Churchward House, Winchcombe and Toddington Activities

Churchward House

Wednesday 18th September the C&M team were dispatched to sort out GWSR's new Head Office, the former Cook's building at Winchcombe Station, now known at Churchward House.

Rob W, Jim H and Roger J got started by undertaking a detailed survey of the workshop facilities and the proposed shared office area. Rob would later transfer this information to the CAD system.

Here Jim H and Roger J are checking the fire escape from the rear of the workshop to ensure it's clear.

Pete D, Austen S, Jim H and Roger J then set about clearing all the rubbish left behind by Cooks on the racking in the yard and removing the brambles from the path behind the workshop. At the same time investigatory work started on the source of the water running from behind the workshop and across the yard, as seen in the picture below.

This was found to be coming from the retaining wall which retains the upper storage area at the rear of the yard. By the time all the brambles had been removed it was found that there was a small continuous stream of water coming out of the retaining wall, making its way along the rear of the building and across the hard standing.

At the rear of the yard there is a form of open boundary drain between the hard standing and the retaining wall. A temporary channel was formed to divert the water into the boundary drain and away from the building.

Toddington Flooding

Rob W and Dave B went to Toddington to do a detailed survey of the areas of the station affected by surface water run-off during storms. Detailed levels were taken on the kerbs and road all down the drive, past the station building and beyond the southern side gate. Also detailed cross-sections were taken along the north and south side gates from road to platform edge. Once these have been plotted we will have a clear picture of the problem areas that need to be addressed.

Here you can see the southern side gate which looks fine in the sunshine but which has problems with water ponding after heavy storms. Read on further below for what the flooding looks like on 24th.

Saturday 21st September

With gloriously sunny weather Pete D, Ken W and John W got stuck in and laid the new concrete slab path for the water treatment hut behind Platform 2 at Winchcombe. Unfortunately the only picture we have of this endeavour is the finished path, but unfortunately taken afterwards in very wet and gloomy conditions.

We can't finish the path yet as we have got to alter the slope at the rear of the siding end wall, and at the moment that is lower priority than all the other tasks.

Pete D, John W and Ken W were joined at Churchward House by Stuart Hamilton and his team from Lineside Drainage They brought their new Bushwackers and helped to clear the final brambles at the rear of the workshop. They also had a look at the stream that has formed and the drains at the site. Luckily they all seem clear, and the water leaking from the retaining wall was getting away down the boundary drain.

Heavy Storms on Tuesday 24th September

Stuart Hamilton has been working with C&M to investigate the cause of the flooding at Toddington Station. By coincidence he was on site on Tuesday when there was torrential rain, and so took some interesting photos of flooding at the site, he said this was not the most intense period of the storm but  I have put these up for you to see how the station gets affected..

Here the storm water can be seen rushing down the drive, over the low kerb at the north gate, across the platform and onto the tracks. If you look carefully you can see the stream coming from top right to bottom left on the second photo.

Three photos provided by Stuart Hamilton

Slightly further down the water by the wooden tub crosses the paved are and enters a drainage channel at the rear of the station building, as shown in Stuart's photo.

This problem will soon be rectified by new kerbing and paving works C&M are doing starting in November.

Wednesday 25th September

Well it was supposed to be dry Wednesday according to the weather forecast, but it definitely wasn't. The team working on Churchward House, Pete D, John W, Austen S, Jim M and our new member Colin M all got stuck in removing the final rubbish from the racking in the covered lean-to. They then carried on starting the demolition of the lean-to structure. It was a case of nipping under cover and then doing a bit more until it rained again. By the end of the day 2/3rds of the roofing was down.  

In the meantime the stream at the rear of the building had slowed down a bit but was still running.

Over in the West Yard the Heritage lads were hard at work on the new concrete raft for the Usk weighbridge hut. This is not the weather to be working in a tank surrounded by a waterproof membrane so it was a case of nipping in and out as the weather allowed. Here it is as it was at the start of the day.

But you have to take your hats off to them, Paul, Dave, Jules and Jo stuck at it all day and by the end of the day had completed the first layer of the cage, as can be seen in the final photo. The finished article is as good, if not better, than if full-time professionals had done the job.

That's all for now,

Recent Activities at Winchcombe

Things have been a bit quiet on the blogging front from Construction and Maintenance as our two main bloggers have been away for a while. In order to try and avoid this gap in the future we are bringing on board new bloggers who have been involved in the background in the past but have now been given publishing rights. So bear with us if the next few posts are not quite the same format as in the past.

New Running-in Board for Pershore !

Bruce has been working on a new running-in board for the friends of Pershore Railway Station, yes Pershore ! - You may be surprised to know that GWSR took on this piece of work for an agreed fee after the friends had seen the quality of the running-in boards on our railway and wanted one of their own for the Cotswold Line.

Here is the finished article in all its glory, waiting to be fitted with supporting posts. (note the picture has been rotated 90 degrees by Jim to show the finished effect).

New Door and Frame for Acetylene Building at Toddington

Barrie has been working away on this woodworking masterpiece to replace the timber frame and door for the Acetylene building. 

These are going to replace the rotten door and frame in the next few weeks.

Roofing Repairs at Toddington

The team have been tasked with repairing the roof to the Admin building at Toddington. After a great deal of careful cutting and jointing new felt was installed by Paul and Jim H. Here Paul is putting on the side felt to finish the job off.

Tim Mitchell Building Signage

Phil and Jim M had to get the scaffolding tower out this week and did a great job installing the name board to the Tim Mitchell Building. It really finishes off the building nicely.

West Yard Development at Winchcombe

The main board have given the approval for the improvement works to be started on the West Yard at Winchcombe Station. Survey work has been done on the area concerned and a variety of initiatives have been started to generally improve the area from the present end of the Platform 2 picnic area down past the giant oak tree opposite the Carriage & Wagon building. Eventually the plan is for the public to be given access to this area and for there to be a circular metal seat fitted under the large Oak as often found in the gardens of stately homes.

The Heritage Team have been building a new platform wall alongside the siding farthest from the main line. The blockwork for this is now complete and the next stage is to add the blue facing bricks and bull nosed coping bricks recovered from a working Network Rail site and Tyseley.

At the end of the siding a new reinforced retaining wall is being built to ensure that the West Yard access track can accommodate load carrying vehicles that have used the crossing by the signal box. 

Here Pete and Rob are sorting out how the hollow blocks sit on the reinforcing bars. (It was all fully designed beforehand - honest)

In a later photo Jim M, Pete and Austen are filling the hollow blocks with Grade 25 concrete to give the wall the full strength it needs. Both faces of this wall will eventually be faced with blue bricks

To the side of the new Platform the Heritage Team working with C&M supervision are putting in the new concrete raft base that will ultimately support the weighbridge hut recovered from Usk. More details of this project can be found on the Heritage Herald blog. Here Dave is driving the tele-handler while Paul is guiding him where to drop the blinding stone.

On Wednesday 11th we finally had our delivery of steel reinforcement for the weighbridge hut raft. This has been designed by an external structural engineer to carry the loads from the hut over the relatively unstable filled ground in this area. Here Mike is bringing nearly a tonne of bars to the site of the raft with the tele-handler.

In the picture above Austen and Rob have had to segregate all 160 main bars to check that we had had the full delivery. It was a good job that we did as we were one bar short. Luckily our suppliers were very apologetic and got the missing bar to us the next day. The Heritage Team will be busy over the next couple of weeks putting this all together. In the background Paul is taking a well earned rest after single-handedly working on the blinding stone.

More details to follow .....