The Broadway canopy goes on

Bet that surprised you, you didn't know that was coming...

Well neither did most people, it was a snap decision when the loco team learned that they could not use the Toddington car park to make the trial assembly due to a field out of commission for the gala. So it was decided last minute to take the whole lot to Broadway and see if we can assemble it on site. And they did! It looks brilliant. It took all afternoon, but all 6 trusses are up, as well as the 5 ridge purlins, the ones with the beautiful arches.

Tomorrow the steelwork will be further bolted together, and next week the crane will return to lift in the purlins and fascia boards, another day's work.

Because of the scaffolding, it's a bit hard for the man in the street to see what has happened, so here are some photographs of the work that went on this afternoon. It's an exclusive, hot off the press.

Vic Haines came to Toddington this morning and loaded two lorries with all the bits you saw on the Hayles blog yesterday.

Here they are outside the station, with the purlins unloaded, up against the building, and the trusses being lifted one by one on to the steel framework inside the bricks.

It was a race to see who would be ready first - the bricklayers, or the team manufacturing the canopy. In fact the loco dept won by a short head. A few more rows of corbelling remain to be done.

The issues of transport, and assembling the canopy on site were solved by a single vehicle - the crane lorry from Vic Haines at Pershore. They did an excellent job for us today.

The 6 trusses were lifted on, starting in the middle with trusses B and C.

You can now see how far the canopy projects out over the platform in the foreground, and the scaffolding recently lifted takes account of this.

The second truss is lifted into place here.

The weather was so sunny that we became hot and thirsty, and our visiting Finance Director unexpectedly opened his dusty purse to offer us all a drink of lemonade. It was very welcome.

Once the first two trusses were approximately in position, the first ridge purlin was offered up. This connects the two, and confirms their positions.

While we were craning more trusses into position, a member of the crew - there were only 4 of us on site - already started drilling the holes to bolt down the first trusses we had put down.

With the third truss in place, the second ridge purlin could be lifted into place. the canopy was starting to look like something. It was a heart lifting moment, to see this actually being assembled, after so much heartache and discussion. It will look magnificent.

A conflab ensues on what is in its place, what isn't and what is/is not vertical.

It all went extremely smoothly. Only a single piece of angle had to have 1/8th inch shaved off the end to make it fit. It's an amazing testimony to the savoir faire of the small team in the loco dept. Congratulations, guys !

The different elements were initially G clamped together, until everything was properly wriggled into its place and the positions confirmed.

Soon we reached the northen end of the canopy, as truss 'A' is lifted into its place on the end. Beyond this is the canopy overhang, which conncts with the bottom of the footbridge steps.

Besides verifying the positions of the trusses in terms of the 'I' beam running around the top of the building, Neal also checked to see what the platform side overhang was doing in relation to the edge of the slabs below. We see him here dropping a line down to make sure it was all OK.

Now looking back south, with the truss 'A' behind the camera, we can see the ridge purlins in place on trusses B and C, and once again Neal checking with a level that everything is in its place.

A few moments later, the ridge purlin between trusses A and B was also located. You can now begin to see the lovely row of arches on this traditional rivetted canopy; that's what it was all about. There is going to be  a row of glazing with traditional coloured glass all the way along here.

Looking north again in a brilliant spring evening sun, you can see the arches striding along the ridge of the canopy.

Here we can see Neal with the mag drill following on with the gusset plates, which hold the ridge purlins on to the trusses. There'll be a lot more of this taking place tomorrow.

As the sun started to go down, the final truss 'F' was lifted into place at the southern end of the new canopy. You can see a lovely bit of corbelling brickwork on the corner.

Because of all the scaffolding in place around the top of the building, it's a bit difficult to give a good view from the ground of what is going on up above. Here is a shot from the site of the old viewing platform, which has just been taken down. You can make out the southern end truss, sort of.

This shot is from the signal box steps. Still not great photography, but you can see the last ridge purlin being lifted into place at the southern end. The whole of the canopy assembly is visible here. Still to come, as mentioned earlier, are the purlins and fascia boards, which hold the ends together.

Back on top, we can see a close up of the last ridge purlin, which has just been lifted in.

There's a whole row of steelwork up here now, and more to come next week.

A last look at the final ridge purlin going in.

Those arches are just amazing, and it's almost all been made in house, by our very own people.

The fascia boards will go on to the ends visible in the foreground here.




