It's all happening at Winchcombe

Lots of jobs going on today, the gang was active in several different locations, mostly indoor ones, as it was raining heavily.

Interesting is the recovery of 4 high spearhead fencing panels from Cheltenham. They were straightened by C&W (recovered spearhead fencing panels are almost never straight) and then cleaned up by the B&S gang. Some were cleaned indoors...

...while others were cleaned outdoors, but under shelter.

It's a slow job getting all the rust off. Austen and Jim attacked this one in the car port, and they even got a coat of primer on after lunch. In the workshop Bruce was making some new wooden gates for Winchcombe station.

Mike touched up the paintwork applied last week in the training room in the visitor centre. The floor covering goes down next week.

The downstairs room has received its floor covering, but will upstairs have the same?

Mike also varnished the door to the training room upstairs. You can see the round window at the back to give you an idea of where that is.

Out by the forecourt the anti dog fouling fence is nearing completion. The vertical posts still need to be trimmed, and a layer of concrete will be provided below the fence panels.

A similar run of fencing is needed up the steps by the new building, but the day was really too wet to do this. The gang got soaked just by simply removing the protective fence panels that were there. Enough already !

A major advance at Winchcombe is the start by a contractor of the new concrete roadway through the Cotswolds side of the site. This has been a potholed quagmire for years.

The station end of the Winchcombe site lies in a shallow cutting, and it therefore attracts rainwater  naturally, which then drains only slowly. This concrete roadway will stop the rutting and potholing, and the large puddles of water which always accumulate.

There's a fair bit of traffic down the site. S&T, the drainage dept., C&W and the PWay yard are all reached by this roadway, sometimes by large and heavy lorries.

Eventually the whole of the yard to the left of the picture will be redesigned, but first of all it has to be cleared. This process has started, but patience is needed.




In the afternoon 3 B&S gang members went to Broadway, where the group have undertaken to lay the original granite kerbs by the forecourt in front of the building

This one here is a large 6ft long example that was rescued from tipping at Broadway. It was collected last week and will now be reused in its original position. That's railway restoration! On the right BTW is one of the original stone blocks that supported the 1904 canopy at Broadway. Today the canopy sits on a hidden steel frame inside the walls of the building.

Seven more granite kerbs were dug up at Broadway recently, and these too will be re-used, together with a complement from a reclamation yard. The B&S gang spent a happy afternoon, in less rain, pressure washing the seven that were recently recovered. They ended up just as wet though. Laying of the kerbs will start in earnest next Saturday, weather permitting.

A roundup, and a trip to Broadway

News from Building Services has been a bit intermittent since Christmas, as a dose of the deadly 'Man Flu' has hit your correspondent.

Yesterday he was back in action, playing catch up, and here is what B&S have been up to.

Last Wednesday the wall by the Winchcombe weighbridge was being rebuilt, using pink mortar and bull nosed headers. It has been raised by 3 courses.

It's a shot from a passing Landie, but it counts.

Yesterday, a week later, the job was done. Doesn't it look neat, and authentic? Remember that previously the top of this wall was a rotten sleeper, which held up the neighbour's garden.

The door to the weighbridge was also refitted, after painting, and the job is now completed.




An amazing 11 volunteers turned up yesterday. It must be all the publicity they are getting via this blog, or perhaps it's because the days are finally getting longer again.

Three teams were about the railway.

 Team 1 was in the apex of the visitor centre, giving the walls in this roof space a final coat of paint.

The interior of this building will be quite modern and there is no attempt to make it look like an old railway building on the inside.

Upstairs will be a study centre.

The walls have been finished now.

This Saturday the gloss paint on the woodwork should be done, and then the floor will be covered.

The gang will then return and fit cupboards and shelves to the right hand side of the windows.

Team 2 was out in the Winchcombe car park, completing the anti dog fouling fence behind the toilet block. Back in B&S headuarters, Pat was beavering away making a final fence panel for this stretch.

At the top of the steps next to the new building the gang then excavated a hole to hold a fence post, which will support the modified gate that is going to be located here.

