I am just going outside, and may be some time...

Famous last words, and we pretty much uttered them as well today.

The day kicked off with a miserly 0.50 degrees above zero - still positive, see? - but there was ice everywhere.

Ice at Winchcombe

The forecast was dire - frost overnight, followed by sleet, strong winds at lunch time, and then heavy rain.

Ho-ho. Better not spend too much over tea then, let's get going and beat the heavy rain after lunch.

We're now at the stage where we are preparing for the winter relay between Toddington signal box, and the turnout we installed a year ago. This is our oldest stretch of track, and needs a refresher course.







The relay will involve the same track components, but new sleepers and ballast throughout.

Your mission today - load these onto the Landie.

The original wooden sleepers, when laid in the 1980s, still had their chairs bolted on, and these in many cases were GWR throughbolters, impossible to remove today, or indeed re-use except for 2807 boot scrapers.

All the rails were assessed and labelled last week for re-use, cutting or complete replacement with better s/h from stock.

120 throughbolt chairs were identified, and the job today was to position 120 replacement 3 bolt chairs opposite the sleepers in question.

A cast iron chair weighs a bit over 20 Kilos, so we were faced with loading something over 2 tons of them.



Great was our relief when Alan appeared with the Telehandler and lifted an entire pallet of them onto our Landie. It wasn't quite as easy as that, as we had to fill the rest of the space in the back by hand, and of course there was the manual distribution at the other end.

The two Landies drove to Toddington and met by the southernmost turnout. There we also unloaded a double Permaquip trolley, so that we could run up and down No.1 siding with our heavy load.

Of course we spoke to the signalman first. All he wanted was to tell us that there was a power cut, as if we cared out here in the storm. Hope it didn't affect his heating....

We know it's grim up North, but it can be grim down here in the nice warm south too. The fierce wind nearly ripped the Landie door out of your blogger's frozen hands. We were on Maximum Raingear setting, hats pulled right down over our eyes, as we pulled the 20Kg chairs off the Landie

and tossed them on to the trolley.

Have I done my zip up tight, right under my chin? Can it go any higher? Off we went with the trolley down to the signal box, checking for GWR throughbolters in the howling wind. It rattled the rain on to our backs like hail.

The exercise was done 3 times, and after the third time we had shifted the two tons of chairs and just about had enough. Here are the 120 chairs all laid out at the appropriate places, each supplied also with 3 new bolts. January then will see us rip up the track on the right, dig out the old bed and replace with new clean ballast.

If the picture is a little blurry, it's because of the constant buffeting and it was impossible to get any sharp pictures at this stage.



A bit warmer was:

Friday in the loco shed

Well we had a little central heating, in the form of a large steam engine boiler quietly hissing away to itself.

We were there to get on with the canopy overhang construction, but got a bit waylaid on Friday with other interesting things.

One of the two cast iron water cranes that we have in stock was taken into the shed for inspection and repair. This is one of two recovered from Church Stretton many years ago, but it got damaged in the removal and had a long, circular crack around the bottom end.

Neal cut this off, revealing how the core of the casting was not central at this point, no doubt so contributing to a certain weakness here.

The two halves will be castellated and then stitched back together.

Neal was delayed with a family issue but eventually managed to make a start on drilling the 240 holes. Here he is working on one of the two fascia boards.

He made himself a lovely little gadget to space the holes from one to the next. There's a short piece of bar turned to the size of the rivet, and a spacer screwed to the top which points to where the drill bit must go for the next hole.

The other two 'canopy makers' spent the morning cleaning up two 6m lengths of angle, which will be attached to the other side of the two fascia boards.


At the end of the day they too were ready to be fitted, and painted in primer.

We decided to go to Broadway for lunch - a). To measure up for the height of the canopy supports, and b). To see the sampling of the new tables and chairs for the cafe.

In between came a quick look at the southern barrow crossing installed by the PWay gang. It was good to see how S&T had picked up the baton and started installing the concrete approaches and central infill.

Down below we could see the northern car park entrance. The bellmouth is now finished, and the contractor has moved on to the other one on the Childswickham road. There is some nice kerbing work done, and our access to the trackbed on the embankment is clear.

