Men in boots

Today was the day a big lorry load of concrete came.

The path from roadway to barrow crossing is a wide one and too big to be filled with hand mixed concrete (even with Jim shovelling!) so a lorry load was ordered.

Now you can see the reason for the boots, you have to get stuck right in there and get them dirty.

The lorry came just as they were about to have their coffee, so Mike was dispatched to get some on a tray and in this way the main gang could carry on with the raking.

The gang made good progress, aided by a special hole left for Austen to stand in and continue tamping.

The end was soon reached, and a very neat job it looks too.

At the close of play it was all in. The temptation to leave a Hollywood style handprint was resisted by yours truly, but it needed a lot of willpower. Somebody had also thought ahead, and brought a sleeved notice prohibiting those very same naughty thoughts.

 

 

While the concrete pour was going on, work continued behind the scenes on these post 1935 'shirt button' period bench ends.

Ken was creosoting again, and why not from the comfort of a garden chair?

At the back of the signal box this cable pit was investigated by Vaughan. It looked a little unfinished.

It was decided to give the pit an extra course of bricks, so that a lid could be fitted.

All that is needed now is to trim the result, and fit the lids next week.

Pete has gone off on a long 3 week holiday, but the gang won't be idle, as he has left a long list of jobs for the others to sort out. Penalties for those not yet done when he returns were not made public...

The paths continue

A good nine volunteers today on a glorious, sunny day which made it a real pleasure to work at Winchcombe.

There were several different activities, the first of which was to barrow 20 of the newly collected slabs over to platform 2. Here Jim has received the go ahead to use the crossing. Note the immaculate covered GWR van in the background.

The 20 slabs were stacked on the other side for the time being, and are destined for a new path to the water treatment plant.

Back in the shed, Ken was busy repairing the concrete mixer, which was needed urgently to make the mix to finish off the path to the back end of the C&W workshop.









Jim was on the mixer then, off camera as the latter was firmly in his back pocket as he shoveled away.

Phil then tipped the result into the last panel of the rather complicated path to the C&W shed rear door.
It's a tricky manoeuvre to get the 100kg barrow up in the air, changing over from pulling at the handles to pushing, while the front wheel is trying to roll away with the load all the time.

Barry adjusting the gate catch to compensate for a slight drop

Phil tips the first load into the last panel

 

 Finally, when the last panel had been filled in, Austen and Phil leveled it off to a perfect finish.

And there we have it - job finished. Now to test the three planes with a marble, to see if it rolls from the road straight in through the door.

Next - the shuttering and reinforcement matting for the road to the barrow crossing.

It took quite a long time to get the shuttering correctly dug in to the right level, what with all the stones embedded in the ground.

It doesn't help if your colleagues keep running over it with heavy barrows either.

All finished.

Vaughan puts down the reinforcing mats.

At the end of the day the path to the barrow crossing was ready to receive the Readymix lorry.

Also not forgetting Mike on fence painting - why not in comfort - and also some initial preparation was undertaken to fit covers to a cable pit at the rear of the signal box (top of picture).

Lastly, a start was made on a footpath to run between the C&W shed and the new roadway.

The reward for the day was coffee under the canopy in front of the coffeepot.

Have you all got a platform ticket?

We noticed a very similar picture here showing the PWay gang - there is clearly something very attractive about a sociable chat here on a hot day.

Particularly when you can watch the blue King here glide in majestically. Just a few more days now, catch him quick !

Work on the paths

Despite an inauspicious start to the day weather-wise, the team did well and work on the concrete footpaths was further advanced. Ken also spent the day creosoting the fence between the SB and the end of the C&W building.

Phil, Martyn and Jim worked on the path leading to the end door of the C&W building, while Vince and Pete tackled the larger area which leads to the barrow crossing.

Here you can see them making a start on the shuttering on the path leading to the carpenter's workshop in C&W.

A few yards away similar shuttering was being paced on the wider path leading from the roadway to the barrow crossing.

The shuttering on the wider path from the roadway needed a lot more digging out, by hand this week as the mini digger had returned to base. It was very laborious, and care had to be taken not to damage a duct that crossed the site.

Eventually the C&W team were ready for the first load of concrete, which was mixed in-house of course, some distance away. It was decided to pour the concrete in three separate sections, as there are three separate gradients involved. Complicated, but not beyond the team's skills.

Installing the last piece of shuttering by the roadway.

The second section is filled in with concrete.

While a remainder is poured into the final section (to be completed next week) the second section is finished off to give a nice level edge.

All this time Jim H was on the mixer and then ferrying concrete around, so was unseen, behind the scenes as it were. Concrete and cameras don't really mix.

On the newly excavated section from the roadway to the barrow crossing Pete checks the shuttering for level on the LH side.

Not a lot to see here, but it's the path leading to the carpenters' workshop, with two out of the three sections filled with concrete, and covered over at the end of the day. A further session of rain in the afternoon did not help.

When the concreting has been done on this bit of connecting path the intention is to lay a smaller pathway of 2x2 slabs to connect the toilets with the roadway.

After last week's start on retrieving the 2x2 slabs, another two trips were made yesterday.

John and Barry went back to Bidford, where they met Jim No.2, and together they collected another 70 slabs over the two trips.

Here is a picture of them being unloaded after arrival at Winchcombe.

The slabs were unloaded by the B&S shed and carefully stacked.

One more trip next week should see the conclusion of this very useful recovery exercise.