You can see all this during our open evening on Friday, and we'd love to see you and show you what we can. Do come.

Soil nailing progress.

Good, steady progress continues to be made here. The machine is steadily working its way along the embankment, and as of this morning, was a bit over half way along. There are no major issues as far as we know, which is a relief.

Here we see the machine with completed nails sunk on the left, and new nails laid out on the right. The sites of the nails to be sunk are marked out in red. The bottom row has already been done.

In this area at the beginning of the site the nails have had their caps put on, and the fence like matting has been laid out over it. This is what it should look like at the end.

This panoramic shot gives you the impression that the machine has almost finished, but that's a trick of the (camera) eye. Where it's standing is a bit over half way, but still good progress.
A bundle of 'nails' (actually hollow tubes) can be seen in the foreground; also the pump for pumping up the cement slurry is visible, together with its compressor.

The road along the bottom has dried out again, thank goodness.

Sleeper sorting for next week

More sleeper stacking at Gotherington today - we need to have enough to fill the supply train again, so that we can continue laying, now that the second 1000m of track are clipped up.

Sleeper stacking is always a pleasure, because for once, you get to see the trains go by. Out at Peasebrook, they are far away. Here 2807 drifts into Gotherington with a well filled train.

Once the train is out of the way, work can start. There are three of us here today, two on bars and one in the Telehandler. We made a super quick start today, and were on the job by 09.30. You could see the results at the end of the day too, we did really well.

Alan was in the Telehandler, and charged the quivering pile with gusto. There isn't really a right way to get into the pile, as it's such a jumble, but often he did well, and fished out between 2 and 4 sleepers each time. Not all made it to the sorting pile; as you can see, some fall off on the way.

Whoa, got to stop again, here comes another train, where do they all come from? It was 2 steamers on duty today, and it was pleasing to see lots of passengers on the trains.

After a while, a little orange dot was sighted in the distance, slowly getting larger. This turned out to be our plucky track walker Dave F, seen here on the curve just traversed by 7903.

Dave is seen tapping each bolt on the fishplates, to make sure they are well done up, and that the fishplate is not cracked.

Believe it or not, this duty along the whole length of our line is undertaken quite regularly, by a small gang of volunter PWayers who walk miles, for our security. Think of them, as you glide by in comfort up there.

Because we split off from the main gang today (they were laying in the big rubber crossing pads at Little Buckland foot crossing, and dealing with snagging issues on the recently stressed and clipped up stretch) we did not have lunch together, but Mrs. B did make cupcakes for all of us, and those that were at Gotherington had their own, special box labelled 'Alan's gang'. That's us!

Here Neil is admiring the feast that is about to be.


Along came our plucky track walker (who has a certain food consuming reputation, aka Gluttonus Maximus)  and enquired whether the rumour that we had cakes was true?

Cupcakes? Nah mate, not here, definitely no cake here, no sir, no way, we have no cakes. We are a cake-free operation here, oh yes.

Neil defended the cakes bravely, and denied all knowledge of them. But what is in that big red tin behind you, Neil?

Oi, you, unhand those delicious cupcakes, leave them alone, No!

Too late, the cupcakes had been spotted, they were doomed. Their lifespan was to be drastically curtailed, as were their numbers.

The Viking plunder of Lindisfarne was nothing compared to the ransacking that our cake tin was made to suffer. Neil could only look on.

A clank and a whistle announced the return of 2807, this time the right way round for a photograph, as it steamed out of Gotherington and over the Skew Bridge, which gave its name to our little sleeper depot.

The joy of working in the PWay not only resides in laying track on the extension, but also in the ability to photograph working steam trains from unusual locations. In fact your blogger was actually obliged to stand here, to warn the Telehandler driver of the approaching train. Really.

We made amazing progress today, thanks to an early start, a practised team, and good weather. By lunch time we had done 100 sleepers, and by the end of the day, another 90, so that all in all we had stacked what we think is a record for a day: 190 sleepers.

Ready for loading at the end of the day then were 400 sleepers, which should fill not only the two bogie bolsters with 160 each, but also the Conflat with another 80.

During our lunch, we were able to observe 7903 chug past out of Gotherington, here framed by some of the work we had done. We had set out a little bench of sleepers for us to sit on, in between the two piles here. That was a good idea, spoiled however by the drizzle that then lasted throughout our break. And the boots hadn't really dried out yet from their soaking from the mega clip up on Wednesday....