While at Toddington with the third gang there was an opportunity to photograph the frames of 76077 being shotblasted in a specially erected tent in the car park.

A quick look at the signal box, surrounded by scaffolding is also of interest.

We learned that the roof covering is being replaced by a contractor, and the windows will also be replaced, but later in spring when the weather is milder. This can be done without scaffolding.

The real reason for the trip to Toddington was to pick up a pile of granite kerbs that has been in storage in a corner there. These will be used in Broadway to construct an authentic forecourt pavement outside the new station building there.

The eagle eyes of the heritage group even spotted a single kerbstone by the goods shed, hidden under the green fascia board lying on the ground here. That was collected as well. We hope to have about 50m of granite kerbing at Broadway, which will give a softer, more period look than modern concrete.







The original Broadway kerbstones were in fact still in place, but buried by demolition rubble and a raised forecourt area.

Those that were found during the excavation of the building foundations were at first jettisoned, but later recovered and transported to Winchcombe, from which the Fairview lorry recovered them today.

 At Broadway the kerbstones were lifted off the Fairview lorry....

.... and stacked at the top of the drive, ready for laying. This is expected to start on Saturday, to create a footpath from the bottom of the drive up to the wall of the B&B. Concrete kerbs are being used along the drive.

Steve with his JCB passed by to dig a shallow trench for the granite ones along the side of the building.

The number of kerbstones recovered from Broadway and Toddington will not be enough to cover the full length of the building, and a complement has been sourced and ordered from a reclamation yard.

The footpath alongside the building by the forecourt will be paved in 3 x 2 foot slabs, as original, and as evidenced by a photograph we have found showing the situation before demolition.

The fence goes up

With the snow gone again the B&S gang leapt back into action at Winchcombe. Time to attack that anti dog fouling fence!

Hey! I can hardly bend over here. Stop pushing!

There were 6 in the gang today, although Pete wasn't always there as he was in high level discussions about some support that might be provided to another project - watch this space!

The ground at Winchcombe is now nice and soft, so it's a good time to get in those posts.

The temporary fencing they put up to give themselves some space is not working that well. The car owners are fighting (pushing) back.

With the first couple of posts in the first fence panel manufactured by Pat can be trial fitted.

What do you think?

The tops of the posts will be cut off once the concrete has set.

Planting the posts slowed down a little when not all of the ground proved to be nice and soft - the Kango hammer had to come out to achieve a satisfactory depth.

Then you give the bottom of the hole a thorough poking with a bar.

Next to the fencing job, B&S are called up to please help with all sorts of other jobs. Can they decorate upstairs in the Elf centre? Can they also put up one side of the shelving there? It seems that a couple of interested parties already want to use the facility, and they are not going to wait forever.

After his high level discussions, Pete did manage to make a start on laying bricks to raise the neighbour's wall by the weighbridge. The bricks were very wet, so progress was a bit slow here. Patience, he'll get there. Mick painted one side of the weighbridge door and then got a coat of undercoat on the other, before joining the fencing gang in the car park. Here the painting required was in creosote.

During the day a total of six panels and their posts were installed, with the first one also creosoted.

They intend to put a 2 inch layer of concrete along the bottom, in that strip where the mower can't go.

This is the end of the day shot. Just three more to go until the corner. The photographer did ask for one of the other gang members to take a picture of him at work (he doesn't just stand around, this is a view that he wishes to dispel most firmly) but in the excitement the snapshot came out blurred. So no picture of Jim today.

The gang is now taking a week's holiday, then it's back to work on the third of January.

 

A job in the dry

A job in the dry, and helping out a friendly neighbour - what's not to like? The main activity yesterday took place in the carriage and wagon shed. Nice and warm and dry in there.

First of all, an apology for the fuzzy quality of the photographs today. This was caused by a young smartphone in old hands, leading to some out of focus imagery in low light. Bear with us! We will do better.

