with C&M. Thanks, Paul, that really helped! 

We got the big wooden counter off the Transit between the 4 of us, and up to the door of the hut.

 

We told you, Paul, it won't go through! Yes it will, he retorted, I've worked it all out, we just need to remove one of the temporary stays.

 

 

And fit it did, we just managed to wriggle it through. Phew! We are in.

 

 

So here it is. It's a counter, inspired by the one in the coal office behind P2 at Toddington.

Ours of course needs to fit the shape of our particular building, bearing in mind the window, fireplace and big, low window on the left.

This is the rear, with some of the stays still in place, and some material still to be fitted. Note the fire bucket recently donated, and a large coal scuttle stamped, as always on their items of property, 

'G-W-R' 

on the front. We've already collected some coal for it, from the Saturday PWay lineside activities.

 

 

The counter has an architrave and decorative skirting board along the bottom (still to be fitted). Temporary carrying handles are screwed to the corners.

On the left here will be another short piece, which will hold the 'Delboy' flap. That will open against the wall.

We're now looking for a suitable old chair, a large old typewriter, and a Victorian oil lamp. A part of the counter has been dropped to serve as a desk, so perhaps some items that would appear on a Victorian desk? We'd be interested to hear from anyone who might have something suitable - reply to the blog via the address on the top right of the page.

The coal scuttle came  from the FoWS - thank you, guys - and in their weighbridge office at the entrance to the yard (which has its original fully working weighbridge still installed) we came across a fascinating image we'd like to share:

Winchcomb Bank £1 note.

Did you know Winchcombe once had its own bank, which could issue notes? It is dated 1829, and a pound was worth a lot more money in those days. With this evidence of debt issued, you could walk up to any branch of the bank, hand over the note and ask for your pound back. Originally this used to be in the form of gold, but nowadays, although the text promising to pay the bearer his money is still there (no longer on Continental Euro notes though) the hopeful bearer is likely to get no more than another plastic pound note in its place. Or a fiver, that being the smallest note now in ciculation. Such are the times.

Having installed the counter - you will realise of course that it's not yet finished, we just got the bulk of it indoors - we carried on with the diamond pavers.

Here is Dave preparing the ground with a hand tamper.

The grass is still growing vigorously, and is a great success, also in terms of colour on the site, which would otherwise be mostly grey.

Paul made the weak mix, a big barrowful at a time, which he struggled a bit to get up the slope, as the wheelbarrow tyre is underinflated. It's one of those jobs you always mean to do, but never quite get round to.

Here Dave is laying the centre pavers, on their bed of mix. We hope the mix will prevent weeds and ants from getting through - time will tell.

This is where we were at the end of the day, with another 8 rows of pavers laid. That's 40 items, a pretty good effort for only half a day. Nobody walk over the path though, until the mix has gone off, and we have secured it by a support of concrete along the sides.

As Dave brushed a small amount of cement into the joins we brought some more earth on to the site, to even out the area between the path and the platform. This needs some grass seed, but as we are not quite finished yet we'll hold off with the sowing until then.

Finally we had a visit from Mike, our local liaison man in Wales.

Mike created this rather attractive photo montage. One is framed for the hut, and several more for the members of the gang.

The group photograph is clever, as we only had one without Jules (who has had to leave for family reasons, sadly). We were not only able to photoshop him into the image on the left, but turned round about and now facing towards us! Clever stuff.

Thank you, Mike !

 

Early GWSR days.

Following a recent blog comment by Toddington Ted about the early days, readers might be interested in these personal pictures from the 'previous century'. Yes, we can now call it that! Were you born in the previous century?

2807 tender tank - July 1985

Drilling out stays on the 2807 boiler - July 1985

The boiler park at Toddington - July 1985

A class 31 at Toddington - where is it now? Easter 1995

These and other early days pictures can be seen on :

https://www.flickr.com/photos/73536293@N02/albums/72157628884568463/with/6636884841/
 

Yours truly wasn't a member then, Toddington (and indeed Broadway) was a place to stop, on the way to a narrowboat holiday in the Birmingham area. But we liked to look over the fence. Who would have guessed that one day we would be on the other side of it, and battling for GWR heritage?

 

 

Pavers.

Friday on steels.

We had to pause fabrication, as we had run out of bits. So last Friday morning was spent cutting and grinding new pieces to size.

 

 

Luckily we now have a stock of cleaned and primered lengths of strip and angle. More is on the MACAW, but it is stabled away in the north carriage siding, out of reach.

After finding a pull along wagon we trundled two lengths of strip and two lengths of angle back down to the loco shed where the saw is.