We came to do some additional measuring, and here are Neal and John taking readings from the truss downwards, and from the concrete foundation for the supports upwards.

On the right is the 900m deep trench still to be dug out for the foundations of the newel posts at the bottom of the steps.

In the original Broadway layout, with the footbridge and building in the correct relationship to each other, the canopy support post would have not been where Neal and John are standing but in the far end of the yellow striped newel post pit, which itself should have been located a further 3m to the left.

'Two cream teas please' ' Already? We're not even open yet'

Then we joined a delegation from the catering dept there to see the samples of the tables and chairs that have been selected for the cafe. Opening all the boxes felt like an early Christmas! Neal, with his mechanical skills, was appointed chief assembler, while one of the chairs was tested for comfort. It passed.

The chairs are in an old fashioned 'bent wood' style, with an attractive looking fan shaped design in the back.

The two niches left and right of the fireplace have just enough room for a smaller, round table and two chairs. The radiators are still modern white as out of the box, and would look better if painted in the green of the wainscoting.

The normal sized table will be square, with a single leg. Although this is a little less in period style, it is not really possible to have tables with 4 legs in what is quite a narrow room. There needs to be room underneath to get legs sliding under from the sides. The table will be covered in a table cloth.


The tables will be in groups of two down each side, leaving a central corridor. In this way the capacity looks likely to be in the range of 24 - 28 places, depending on how much space is allotted to things like customer freezers and chiller cabinets.


All in all the tables and chairs were rather good, we felt.

A small but excellent detail is this ash pan made by Peter K from the Broadway group. The fireplace we bought came without, and Peter made this beautiful one off special, which is moved in and out with a lovely little brass knob.

We wonder how it will get supplies of coal? Traditionally one went to a passing loco with a bucket and pleaded for a few lumps from the well filled tender. Will we carry on that tradition?




Then it was back to Toddington to carry on drilling holes, and to finish cleaning and painting in primer the next lot of 6m long angle.

As the sun started to disappear over the horizon it left a lovely glint on Foremarke Hall, which was being made ready for today's Santa sessions.

Lower and lower went the sun, until its orange gleam reached right into the shed.

This is what we are here for.

Human greasing

Today we went human greasing. We properly greased up 12 humans, and in between, a number of fishplates, why not. Boy, do you get black on this kind of work. How do you get it off your gear? It all has to go back in the boot of the car afterwards. What you want is a sort of pair of wooden laundry pincers with which to handle the greasy black items from a distance.

First, the pleasant things in life. Paul, with a smile !!! A legendary day, do download this amazing picture and paste it into your photo album. You may never see another....

The doughnuts were hot. Paul, bless him, had warmed them in the oven. They did not get the chance to cool very much.

Then, sad news: Stevie's dog Gypsy has died. Gypsy accompanied Stevie everywhere, and would sit in the cab of the JCB no matter what it did or where it went. After some years she found it difficult to jump up into the high cab, and instead she would sit in Stevie's van somewhere on site, waiting patiently for her master to return. Stevie left the door wide open but Gypsy preferred to sit in the passenger seat, all curled up. When she got bored, she ate the seat squab and in later years a ride in the van with Stevie meant that you sat in a deep hole in the foam rubber, your knees up under your chin.

Van No. 2 (after Van No.1 had died) was cunningly equipped with nylon seat covers, Gypsy was thwarted and had to find something else to eat.

After last week's total downpour we had brilliant day today, ideal for being out and about along our line. 12 of us resumed fishplate greasing at the start of Dixton cutting, while a small handful stayed behind and dealt with the scrap man.

Last week's skip, filled with 10 tons of scrap rail, was collected and replaced with a new empty one, which we also filled today to a similar level.

Picture by Jonathan, for which our thanks.

Twelve of us then loaded up all the gear (and there is a lot of it, it takes ages to load and unload) and repaired to the yard at Gotherington Skew Bridge, now mercifully emptied of the 7000 extension sleepers that were stored there over many years.

Oh-Oh, I do believe you didn't mean to do that...