We're going to give you a little puzzle to solve. Some people have asked, how many sleepers do you actually have at Skew Bridge, and we said we didn't know exactly. So here is a through section of the piles. Count how many sleepers you see in this pile, then multiply that by five piles, and the total remaining at Skew Bridge is?

Our last photograph today shows 2807 again, with an early afternoon train of happy, fare paying passengers. The outer of the 5 sleeper stacks is just next to it.

We may well lay more extension track next Saturday - watch this space.


Other news

The soil nailers at Broadway are making good progress.

On Friday, two days after the heavy rain, they were in action near the top of the slope. You can see on the picture how wet it has been, the flat ground at the bottom is now all churned up.

On normal days, they achieve between 25 and 30 nails in the ground, between 9m and 14m in length. At the 30 degree angle, most of their length is in the embankment itself. They've set themselves a target of 5 weeks to do the job, which sounds reasonable because at 25 nails a day, a month @ 20 days gives you 500 nails bored in, and in reality they have 518 to place. So we're doing OK at the moment, with the exception of Wednesday, when it got really wet and only a few were achieved. At a rough guess, they've done about a third so far.

The pipe leading up to the drill is the feed for the cement, which is pumped up from a hopper below.
In the foreground, you can see numerous pipe ends sticking out of the ground. They have yet to receive their caps.

Here's a picture from below. To the left, numerous bits of rodding stick out of the ground, work already done. Above is a tractor with a winch. The slope is now so slippery that help is needed from above with a hawser to keep the machine from slipping all the way back down again, despite the caterpillar tracks.

You can see the state of the ground at the bottom here. It's been raining, see?

In the foreground is a row of nails already achieved; they decided to do the bottom ones first, after a while.

On the left is the hopper and the pile of bags of cement for the pump.

Here's the drill back down at the bottom, and the tractor on top pulling on the hawser.

The man on the right has laid out lots of soil nails ready for use, and feeds them into the machine one by one.

The manufacturer of the machine, Klemm Bohrtechnik,  has a video here:
https://youtu.be/ktxEE-PHsbQ

It's a bigger machine, and instead of a bod holding the pipes, they've got a mini digger with something rather larger, and the whole thing is hydraulic, not mechanical. But you get the idea.



The guys on site reckon the job will take them 5 weeks, which is pretty good. After us, it's the turn of the SVR. Their river valley is known for its unstable ground. In 1952, a severe slip occurred at Jackfield, a few miles further up the gorge. You can read about that here:
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/landslides/IronbridgeGorge.html

Makes our occasional little slips seem quite manageable!

Signal posts at Broadway

Four signal posts were taken to Broadway today, and three of them were placed in the ground in their new locations in our new station.

Things are starting to happen at Broadway north.
In a case of 'here are some we prepared earlier' four brightly painted signal posts were taken from Winchcombe to Broadway north, where Steve was waiting in the JCB, ready to dig the holes in the predetermined places.

Two signal posts are going in next to the 'Future Maintenance Facility' containers.

Placing these is surprisingly easy. In a few seconds the JCB has dug a nice deep hole, the heavy HIAB on Vic Haines' lorry drops a post into the hole, the JCB backfills the hole and pats it flat. Job done. Max 5 minutes!

The weather was glorious, what a change from yesterday's washout. Here the JCB bucket is just patting down the second post, as the men from S&T check it one last time for level.

The two signals going in here, one on each northern end of the two platforms, are starter signals, although since the line will go no further for the time being, they will have short arms to indicate a shunt.

Steve then turned round and dug the hole on the other, platform 2 side.

In the foreground is one of the two turnouts formerly at Laverton loop.

All the rail and timbers from Laverton have now been brought to Broadway north, while the embankment by the good shed is in the hands of the soil nailers (who were working again today).

Steve has withdrawn here, and the second starter signal is gingerly lifted off the lorry and placed on the ground, for a repositioning of the slings. It's all done by remote control by the man on the flatbed - like a model aeroplane in fact.

With the sling repositioned higher up, the signal post is lifted into position.

Rails stretch out into the background.

Finally the last of the three posts is dropped into its hole.

Neil is ready with the level. There is no concrete involved, these posts are already equipped with their own jackets.

As the ground settles around the infill of the holes, it becomes harder and harder, until they are quite stable.