 

While all this was going on, Jim H had a few moments to snap the trains passing through Winchcombe yesterday. This one shows P&O just collecting the token from the signalman.

Just before that, our guest loco 70013 Oliver Cromwell drifted into the station, to wait for the crossing train headed by P&O to arrive.

Large and small slabs

Under brilliant sunshine the gang continued with two tasks today.

Firstly, the concrete paths leading from the new road.

Last week a start was made on digging out the route to the barrow crossing. The next bit, to the actual road, is rather larger, so Adam was hired in with the mini digger. We see him here just getting going, the width of the path having been marked out in yellow.

With powered means it wasn't too long before the heavily compacted surface was broken and dug out.

In the background thoughts are being addressed to filling in last week's dig with actual concrete.

A view from the barrow crossing end, as Adam has manoeuvered on to the road for the final bit of excavating.


In the foreground shuttering has been put up round the first five feet, ready for filling in from a rather distant concrete mixing area, by the B&S shed.

B&S made themselves a nice sand and ballast storage area at the back end of their shed, and you see them here shoveling large quantities of ballast into the trusty little mixer, ready for barrowing over to the crossing. Mike is 'Maitre d' mixer'. Shorts were de rigeur on this hot day of course.

Next to Mike, Jim H was on the barrow run, while Pete was on the receiving end here, and tamped down each barrow load.

With Jim behind the camera, Mike on the mixer and Pete deciding to reveal his presence only with the end of a rake, it looks as if there is nobody there. Not so.

Ah, here is Pete, now rakeless, finishing off the surface of the first 5 feet cast into place.

The next bit is in the foreground, now fully dug out.

They then decided to call lunch, and let the mix go off a bit.

This is what the new bit looked like when seen along the fence line, looking towards Toddington and along the signal box.

Let's hope no one walks across it until it's dry. That's a busy barrow crossing otherwise, it's even had 6 ton dumpers over it when the ballast was renewed between the platforms.

A start was also made on concreting in the final section by the painting shed delivery door.

An overview at the end of the day. The front bit is now dug out, and the five feet nearest the crossing freshly concreted in, with a barrier on it to deter anyone with commemorative footprints in mind. (or handprints, as in Hollywood)

A somewhat unseen but nonetheless essential activity exercised by Mike, John and Jim (2) was the collection of a big pile of 2x2 ft slabs from an address in Bidford.

They went twice, collecting 70 slabs in total over the two runs with the truck. Amazingly, there are still plenty more to collect - that will  have to be another day.

These slabs come up from time to time, but not always when you want them, so when an opportunity presents itself, you have to jump to it. Many slabs for Broadway were collected like this over several years, and all used up there, lastly from a garden in nearby Alderton.

During the day, the whole gang stood back to admire our gala visitor S160 No. 5197 as it rumbled through Winchcombe several times.

Jim reports that approximately 2120 of these beasts were built by several firms in the USA for the war effort (this one by LIMA in 1945), and there are 8 surviving in the UK alone.

More work on the paths

With our usual B&S reporter held back by by grandparent duties, it was up to your PWay blogger between jobs to snatch a few photographs of the busy bees at Winchcombe.

A second gang had formed to start digging out the foundations for a concrete walkway to the level crossing.

The yard car park is much in demand these days, certainly noticed when the PWay Telehandler tried to get through the parked cars with forkfuls of concrete sleepers.

Did your car have a large dent in its roof?



Access to B&S's site today however was reserved using these plastic barriers.

Again the ground was so hard they had to use an SDS drill to get into it.

The material was then further loosened with a mattock, just off to the right of the picture.

Pete shoveled it into the wheelbarrow, on the left. Yep, the whole action is on this picture. No, it's not a pose, they really did work this hard.

When the first hole was (thought to be) big enough, they measured it just to be sure.

Is that 5 feet, or shall we have six?

Ahead is the Santa bay, at the moment filled with some rather attractive and freshly repainted goods vehicles.

Meanwhile, down by the other hole.... an interesting panel of concrete was being readied here. It slopes down to the back door of the paint shop. On a different slope altogether is the slope down from the road - where they meet it should be an interesting transition.

Here they are busy excavating the last bits from the hole started last week, and fitting the first bit of concrete shuttering.

'When is the concrete lorry coming then', we asked.

'There's no concrete lorry, we are mixing the concrete ourselves'.

And true enough, it was all mixed and barrowed in by hand, brave lot.

'Where are you going with that plank, Pete?'      'I'm off to make a film....'

The concrete was being barrowed over to here.

The path to the Gents has been blocked off with a barrier. Miscreants will be identified by their boot marks in the wet concrete, you have been warned !

Here the first section, that interesting slope, is almost complete. Just a few more shovel fulls to fill some shallow gaps are being applied.

A little overview here, to locate all those little bits of paths to various doors. Last week the two paths on the far right were laid, to the main door and an emergency exit. The new concrete paths were immediately tested on Wednesday with - an emergency exit. Just like the days of Red Robbo - everybody out!
Last of all a spaceman rushed out - it was our very own Eddy, dressed in a rather intimidating dust mask. Hot teas no doubt left standing, to slowly get cold....

The guys haven't finished yet. Next week they will complete the bit from the door here to the roadway. It seems the double doors in the picture are used for the delivery of heavy materials to C&W on some sort of trolley, which prefers a nice smooth surface. Your wish is our command.

Next, a footpath alongside the roadway is being contemplated. Watch this space.