We then drove down to Prescott Road bridge, where we turned the vehicles. Peter first tested the depth of the adjoining ditch but managed to extricate the new Landie from its overenthusiastic position. It is a four wheel drive after all, so Schadenfreude will be for another day.

Two TB2s, their wheels, a trolley, the pressurised greasing vessel and the compressor were unloaded at the start of the long Dixton cutting where we left off last time.

Then it was 'Wagons Roll' and we headed further south into the cutting.

Progress was reasonably measured, although the 'undo-ers' forged far ahead of the greasers and the 'do-er uppers' who trailed somewhat as they had to repeat every action in order to get the nuts really tight.

It was here on the greasing trolley that we got really sticky and black. After all, put a gallon of liquid black rail grease into a pressurised container and then squirt it out with a pistol, that's asking for sticky trouble, isn't it?

The grease also infected the short little jemmies were were using to prise the rails apart. Both ends (curved and straight) soon became sticky and black, and transferred their insistent little cargo over your sleeves as you turned the jemmy this way and that. You then touched a colleague with your sleeve, who sat in the Landie, someone else did too, it was like an infectious disease and it spread with lightening speed.

Here we are at mile post 15. Time for reflection, where are we in the great fishplate greasing venture? Broadway is mile post 5, and CRC mile post 19, so we have 4 miles to go here. We didn't really do 10 miles already, as the last 3 miles to Broadway are CWR track. We have done +/- 7 miles so far, with 4 to go, so we are two thirds of the way there. Roughly; there are two loops to do further south.

We plugged on after lunch and slowly emerged from the long Dixton cutting, pausing at Skew yard to let the 'do-er uppers' catch up. Love this fabulous scenery.

As the light began to fall around 3 o'clock we trundled over skew bridge.

At the same time ominous clouds began to form on the southern horizon, a wet end to a perfect PWay day out in the country.

It was at this bridge where we stopped for the day, a small bridge within sight of the private Gotherington station, just visible in the background.

Peter is just doing up the last bolt, then it's back to the Landies for loading and returning to Winchcombe yard at at early nightfall.



Monday in the loco shed.


You've seen that the galvanised steel sections are back, turned round in a matter of hours. Very impressive work. There are no fewer than three tons of steel for the footbridge steps.

With a bit of luck and a little bargaining we were in the end able to prise the £3000 out of the Finance Director's tightly clenched hands and ordered the remaining steel for the Broadway canopy extension.

Here it is being unloaded from the lorry. In the picture is a long section of 6 inch box section, enough for two uprights, which will support the new end of the canopy. They will be shaped at the bottom to resemble the cast originals.

After the box section, Neal collected another load of angle and some sundry items.

In this picture you can see 2 six metre sheets of steel and four angles of same length.

These together will make up two fascia boards.

The end truss is already complete and ready to go.

The arched ridge purlin is half done - it was initially too short, and we will now lengthen it to 6m, as opposed to the original 7.5m - that's as close as we can get under the current relationship between bridge and building.

If you imagine a 6m circulating area under the canopy extension, as long as the steel in the above picture, you can get an idea of the size of the canopy extension and the room that was designed to be under it for people to circulate. It was all lit by a large, six sided gas canopy lamp, funded by a generous supporter and currently with the designer, prior to manufacture for us.

Unloading the steel, and getting the 6m sections inside the shed took quite a while and we were relieved to be able to retreat to the warm mess coach for tea, and one of the prizes won at the Broadway team's Christmas dinner - a three foot length of Jaffa cakes ! We ate 18 inches of that....

Then, to work. We started on the canopy extension straight away. The delay in the return of 4270 may give us a few more weeks in the corner of the loco shed, we hope.

Here are the two 6m fascia board sheets, ready for de-rusting.

The next step was to paint one side in rust resistant primer.

While some of us scraped and painted, visitor Greg practised a little Zen on us before attacking the RAT exhibition coach (the one in the bay siding) with a refreshing coat of new paint.

Leaving the two fascia boards damp with paint, we retreated for lunch and returned, full of Jaffa cakes, a short while after to affix the first length of angle. This was tack welded on and will be drilled and riveted in a second stage.

