Cheltenham posts

The C&M team was working at Cheltenham Race Course, as well as on the short carriage shed extension at Winchcombe.






At Cheltenham, the plan is to erect some recovered spearhead fencing and a pair of newly made replica gates at the southern end of P1. Here the first hole is being dug.

These gates will be hung on the original cast iron station approach gate posts, taken away from Broadway.

The cast iron gate posts are away being repaired, as one was found to have snapped below ground level when it was dug out with the mini digger at Broadway.

Hence new post holes are being dug at CRC, to provide a pair of gates for the disabled access in heritage style.

The job of digging out the old gate post - a modern galvanised example - was pretty arduous, as it was bedded in concrete to quite a depth.







You can see the northern access to P1 here in the background, and in the foreground an SDS drill is being used to break out the concrete, which is about 2ft deep.

A gang of 3 (Jim H, Jim M and Phil) went there to do this job, and also deliver the fence posts for the new line of spearhead fencing.

At the end of the day one former post was out, and the other had about 50% of its concrete removed, with more to do next week.

We also have a picture of one of the 4 recovered spearhead panels, here resting at Winchcombe
for repair and de-rusting. Another 5 or 6 are being manufactured by us in-house, as they were at Broadway. We know how to do this now, using bought in components. They will be painted in the dry at Winchcombe first, prior to actual installation.

While the gang was at CRC there was a visitor in the form of P&O. This locomotive was wired up for sound recording, an unusual idea.
If you look carefully you can see the wire rolled out along the running board. There are also 3 foam rubber microphones along the top of the boiler. According to the footplate crew the sound recordings will be used by a well known model railway manufacturer to provide sound on their model locos. We hope not all of them! The mind boggles at the sight of a model standard tank chugging away like a 3 cylinder Bulleid pacific....

Our cub reporter from CRC also sent us this picture taken at Tyseley on Sunday. It shows Bahamas just outshopped after overhaul, and in steam.

Enjoy!

The other C&M team was working on finishing off the new shed extension for C&W at Winchcombe.

On an earlier day we caught the contractors in the middle of erecting the steelwork there. They had the old end of the shed off in just a morning, it went really quickly. This included two perfectly triangular pigeon's nests in the corners of the roof.

The little shed extension, to allow extra covered space for bogie overhauls, and perhaps even a goods wagon, is now pretty much up. It's a bit narrower than the rest of the shed, in order to allow continued unhindered access past the LH side, where things are a bit cramped.

During our visit the new roller shutter doors - the shed used to have an open end - were being installed and outside the C&M lads were mixing concrete to fill in the rest of the hole into which the extra stanchions have been placed.

The C&W will now be nice and snug inside. We were hoping for news of a house warming party, but so far, no luck.