Six in action

Six members of the C&M gang were in action at CRC again on Wednesday, as they continued with the concreting of the gate posts. They also managed to fix a second fence post.

On arrival in the company Transit John, Rob and Jim M set up the concrete mixing station.

The concrete will be used to complete the foundations of the two cast iron gate posts.

With all the wet weather we've been having - Wednesday, exceptionally, was a dry day for once - the gang had to pump out the water first that had collected at the bottom of the two posts.

This is post No. 1 after removal of the rain water.

The second post wasn't too bad, with just a puddle in the corner.

Signed by:

Nice and smooth

After filling in with concrete, post No. 1 was completed and Rob trowelled the surface smooth. It was then too tempting not to write something on top!

A start was then made on the second post, with concrete filled in to the top.

Rob did a nice fine smoothing off job on the second post base as well. In the background you can see the new race course stand.









 

Postcrete is added to the foundation

John & Pete line up the second fence post

Meanwhile, John and Pete were working on the second of the posts that will hold up the fence panels.

The gang also moved the Heras fencing in preparation for augering the fence post holes heading towards the barrow crossing at the SB.  Mike R did some grass trimming along the fence post line and also applied primer to the post brackets and fence panels where this had been missed while they were stored at Winchcombe.

Both posts

First a shot in the workshop of Mike painting the frame for a new door made by Barry for the storeroom on P2 at Toddington.

Here is the door painted up.









Again most of the action out on the road was at Cheltenham with a team concreting the holes around the two gate posts. 

A start was also made on welding four brackets to each of the posts which will support the large and very heavy fence panels which will run outwards from the gates.

The two pictures above show Mike welding the brackets on to one of the fence posts.

Here is the first fence post installed, complete with 4 brackets (in the background, behind the gate post in the foreground)

Post No. 2 with concrete.

Post 1 has shuttering in place and the concrete is being tamped.

 

 

Rob was on tamping duty, and you see him here on post No. 1 and on the right with post No.  2. 

Soon we will be able to hang the actual fencing panels.

Post scriptum:

Three more pictures have become available of the day:

The top one shows the entire team in action at CRC, while the other two show the concrete poured into the feet of the two cast iron posts from Broadway.

New Post (2)

First of all, news from Tyseley, where the edging stones recently acquired and re-palleted have now been collected.

As Tyseley were kind enough to offer to load them with their own fork lift, we saved some money on the transport costs by hiring a simple curtain sider lorry, rather than a flatbed with a HIAB.

And there he goes - Vic Haines, all loaded up.

We have used this Pershore company before at Broadway and are very pleased with the service.






Now back to Cheltenham, or rather, first to Winchcombe where the gang loaded up.

These tall fence panels need taking down to CRC, and are very heavy to lift. Luckily we have a Telehandler at Winchcombe, and it keeps itself very busy too. First these fence panels, then moving the stone on the Usk building, then blocks for the wall, a cement pallet into the hut, a point timber out of a hole and finally the sleepers on the stop block.

Here's the gang busy strapping down the first load.

Later they came back for a second one, borrowing the Telehandler driver from his activities with the Usketeers on the other side.

Once safely arrived at the north end of CRC, Pete unloaded the panels one by one with a mini digger. There were 9 of them in total, in the two loads.

Here's Pete with the last but one, which he is stacking in a pile close to where they will be installed. It looks as if the underside still needs a bit of topcoat though.

Last week the gang planted post No.1 and this week it was the turn of post No.2. Pete is making a start here with the mini digger by the second post hole.

The posts are made of a rather fragile cast iron, so they are not only heavy but this second one also needed repair at the base, which was broken off at Broadway, in situ, by some lorry hitting it a considerable time ago. It was already broken when it was dug up by the Broadway gang.

The post is safely lifted in here, a bit of a relief all round. You can see that at the bottom a sort of 'boot' of steel has been added to it to repair the breakage.

These posts are precious GWR heritage items and not something you can just go out and buy.

Here's post No.2 in the hole, placed over the 4 bolts but without the retaining nuts so far.

A little shuttering was then placed around it so that the bottom of the post could be grouted in.

This picture shows the foot of post No. 1 (without the boot)

Post No. 2 also got the shuttering, as well as some grout. Unfortunately the gang hadn't brought enough, so only one of the two posts got the grouting.

Finally Pete fixed the cast iron cap back on to the posts, so that they have their original look again.

Next week should see some serious concreting activity as a start is going to be made to fill in these two very large holes.



Post Scriptum:

 A last minute pair of photographs at the day's end shows the two posts fully grouted in:

Pete managed to get more grout and returned to CRC before knocking off time, so both posts are now ready for back filling.

New post (1)

Two little setbacks to report: Last week the pictures taken were unfortunately lost, as the camera card proved unreadable once back home, hence no report. Sadly the lifting in of the first post, which was quite an event, was lost to posterity, but the post is in now, anyway.

Secondly it was a lousy day, weatherwise, at CRC on Wednesday, but the team such as it was did move on ahead.

We can show you two pictures of the first post now in the ground and bolted up.

Some of the Team were delayed by attending a Personal Track Safety Course first thing, but the two pictures above show how the post and its base were on arrival late morning on Wednesday.




It was too wet to grout the base for post 1 on Wednesday, so most of the time was taken up with removing the template for post 2 and tidying up the bolts for same. 

This picture shows the foundation ready for fitting post 2, hopefully next week.

Last week the team also finished lifting and re-laying the slabs under the second bench to avoid the ponding problem. You can see the bench in its slightly higher position in the picture above.

Finally the Team did further preparatory work enlarging the holes and sorting out the levels for the first two fence posts which will go in towards the platform.  They also had a good tidy up and loaded up a lot of spoil to take back to Winchcombe. 

 

This picture shows the team in action: Austen, Rob, Jim M, and Pete, with Jim H behind the camera.

On Thursday members of the C&M team are off to Tyseley to load the large blue bricks that we have purchased. These would be suitable for topping off the pit of the turntable that is planned.  We should be able to show a picture of that little operation in next week's blog post.

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.