As we are working on the canopy under the old 'greenhouse' roof on the garden centre site, we are having to walk a long way back and forth from shed to greenhouse (sigh...)

Got that transformer? I thought you were bringing it? Back you go....

 

We started with the strip, which has to be cut at and angle. We put one strip on top of the other, to hurry things along a bit, so the wheelbarrow soon filled up with bits.

The afternoon was spent back in the greenhouse, where yours truly fettled the new bits by rounding the ends to fit inside the long angles, and then primering them (again). The manoeuvering of the steel this way and that soon exposes virgin metal, and we really don't want any rust forming, which would be much regretted by those that have to (re-) paint the canopy in the future.

 

Neal spent Friday afternoon completing the second purlin. It looks like he got there - he commented when this photograph was taken that there were three more holes to drill and bolt up. Then that's the second one done.

Next week: The third purlin!

Saturday out with the gang.

During storm Antoni. Apparently. Despite dire BBC weather warnings we just had a breezy day with a little drizzle. Typical for a summer, we'd say.

The mission today was to fettle Siding 1 at Toddington. 

We had a quick peep into the loco shed to see what's going on - they're fitting insulation to 2807's boiler.

This looks like it will be the first of our 3 GWR 2-8-0s to return to service after overhaul.

3850 and 2874 are also making good progress at the same time.

 

 

Our day started soemwhat dark and wet, but bearably so.

This siding 1 (it's actually the service road connection between the yard throat and Toddington station, and is used by light engines every day) is a very old one, and hasn't had much done to it over the last 40 years, so it's a bit rough.

The first job was to straighten it at the station end. That took us all day, but we did it.

Give a little whistle....

 

Jim was our lookout, armed with an official lookout's whistle. It's very small though - a larger option exists on HOPS, but was no doubt considered too expensive. 

 

We brought Duff jacks with us, and the very heavy sluing jacks. As we were sluing, we tried the latter first.

 

 

There were just 5 of us on Saturday - did Antoni scare others off? - so we used three sluing jacks, one lookout and Bert Ferrule to eye us in.

As the service approaching from Winchcombe appeared on the horizon Mike from the loco dept. emerged on the footpath to the box. He was bearing a new shovel. 

Strange, that.  What was it for? Was he a new recruit for our gang? We could certainly do with more hands and shovels.

But no. As 78019 approached the box to hand in the token, the fireman bent down to pick something up. It was Mike's shovel !

Well, that was a new one for us.

Hello darling, now listen carefully, I will say this only once...

Lunchtime was upon us, and Nick sent a message to a contact in the buffet car. We were hungry, could they help?

The train arrived at Toddington....

Then set off again, as the signalman leant out of his box to hand over the token.

 

 Nick and Graham waited eagerly - would they heed our call?

 And they did! Here is Bert Ferrule with 5 bacon butties in a bag, still hot.

Picture by Andy.

 The gang munched them thoughtfully. Which was better - ketchup, or brown sauce ?

After lunch in the nearby mess room we completed the stretch of track straightening, and went over to jacking and packing.

As this is one of the first lengths of track laid back in the 1980s, it has very little ballast underneath, if any at all. The Robels work by shaking ballast until it has filled up any nearby voids, but here we were shaking mud. We fed the Robels with shovelfuls of surplus ballast from the 6ft, and one way or another we did get the track to stay up at its correct level.

At the end of the day the first 100 yds looked much straighter and more level, which is what we had set out to do. So that was a win, despite Antoni.

We took another portrait picture of the Standard doing the token exchange. Between the box and the bracket signal there is a nice space for interesting action pictures like this.

The signalman was friendly too, which is always nice. We exchanged a few bits of banter, which made the time pass faster.

Just before we went the class 20 trundled to a stop by the box, waiting to assist the incoming train from Winchcombe up to Broadway. The 'Wardrobe' sat there and whistled away. You never know which loco they're going to pick for this daily job, which makes visiting our railway more interesting.

Monday loading in the yard.

Mondays on the PWay are getting to be a regular thing - you can get a lot done with a small crew.

This Monday's job was to unload the Warflat of the economy sleepers picked up at Hayles, and to refill it with concrete CS1s for next winter season's job.

 

 

There were 3 of us - Walt in the machine, David and Yours Truly on the ground/on the Warflat. 

First of all we had to empty the Warflat. There were about a dozen old sleepers on the end, and 65 economy sleepers from Hayles, the last of the ones we took out last winter.

With the Warflat finally unloaded we could make a start on the next lot of replacement CS1s.

Here Walt is bringing in the last lot of economy sleepers, which we can stack 3 high on the forks, 6 high on the ground.