The main job there was to lay a level concrete floor over a redundant drain cover, in the C&W 'barn' end at Winchcombe. The drain is in the foreground, filled in. The concrete looks thick - several gang members poke it with a crowbar.

Professional poking with a crowbar determined that this was a much bigger job than the initial sales pitch (isn't it always like that?).

In order to achieve a level floor, including the area of the redundant drain, the gang had to dig out a much larger area of approx 12ft by 10ft, so quite a substantial are of concrete to get out. And the concrete was up to 7 inches thick too.

A number of cuts were made in the concrete with a large angle grinder, and the squares were then broken out with a Kango hammer.

It was decided to split the job into two, by first laying a strip of concrete as a path along the rail to the door in the connecting shutter. This then needed to set before continuing with the rest of the excavation.

In the picture the path is ready to be infilled with fresh concrete.

This picture shows better what the idea was - the new strip of concrete is in the foreground, while behind the old drain has been part covered, waiting for the rest of the area to be broken out. This was done by a late lunch time, so that the new concrete could settle down while tea and sandwiches were consumed.

The concrete that was broken out was barrowed 100yds over to the B&S shed site beyond the new ballast store. Good hardcore for someone.

Later on new concrete mixed at the same site was barrowed back in the other direction into the C&W 'barn'.

After lunch the rest of the concrete was broken out.

Meanwhile, back in the B&S shed Mike was working on the weighbridge house door.

He scraped off all the old paint, then applied primer and in the photograph he is just putting on a brown undercoat.

The gates have had another coat of gloss. Just one more coat on the other side to go now.

For these gates, two new posts have been delivered. They certainly look thick enough, just the business.

Now someone has to dig them in.

A third splinter group consisting of Jim and Austen, also at Winchcombe, continued digging holes for the fencing uprights. These are for the new anti dog fence at the bottom of the grassy slope.

A bit more Winchcombe history:

Another 1905 photograph, this time looking the other way from the new road bridge by the station, towards Greet tunnel:

It shows very clearly how our railway, one of the most recent and last built in the UK, was advanced with modern methods. There are still navvies here, but they are now steam navvies. Two of them can be seen digging their way along the new cutting towards the future northern portal of Greet tunnel.

 

The steam navvies had 4 small wheels with double rims that rolled along temporary track that could be taken up behind and laid down again in front as the workface progressed. The excavated spoil was dropped into very basic wagons with dumb buffers, which were drawn along temporary contractor's track with closely spaced sleepers, either by a horse, or by one of the contractor's little 0-6-0s.

The upper of the 2 navvies has a new stretch of contractor's line next to it, with a trolley at the end. According to Audie Baker in his book on our railway's history this line served the two shafts along the tunnel, out of which excavated martial could be evacuated, to be replaced by bricks brought in for the lining. It looks like the new line is to be extended to (or has been liften from) the cutting side in the foreground - there is a row of closely spaced sleepers this side of the trolley on the end.

In the construction of the famous Tring cutting this sort of scene would have featured only human labour, with wheelbarrow ways leading vertically up the slope and a horse at the top to pull.

Fencing today

Fencing was a common thread on Wednesday.

Here is Pat making up new panels in the B&S shed at Winchcombe. These panels are for the anti dog fouling fence by the Winchcombe car park:

This is where it's going to go.

Three members of the B&S gang are digging out the fence line along the kerbs. The earth was barrowed to the end of the platform.

Two others went to Broadway to deliver some temporary fence posts and blue rope. These are to strengthen the Heras fence along the 'car park' footpath, still in place after the completion of the embankment works. It has a habit of falling over in strong winds (which we have had).

Pete D then went to Cheltenham with two others to fine tune the new footpath with additional ballast and sand. He hired in a "whacker packer" to consolidate the ground, and he will be getting a quote for tarmac within the next few days.

In the workshop the former Broadway station drive gates Barry shortened were being glossed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also in the workshop, Barry could also be seen making a prototype wooden box cover to hide the rather hideous yellow pastic salt containers on the platform. This is a simple measure that quickly hides some of the non GWR items that can accumulate if you don't keep a watchful eye. Our selling point after all is a historic GWR railway experience.