This scene is also starting to look very railway-like. About a thousand tons of type 1 and fresh ballast have been placed here, and now there is a new signal post for 'incoming ' trains. This one has an interesting route indicator, so that the loco crew heading south know which platform they are being directed to. The finial and signal arms have still got to be placed. In the background you will soon see two tracks and a crossover.

A final picture to show you what the two signal posts now look like, in situ at their new locations at the end of the two platforms.

There's one more post on the flatbed. This is an original wooden one, obtained from a member's garage, which will be located south of platform 1, to act as a starter signal. This post will have a concrete foundation, so it will be inserted at a later date. Today, the post was simply delivered to its future location.

In the afternoon the plan was to remove the shipping container at Hayles.

Other news

Following a tip off last week that there was a GWR waiting room bench in a local antique shop, we hastened to take a look. A bit sceptical at first, we were amazed to find that the report was true. There was the bench, covered in suitcases and an old blanket.
.

It is one of the rarer upholstered type, with the typical GWR arm rests at each end. It's been knocked about a bit over its 100 year life, but is still recognisable. The woodwork has been painted black, and it has been reupholstered in green vinyl. If we can find someone who is good at upholstery, we might be able to restore it to an even better condition. Its length of 7 feet is ideal for the booking hall at Broadway, where it fits perfectly against the back wall between the open doors.
The reported provenance is a pub opposite Swindon station. It seems that the pub acquired it from the station itself. True or not, we checked it with two experts, and they confirmed its identity. You'll be able to wait in comfort now, in true style, while your partner buys the tickets.

Absolutely soaked

If you want to know how the day went, then that would be the reply.

Today was the massive clipping up day, with an all round appeal to volunteers to chip in a day and help to get it all done. One kilometre of track, 1500 sleepers to get into the right position, 6000 plastic pads to insert between rail and hoop, and 6000 steel clips to hammer in.

We managed to assemble a pleasing 35 volunteers, of which 33 actually came on the day. Two were 'rain wimps' because - it rained. Massively, all day long.

What a washout it was.

Take a look at the smokebox of 35006. See the streaks? That's the rain, and it was relentless. Not a moment's respite.

We gathered in the Toddington car park, a sea of orange amongst the grey. Of course the Saturday and Wednesday PWay gangs were both present, but we also had volunteers from other departments, and even a most welcome contingent of volunteers from Network Rail.

At first the numbers seemed low, and then phone calls trickled in reporting of terrible road conditions. Next to the rain, an oil spillage was reported on the M5, affecting all those hailing from a westerly direction. First a bomb, now this. Rather than wait for the last volunteer, we peeled off bit by bit in teams of four, car pooling up to Little Buckland bridge.

Parking up at Little Buckland, the first thing we had to do was walk half a kilometre to the mess coach and tool van. Here each team was given two keying hammers, a bar, and an equaliser. Armed with this equipment, we then had to walk back down the line to find one of 8 five panel stretches that each team had been allocated. Those that came first picked stretch No. 1, right by the mess coach.... Those who gave the late arrivals a lift were left with stretches 7 and 8, a kilometre the other way. So that was 1500m walk in the rain, and we hadn't even started yet!

Here's a view of the first two stretches, with the tool van in the distance. Two teams have already got going, while the others slowly fan out over the 1000m that were stressed yesterday.

On the right is the NR team, one of which was sporting a balaclava with only slits for the eyes, and carrying keying hammer over his shoulder. On his way to rob a bank? No, volunteering at the GWSR!

Our little team of 4 made its way from the tool van back down to the bridge, then further on round most of the curve almost to the Laverton straight.

A sign of good organisation was that each stretch of 5 panels was marked out, so everyone knew what they were doing. And no moving those numbers around to make your length a bit shorter at the expense of the next team. Yes, it crossed our minds, but we are gentlemen.

Here's team 2's bit, and they're already well stuck in, while we are still walking to ours, far round the bend in the distance. These orange pads, or 'biscuits', have to be inserted between rail and hoop, on a reluctant sleeper that often as not is slightly out of alignment. The simple task of inserting the biscuits, ready for the man with the keying hammer to whack in the clips, is actually slow and frustrating because so often they do not fit. It means a lot of heaving and fiddling with the equaliser, and often undoing the previous clip again to give the rail a bit more wriggle room.

Here's team 7 - Go, team 7! - with in the foreground Peter on his hands and knees trying to sort out the plastics for Chris and John in the background, who are clipping up with the keying hammer and bar.