 

Unfortunately for a speedy loading some track components has been deposited in front of the sleeper pile that interested us, so we had remove the first layer to give the Telehandler room for manoeuvre.

The RRV was got out to do the lifting in a confined space.

The sleepers that were in the way were removed by the RRV and loaded on the Warflat.

At the end of the day we had unloaded the Warflat, and reloaded three quarters of it. Almost there then, but for the logistics involved in getting the CS1s out from their obstruction.

Wednesday with the Usketeers.

A lovely warm day, and 4 of us in attendance today.

 

 

 

 

Project for the day - the diamond paver path. It's going along here, between the patio slabs laid by others and the door of the hut.

We spent some time digging it out to get the correct depth for 2 ins of mix and the other 2 ins of paver on top.

 

As the weather was nice and dry Paul decided to give the exposed wood over the gable ends a coat of protective paint.

Paul used black, and when you look up, you can't see it at all! It just looks dark.

Inside Dave was fettling the structure for the doorknobs. A bit of wood filler was required here. The 150 year old holes are quite big.

Railway business was brisk today. We can't say that very often, but the weather was kind, and it's the holidays. Lots of children were visible. We waved and waved and waved.

Here are Dave and Paul in the process of setting out the course of the path. But stopping to wave of course.

Hope these trains don't come past too often...

It's a sort of three dimensional game, this setting out. The level was used this way and that, and the two retaining planks were pushed around and raised here and there. Once the pavers are down they will be held in place by some concrete backing along the sides.

Then we had our mid morning cuppa. That didn't go well for Paul.

 

 

 

Somehow or other - he can't explain it - the full cup of coffee from his flask leaped into the air, and upended itself over his lower body, and then the floor.

 

 

 

Paul ended up with no coffee, a wet thigh and a very frustrated expression, as you can see.

 

 

 

 

 

We jollied him out of his funk, and soon he was laughing about it again.

 

Then we got Maxie out from the shed to see if she would start.

She did, no problems. Good old Maxie ! So we were ready to make up quantities of weak mix to go under the pavers.

Here is a general view of the site. As the road dips down behind the hut we will be raising this to the level of the grass in a couple of weeks, using spent ballast from the Didbrook relay. That will be interesting. We learned today the MO - in a couple of weeks two coal wagons (the ones with the coal company logos on them) will be brough to Hayles and loaded by the Telehandler. They will be pushed up the Usk siding and from there they will be unloaded again and the spoil dropped on the road to raise it.

By now Dave had started laying the pavers, and here you can see John bringing in a barrow load of weak mix on which to bed them down.

The first few pavers were quite slow, but then we got into our stride. 

We're having the 5 inch pavers bought with Usk funds in the middle, and 6 inch pavers found on site along the outside to frame them.

Dave did all the hard work, and on his knees too. The others watched and threw banter, some even from seats taken out into the sun.

 

 

And yes, here we all are on those seats, enjoying the unusual sun. (we've had a lot of rain recently)

Do you like our terrace on the platform? Just look at that green grass! The friends of Winchcombe were kind enough to strim it (and even to remove some Mares Tails that they noticed) but the grass soon grew some more.

We still don't have a date for unveiling our name board on the gable end. We had Aug 23rd pencilled in, but time is passing...

Here is a picture of Dave making progress. He's got those levels now, and although it was now mid afternoon, he was laying those pavers quite quickly.

Paul made up more mix for him - hope we have enough ballast and sand. We are currently working with leftovers only, the build itself having finished of course.

At the end of the day this is as far as we got. We are perhaps half way there? We did spend a lot of the morning painting and fettling the lock, so next time we should be able to make a big spurt and finish this off. If the weather holds for us, that is.

At the end of the day we retreated back into the hut, where it was still nice and cool from the increasing heat outside.

Jim joined us, to chew that fat.

We tidied up, then went to Toddington to see how Neal had done on Monday. Our normal Tuesday work having been advanced by a day for diary reasons, Neal carried on making up purlins, and as you can see we are now up to three of the six long purlins required. There are also two short ones to be made up.

Neal also tidied up the site, and just look at all the swarf that has been generated by drilling all the holes that make up one purlin. All the bolts will eventually be replaced by hot rivets too.

News on the blogger car is not good. It would appear that the garage declared it a write off. The accident was two months ago.... all that time in suspense, and in a hire car, plus rising storage costs taken by someone. It's not a good process, and we see now why our insurance premiums are so high. People in the middle have no interest in a rapid conclusion, and the longer the process takes, the more money they can earn. Do people like the FCA realise this?