A sunny day in Cheltenham

Following on from last week the Saturday Gang mixed and poured concrete around the template and over the securing bolts for the two gateposts at Cheltenham Race Course.  

 

 

The two photographs above show how this had gone off at the start of Wednesday.

Pete about to lay a slab back on new sand.

The last slab about to go back in.

 

A start had also been made on relaying the slabs under one of the platform benches on P1, also at Cheltenham.  The photograph on the left shows where this had got to on Saturday.  The reason for relaying these slabs is to lift them up by about 30 mm so water doesn't settle under the bench.  We have two to do on P1.

 

 

The heat of the day was illustrated by the first train of the day, pulled by 4270, which set fire to some brush in the four foot by the water tower.

 

Jim H was pressed into action to douse this with water. While the sleepers are concrete ones, there are plastic clips which can be damaged by such fires, so it's best to put them out asap. 

Behind the dashing firefighting action the slab laying continued unabated, and here we can see the pad for the bench back in place, now the necessary 30mm higher.

John tidies the site up after the tarmac had been tamped down.

And here's the job completed. One raised bench, if you please. Another neat job, signed off by our C&M department.

Note that our friendly on train catering representative jumped out to give it a once over, before it was tested by our neatly uniformed colleagues.

The small team of four then continued with preparing the holes for the two gate posts at the northern end of P2. You can see the two posts lying in the grass in the picture.

Rob here checked the template for the first post, before it was removed ready for the post to be be fitted.

Template removed showing the fixing bolts in position

Mounting plate in situ on the fixing bolts

On Saturday we will be in a position where we can make a start on relaying the second bench slabs, and hopefully set up the template for the second gate post.  Then on Wednesday we hope to lift in the first gate post subject to a mini digger being available.