More concrete

Nine people out and about yesterday, a lovely sunny day and great weather in which to lay concrete.

First of all, the two paths excavated last week were filled in on Saturday:

Path to fire door

Path to main entrance

So now you can have dry and above all clean feet walking from the main roadway right into the building. That will be appreciated next winter, and people will soon forget what a mudbath it used to be here next to the C&W shed.

Then we had Bruce and Pat replacing the wooden picket fence from the visitor centre, past the signal box and to the corner of the C&W building.

While this was happening at Winchcombe, a detachment of 3 went to Broadway in the Transit to collect a pile of Scaffolding boards. This pile used to live in the cafe, which is now (nearly) free of kit to allow work to continue with the fit out. Just a pile of plasterboard to remove now.

Jim set about collecting the scaffolding boards with great vigour, and you did well to stand a respectable distance away if you didn't want to be swept off the platform in Eric Sykes style.

The poor little Transit was soon groaning under a pile of scaffolding boards.

Q: How do you know it's the B&S Transit?

A: Because the cupholders are filled with 6 inch galvanised nails !

We have to say that Jim was ably assisted by Mike and Austen, but they successfully eluded the cameraman during the entire loading operation. But they were there.

Not long after they came back for a second helping, this time for 29 trestles, also from the cafe. It feels really roomy in there now, and nice and bright.

Jim did catch Austen and Mike at last, here in conversation behind the truck.

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing they were all successfully stowed on the back of the Transit, in some sort of logical, space saving sequence.

While this shuttling was going on, the others back at Winchcombe had the back breaking job of digging out the next bit of future concrete pathway.

Pete, John, Barry and Ken had a good go at the excavation for the ramp to the double doors of the paintshop.

We like Pete's change from winter to summer attire (on the right). Unfortunately temperatures have plummetted again at the time of writing, so the seasonal clothing selection may need further review.

Quite a big hole needed digging out until the edge of the roadway was reached. Here they are having a breather.

They had to resort to an SDS drill to hack out the surface, compacted hard after 35 years of use.

After lunch they were assisted by the Broadway 3, so the job accelerated a bit then. The hole is now just about dug, with just a bit of fettling left to do on the levels when the shuttering is fitted.

Pete then tidied up at the end of the day.