There are 240 holes to be drilled for this item alone, we ascertained.

The first length of angle, on the left, is tacked on here. Neal and John are painting the second length, which will be tacked on with the paint still wet.

A bit hard to see in this final picture, but both angles are tacked on here. John is now applying a final coat of primer.

Next time, the fascia boards will be turned over and the other side will have the same treatment (de-rusting, painting, two lengths of angle tacked on.)

Then they can be drilled, prior to riveting.


We envisage assembly of the steps on site at Broadway at the beginning of next year, but a date has not yet been fixed.

Oh, and a historical snippet for you.

You may know that the cuttings on our 1904 line were excavated by a steam navvy, the precursor to today's diesel 360. They can be seen on early pictures of the yard at Winchcombe being dug out, as well as in the cutting leading to Greet tunnel.

A single working steam Navvy still exists, and you can see it working in this video:
https://youtu.be/paFaA2WKCGY

Note that it had a crew of three, including the fireman. The excavated spoil on our line was emptied into a train of wagons and taken to build embankments such as chicken curve, and at the other end of Greet tunnel, the long embankment through Gretton.

In early days such as at Tring cutting the soil was taken out of the cutting using horses that pulled wheelbarrows up a slope. How modern our line was!

Grease and steel

The 'Grease' bit of the title didn't happen. Once again it was cancelled due to heavy rain forecast.

It also has to be admitted that our spirits were a bit low as very few volunteers had arrived by the usual time, leading us to think we were going to be short. And yet, one by one they trickled in, although some seemed to have confused 08.30 with 09.30.

All things said and done, and seeing a huge scrap steel container on site, we decided to sort out the yard instead, while a small team went off to Gretton to replace the seized bolts discovered during the greasing session last week.

But first tea. Stevie had secured himself a place first in the queue, right next to the tea preparation area. He was there with newspaper on the table, a tabloid which he skimmed before announcing, with a sigh: 'What this country is doing wrong is....' We could only nod sagely.

Meanwhile Maitre d' Paul was sputtering in the background. He had an important announcement to make, of a very serious misdemeanour which could not go unanswered. Paul waited patiently until the very last volunteer had finally rolled up. The excuses were wide rangeing: The M5, a queue at Ashchurch, following a slow lorry, a warm bed...

Finally Paul stood up to announce the very important, serious misdemeanour: Last week, person or persons unknown had put an old pound coin into the tea fund! Threats of severe retribution followed, if only the perpetrator could be reliably identified. Sadly, he could not, leaving Paul fuming and a whole pound short.

You're probably wondering, why all this long written preamble, but sadly your blogger forgot his smartphone today, leaving it charging in the kitchen at home. Hence no photographs today, and a couple of missed calls too.

We tidied up the yard of useable, rotten and resaleable sleepers, and emptied 10 tons of scrap rail lengths into the skip. It was only a quarter full, but that was the most the skip lorry could lift, we were told. There is certainly room for another load.

At the end of the day we did a special trip to Toddington, to take the Usk weighbridge mechanism, basically a cast iron column and an arm, to the garden of a supporter. What he plans to do with it is not known, but due to its weight, we do not think it will be travelling a lot further.

Finally we had a look at the site of the new goods platform, where Stevie has spent Monday and Tuesday digging out a 30m trench for the new platform. Immediately that trench was filled with concrete, so that the site is now ready for the start of construction of the actual platform wall.

So that this Wednesday's report is not completely devoid of photographs (but see the Monday report on the footbridge steps below) here are three photographs from the Early GWSR section of the Railway Archiving Trust (Aka the RAT) that you might enjoy:

It's a PWay train (of course) parked in Toddington yard, loaded with ballast. Two volunteers are pouring something into the bonnet of the Fowler shunter at one end.

Note the signal post with a cross on, the grass covered yard access and fenced off running line, and early days at the NG narrow gauge, with California Crossing signal box visible.