 

On the right you can see the granite setts laid at the end of the visitor centre. They just need grouting now. This is also a nice historical touch, an excellent idea.

 

 A bit of Winchcombe history:

A bit of 'Early GWSR' history for you, from Ivor Dixon's collection of early days photographs, which we will shortly publish on Flickr - there are over 100 to upload. This one is a taster for you, as it has Winchcombe relevance. It's a view of the yard, taken from the middle +/- where Hall's yard is today (we sold half of the goods yard years ago). 

 

The two buildings on the right at the back are interesting - are they still there today? Is that the B&S headquarters?

 

Ivor took the photograph on the 29th of April 1983, before the railway had even started running, and certainly before there were any rails at Winchcombe.

Even longer ago:

This is Winchcombe in the autumn of 1904. Apologies for the poor quality, but such originals often hang on the wall of a musty room, and they don't get any fresher. At least this one is now scanned in.

The picture was taken just on the tunnel side of Greet Road bridge. The new railway built bridge is being put up top right, while behind it you can just make out a temporary one to allow road traffic to continue while contractor's trains are at work underneath.

Most of the cutting up to the tunnel was excavated by big steam navvies, but there were places too delicate for them to work, and then human navvies had to finish the job, such as here. The clay is being excavated by picks and shovels, and is being thrown into short wagons which were then hauled by little contractor's steam locos to embankments were the spoil was needed. From here the most likely destination would have been Chicken Curve. The Wagons have simple dumb buffers of wood, and chains to pull them. The track consists of lightweight flat bottomed rail on half round sleepers - you can't get more basic than that.

Think about these hard working men, as you trundle in your train through the cutting and into the tunnel. They made it possible.

 

Two gangs today

Your correspondent Jim was sent to Coventry today (er, does that mean Cheltenham Race Course?) where he joined a small but happy gang preparing the new path from platform 1 down to the level crossing.

The recently fitted gates on P2 needed adjusting first, and then the next job was to replace a short section of fencing along P1, which we can see Barry doing here.


A gate restraint was also fitted to the field side.

The next job was to prepare the path down to the crossing so that it could be tarmaced.

The edging timber needed completing along the path, and in this picture you can see Jim cutting a straight edge so that the new tarmac can join the old in a seamless fashion.

The old footpath then had to be dug out and levelled ready for the new tarmac. As it was a bit reluctant to give up its rocks and stone a Kango had to be used to prise out the hard bits. The two ends of the path were then filled with 2 dumpy bags of stone, as can be seen in the pictures below.

These two pictures show the CRC job at the end of the day. Once tarmaced, people can use the two paths each end of the platforms to go from one to the other via the level crossing.

Meanwhile, back at the farm....

Three other B&S members continued work on the weighbridge house. All walls and the ceiling are now painted, as well as further parts of the windows, which were also sealed where required.

The neighbour got a new trellis in the back garden too.

Some rotten wood was removed from the door frame. To do this, Pete had to remove a number of bricks, which he can be seen doing here. He put them all back in again too.

 

Apologies for the blurred image, it's the excitement, it's the excitement.

Here's that length of turf which some visitors misidentify as a dog toilet. You can see where the new fence is going to go, along the kerb. To get the fence posts into the ground you need the Kango to take out some of the concrete, and this was in use at CRC (as you know) so that's a job for next time.

On Saturday a start was also made on the granite setts by the visitor centre.

Down on platform 1, lengthened earlier in the year, the additional lamp post - a replica GWR casting which you can order from us via breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk - is finally fitted out completely. It has been painted in the later GWR period chocolate and cream, and received a new top with lightbulb. Does it work? You'll have to come round one evening and look.

Finally we caught three of the B&S gang having a convivial tea break by the Coffeepot.

Coffepot closed? No matter, we'll have just as much fun on the platform. Here's a big 'Hello' to you from Pete and 2 of the gang. Let's see what adventures they had next time.