Fixin' a hole in the roof

Just a brief report today, as shortly after lunch the rain arrived and brought the day's activities to a premature end.

Arrival of a sloping frame to carry the plywood sheets

Again there were two main jobs:

(1) continue with relaying the slabs on P1 at Toddington and

(2) make the Trust office waterproof by installing a plywood roof and then covering this with roofing felt.

Jim M and Austen start to put down the sheets

Barry made the sloping frame, and the plywood sheets are in the foreground here.

Terry and the Broadway Team made an early start and indeed were fortunate that they could continue under cover when it rained in the afternoon.  Apart from Paul doing the concrete mixing in the car park and those who took it in turns to barrow the mix the 100 yards to where it was needed, of course.

The class 73 was just back from delivering 80 concrete sleepers to Stanway viaduct.




Significant progress had been made by mid afternoon.  The nearest doorway is the current Station Master's office, once the First Class Waiting Room. This is approximately half way along under the canopy.













The Toddington gang also managed to put in a new post which will shortly hold a water tap next to the car park.

The two new pods are on the right.

With the steady rain after lunch work on the office roof could not proceed, so the temporary tarpaulins had to be put back on. It was too wet to put on the roofing felt.

At Broadway, Mike G took these photographs of work in the cafe kitchen.










The sink units are in, the tiling is in progress, but further plumbing progress was not possible as the expected materials did not arrive.

Mike then took a picture of the cafe interior. The radiators are still out of the box white, as are the electrical switches and sockets.

 A shot through the window shows a refrigerator unit and a modern clock.

The new pods go in

A good turnout on a cold but sunny day.

 

In the nice warm workshop Bruce and Ian were fixing the letters to the second Winchcombe R/I board. Barry was preparing scaffold boards and other timbers in anticipation of making a temporary roof on the Admin Office at Toddy, but we don't have any pictures of that as the main gang was at Toddington.

 

Here the Pods were due to arrive around 10:00 hrs.  

 

Pods arriving, with crane

 

In fact they finally made it at 12:00hrs.  

 

Crane manoeuvres through a well filled car park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The first pair of new pod flies through the air...

 

 

 

 

 ... and lands safely on the supports installed earlier by the gang.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In just a short while both new pods were safely installed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pods have bunk beds, showers and toilets.

Do they work?

C&M staff were there to test them exhaustively for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The old pods are no longer fit for normal service but where watertight may be used for storage for a while. 

Then it was back to the previous job of reinstalling the fence to the playground.

 

Mick R painting the fence

A peep inside an old pod.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phil cuts off a damaged section of the old barge board for reuse

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jim M & Austen dismantle the damaged ply furniture which was later taken up to the Loco Dept for lighting up locos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further work was done fitting barge boards to the playground fence.

 

A team from Broadway removed more slabs from P1 and then started to lay slabs once the new electric cement mixer had arrived.  

 

Professional slab layers at work

 Bob and Terry can be seen leveling the base prior to laying back the slabs.

A brand new shiny mixer was acquired for the job. Don't get it all dirty now! 

It was quickly put to use for the slabbing job.

The mix was barrowed over to the platform, where Bob leveled it out very carefully.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The slabs don't always obey orders and for that purpose a big persuader was brought down  to help get them into line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul, leaning on a broom and without the usual cup of coffee in his hand, spots the cameraman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the day they had laid three rows of slabs. Will passengers realise the amount of work that has gone on under their feet?

 

Our new truck

With heavy demand for the railway's blue Transit from C&M, S&T and other departments, relief was sought by means of a second Transit, which was sourced by a C&M gang member.

Here is a first picture of it, after it arrived over Christmas. It's very similar to the one used by the drainage gang, which has been found to work well in practice.

We'd like to say it had one careful owner, but this isn't quite true.  Yes, one owner - Network Rail - but it had multiple users in the Pway Dept in South London, and wasn't treated too carefully.  Still, that does account for a reasonably low mileage and it does have 6 seats and a tail lift, which will be most useful. 

 

 

Yesterday saw a rather modest turnout, no doubt due to excessive Christmassing, and perhaps the bitterly cold weather.

 

The first fence panel is fitted by Phil, Martyn and Mike G

Nonetheless, work continued on two fronts. The first was the fencing at Toddington.

 

Concreting the fence posts continued, after which they were painted.

Finally the fence was erected alongside the play area.

 

 

 Here Mike G holds the gate in position.

 

 

 

 

 Martyn put the last screw into the post.

With the gate in place, you can see the whole of the fence in front of the play area. The new pods will go in front of the older, grey ones in the background.

A final view at the end of the day, with new posts fitted in the foreground, and the gate re-hung in the background.

The last run of fencing will be left until after the Pods are delivered, which should be next Wednesday.  The last touch will be the gravel boards, and then this run of fencing is finished.

In other news Barrie removed and trimmed the storeroom door on P1 at Toddington. This has been sticking for some time.



The second group yesterday worked on the platform at Toddington. Here the slabs, laid back in 1982, have become rather uneven.

All of them need re-laying, so enter the expert Broadway platform slab layers. They are pretty experienced now. They are equipped with knee pads, a level and the trusty vacuum lifter, also used at Broadway.

Note that under the slabs is sand, whereas at Broadway a dry mix was used. The sand is easier to lay, but over time water seeps through and then differences in level begin to appear.

The whole of the platform will be re-done.

Here Dave and Terry are looking into some electric cabling that runs just underneath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although Toddington was our one station acquired with the station building still up, it needed an awful lot of work to get it up and running. One of these jobs was the replacement of the platforms, and as a result, also the relaying of the platform slabs.

 

John Lees photographed all this; you can see his work on the Flickr site here:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/73536293@N02/albums/72157664738875108

 

More pictures are still being worked on, until CRC is reached.

 

Here are two of his pictures, showing the platform slab relaying in the first half of 1982:

 

In the picture, a short stretch of P1 has been rebuilt (it used to just slope down to the trackbed) and a supply of replacement slabs has been found, and piled against the side of the building.

No P2 yet, of course!

Here a first batch of slabs has been laid, on sand. 

On the right is a Midland yard lamp post, used on a GWR platform. In those days, you were lucky to get anything at all. Today, we strive for greater attention to detail, and the Midland post was swapped for a GWR one.

Behind the ex Barry locomotive on the left is the spot where this month's PWay relay has just started.

Yes, the track is that old, and it was second hand even then!