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.