Looking the other way, the unknown photographer climbed on board the Fowler and looked north:

Here we see the Dowty shed on the left and on the right the open end of the goods shed with a locomotive parked in it. Today that end is sealed off with concrete blocks, and indeed it will shortly receive an extension which will provide fixed welfare facilities (canteen, shower, toilets) in replacement to the very temporary facilities the loco guys have had to use for so many years.

Finally a look into the Dowty shed, at the time the railway's only loco shed, with one of the three class 14 Teddy Bears that were stabled with us at one time.

Can anyone guess the year the pictures were taken?  You'll have to work it out with the pictorial clues provided.

Next week more action pictures. Unless the smartphone hides in the kitchen again.


Footbridge steps

These were made ready for transport to the galvaniser's on Monday.

This took a surprisingly long time, all day in fact.

Six of the eight stringers were put on a large pallet just inside the loco shed, and then Neal wriggled them out through a door 3 inches too narrow to get them outside.

A new pallet was then fetched, on which we assembled the roof hoops and sundry bits.

After putting down the pallet with the six stringers, Neal fetched the second one with the roof hoops and took it round to the car park

We then fetched the last two stringers (making eight) and placed them on top of the first six parked on the deck outside the shed.

After some head scratching, we were able to play with our new toy, a strap fastening kit. In this way the whole caboodle was strapped down tight on to all the pallets we had, and one by one they were steered carefully down the narrow passage between goods and locomotive shed.

 This proved to be quite tricky, but Neal is a wizzard on the little fork lift and we got it all through.

Here is the whole footbridge steps kit, laid on the ground in the Toddington car park. It's going to be picked up on Wednesday, coming back nicely galvanised and protected from rust a week later.

There's a bit of pressure now to get them up, as the station drive and forecourt in Broadway are due to be graded and tarmaced in January.

After getting a modest green light from Finance, we immediately ordered the extra steel for the canopy extension. We eagerly awaited its delivery all Monday afternoon until it got dark, only to hear that the delivery had been cancelled at lunch time. D'oh ! A new delivery date of next Monday was agreed, so we hope we can show you some progress there in a week's time.

Broadway barrow crossing

Our mission today was to complete the barrow crossing at the southern end of the platforms at Broadway.

After a relatively quiet month with rather fewer trains, we are now back into the Santa Special season.
As we loaded up the Landies Dinmore Manor drifted by to pick up an ECS train from Winchcombe, and head off to CRC.
 

Once at Broadway, still in a persistent drizzle, we were delighted to find Stevie and a load of 4 rails which he had positioned the previous day, together with a mini digger.

That was us then, kitted up and ready to go.

The 4 rails had been sawn approximately to the right length, so that they were not too hard to manoeuvre through the gates and on to the Permaquip trolley waiting below.

The first plan, to access the site via the new car park, was rendered impossible by the resumption of work on the bellmouth. Hence plan B, access via the platform.

The work on the bellmouth is doing well, they look to be about halfway there. It's two weeks at this end, then two weeks at the other. Completion of works is scheduled for mid-January.

The Permaquip got the rails down to the end of the platform in fine style.

This rail weighs about half a ton, yet Diana managed to push it along just fine on her own.

Four of us managed to yank it off the trolley and drag it more or less to the place where it was wanted. Then it was time to measure up precisely.

Bert then jumped in with the disk cutter, and hacked off about a foot. Steve had also come down on the mini digger to help us lift it in, but we managed without. We're strong, see.

Four of us having lifted the rail into its gap on the P1 side, it was time to fit the fishplates.

Diana gives the finishing touch with a healthy helping of grease.

The bucket of grease looks dangerously close to her, it's fiendish how the grease always finds a way on to your clothing, even if you are definitively holding it at arm's length.

'There's no cake today'. - 'Noooooooooo'  - 'Just joking!'

Dave then tightened the bolts with the 'animal' and  that's one line of rail reinstated.

The second set of rails was somewhat heavier than the first and needed help from Steve and his mini digger.

They were dropped into the four foot and also cut to size. We did a lot of cutting today.

One last rail to go, the first two are being drilled.

We were somewhat surprised to find that the fishplate in the foreground didn't fit an existing pair of holes. It turned out that one pair had been drilled into the FB rail to a bullhead pattern!