A sea of orange plastics marks the job we still have to do. All the time it is raining heavily, it trickles down you neck, your hands are soaked, even your feet are wet as the water soaks into your boots.

At 12.30 we allowed ourselves a short break in the mess coach. Due to the larger size of the team today, there was no lunch, although, bless him, someone had put on the kettle. Wet clothing is strewn about, and the camera lens has fogged up in the high humidity inside the coach.

The back of the job was broken just before lunch. After our 2km round trip walk to the mess coach at Peasebrook, we returned to stretch No.7 to finish off the last few yards of clips, leaving only the foot crossing at the start of the curve to be done. This can be done when the rubber pads are lifted in.

Looking back on it, it was a very successful day, and we are very grateful to all those volunteers who responded to the call, despite the dire forecast which became increasingly apparent yesterday. Together we did it!

Back at home, a hot shower, a hot cup of tea, the fire lit, and the satisfaction of a great sense of achievement. Now we can move the supply train again out of its isolation at Peasebrook, and fill up with more sleepers to lay more track!

Stressing up Km 2.

Haigh Rail came to stress and weld the second kilometre today.

We see them here at the mid point of the second kilometre, which is also mid way round the Little Buckland curve. No, we're not changing from Brunel gauge to standard gauge here, the track has been prised appart due to the changing weather, so that the rail can expand past the opposite ends. This eliminates the potential risk of buckling. Hot sun, followed by a cold rain shower, can have nefarious effects on uncompleted CWR.

This being a long curve, we have both rollers under the rails (on the right) as well as side rollers (on the left).

You can see that, due to the rollers, the rail is 'floating' above the pads, and in this way can be pulled to the right level of tension.

Here's a side roller in place. The new rail, delivered only a few months ago, is already rusty and dirty, the latter due to the ballast dropped on it, then swept away by the ballast regulator.

You can see that we don't want any bits of stone under it, hence the additional manual sweeping to get everything clean.

The actual stressing was very efficiently executed, and didn't take very long. The Malvern side rail, at the top here, was done first. The outside temperature was 15 degrees, while the rail temperature was a completely different 21 degrees. These temperatures are fed into a model and the resulting gap to be cut out was 110mm today, plus the gap for the weld. This is the state at the back, which has just been stressed and is awaiting welding. In the foreground the gap for the Cotswolds side rail is being cut.

While this is going on, other members of Haigh Rail, and our small GWSR gang, work down the 500m south to remove the rollers, which are now no longer needed. They are at 8 sleeper intervals, and each removed roller has to be replaced by a pad - on a clean surface, mind. No stones or mud underneath (otherwise it is impossible to clip up) and no fingers underneath either. It's all poked  out using one of the pads for a stick.

Next to that, we have to quickly clip up the 5 lengths immediately to the north and south of the weld, so that everything is secure. The rest then has to be clipped up as soon as possible thereafter - that is tomorrow's job. A huge clipping up excercise is due then - 35 volunteers are expected, 5000 clips to be done.

Andy and Nigel can be seen clipping up at Little Buckland Bridge here, while in the background a bump on a previous weld is being ground out.

This stressing, even for the measly 11cm today, results in the IBJ moved a similar distance to the left. It means we have to dig out these two sleepers, move them sideways, and dig them in again. Very tedious. The special clips for these joints have been laid out in readiness. You can't do anything about this while alying the track, or while ballasting.

More work was done by Haigh Rail near the rail head. The rail wagons have been pushed to the end of the rails themselves, while the next 6 panels are welded together - 12 welds were done in all here today. In the picture you can see one of the crucibles in the middle of its chemical process.

Not much further now, in this telephoto shot, before we enter the long curve into Broadway itself. We will have one more 1km stressed section to weld up, then we will continue with 120ft lengths; a mixture of welded and fishplated rail.

To finish with, here's an unusual shot taken the other way. It's from the Broadway footbridge, looking over the station roof, past the goods shed embankment, the soil nailers' orange fence and in the distance you can see the end of the ballast, at the Childswickham Road bridge.

*******

By the way, we are considering having some of these cast:

It's a finial for a running in board, or from a support for a modesty screen by the gents'. Depending on interest, we will either have some cast directly off this original (which would replicate its inperfections) or have a pattern made at extra cost, which would  give castings that are perfectly round. As it's not every man that needs one of these in his garden, the former is most likely option.

If your railway needs some of these, get in touch with breva2011(at)hotmail.co.uk. Any (modest) profits will go to the railway.