A schoolboy clanger on the PWay gang.

Steve then set off for the second job for which the mini digger was hired in: lift the heavy rubber pads off the pile by the bridge on to the trolley and bring them to the crossing site.

A little train of mini digger (locomotive....) and Permaquip trolley then slowly made its way across the bridge.

On the left Dave is still drilling holes. There were a lot of these too today.

But all the rails are now in.

Here come the rubber pads, and the first one is already up in the air about to be fitted.

We fitted the first two in the middle - they close together like a pair of doors and lock each other in - and then we declared lunch time.

Lunch was taken al fresco under the Broadway canopy.

It seemed to us almost as if the tables had been set for us specially. With these bins with sloping tops, we felt like schoolboys behind a row of desks.

Wake up at the front there! Pay attention !

'Watch the board, while I go through it' (as the blogger's French teacher was wont to declare).

Others sat by the Ladies Room, or should that not be 'Laddies'?

On the way back to the barrow crossing, we noticed the BROADWAY running in board looking a bit sad. Letters in plywood delaminate in just 4 - 5 years. Luckily a replacement set exists, cast in Aluminium from genuine 12 inch examples.

Neil, Stevie and Alan share a joke after lunch. Soon the Santa DMU will stop here.

Dave then showed us a film from his day job flying biplanes for wingwalkers - thrilling stuff!

It involved a wingwalker holding a gift wrapped parcel for Christmas - on top of a Stearman up in the air.

Well, we're not coming to open that! We'll find ours under the tree, thank you.

With Stevie standing on the P2 pads already fitted, we lifted in the second pair on the P1 road. Now the replica BEWARE of TRAINS signs we had cast make sense.

Mid afternoon the whole thing was in. Well, it gets dark soon as well, we still have to go back to Winchcombe and tidy up all the tools.

The pink patch in the foreground? Well, that's what you get when you drop a half ton rail on to a tin of marker paint. Didn't half fizzle.

Here is the southern barrow crossing then, fully fitted with replacement rails (flatbottom where there were bullhead) and chairs (pan 11 instead of classic bullhead chairs). We also fitted another insulated fishplate.

To complete the crossing, it still needs an infill in concrete in the middle, an infill of ballast or similar beyond the end of the platforms, and a cover for the rodding and wire runs planted by S&T. All perfectly do-able.

An area has also been marked up by Neal for a trench to be dug by the bottom of the footbridge steps. This was due to be excavated today, but was deferred due to lack of time.
Footbridge steps

With an imminent collection by the galvanising company, there was some last minute fettling of the roof hoops on Friday. We spent some time discussing the logistics of the collection, and a telephone call to agree how and when (in fact Wednesday of next week).

Hmmmmmmm.....

With the steelwork for the steps complete, we turned our attention to the existing canopy extension items, which have been parked next to the goods shed since it was discovered that the builder's design was far shorter than they used to be.

Originally the canopy overhang, we discovered, was simply another ridge purlin length of 7.50m. The final length of purlin called for by the design however was just 4.00m, leading to a very small circulating area under cover. Such a shame, and not at all original.




Neal has developed an amended design, which was approved by our structural engineer. It will provide a longer canopy overhang, up to the limit of what is possible, given the position mismatch between the building and the footbridge.
To handle the greater length, the ridge purlin here will be stretched by 2.00m to 6m, the best we can do given the situation with which we have been presented.

The rainbow is pointing to the scrap bin, maybe that is where we will find the extra length?

Neal has the big angle grinder out, to cut the 4.00m ridge purlin in half. All of it will be used again, but it will be longer.

It didn't take Neal long to cut the arch. The angles at the top were simply unbolted, as this construction hadn't been riveted yet.

All the pieces were taken inside for refurbishment after a year in the rain, and new lengths of angle found for the insertion into the middle

The fascia board we have also needs stretching, but this truss is ready to go.

After a bit of negotiation and cajoling, we have after all received agreement to purchase the remaining steel for the canopy extension, which is excellent news. This means we can make a start immediately, in the last month that we are still allocated room in the loco shed. Good news !