Churchward House Dominates C&M Workload

Churchward House Update

Work on Churchward House has been C&M's primary focus since our last blog. We are desperately trying to get the building ready for the Admin Team to transfer location ideally in January 2020, but with an absolute transfer deadline of March 2020 ready for the new operating season.

Jim Hitchen is C&M's Project Manager reporting to Projects Director Alan Miller and Head of C&M Department Dave Bowie.

There are many changes needing to be made to the building to allow the various teams to have the office space they require and a number of practical difficulties to be overcome such as maintaining fire escape routes whilst altering the layout of some of the offices and creating different work zones in the workshop area.

The first task was to complete the clearance of the remnants left behind in the yard by the previous occupants. the largest of which was the two steel shipping containers.

9th October - Structural Work is Starting

This Wednesday most of the available C&M Team were deployed on Churchward House. Meetings were held to discuss the scope of the works, the critical tasks and any dependencies. It is clear that the more work we do and the more problems we find that the scope is going to keep creeping upwards.

Alan M, Dave B, Jim H, Pete D and Rob W are having to try and stay on top of these issues. Jim is directing operations and Pete is deploying team members to the various tasks. 

During the day Rob W and Rod W broke through the old blocked up doorway off the corridor to form a new doorway to the Operations Manager's new office.

Colin M, John W, Pete D, Mike W and Jim M took down the internal cupboards from what will become the admin office and began the redecoration.

Rod W and Rob W carefully removed a surplus door and frame from the first floor office and prepared it for re-use as the Operations Manager's new office door. 

All the studding removed from the ground floor doorway was de-nailed and then taken upstairs ready to fill the vacant doorway.

In the meantime the outside gang were clearing away all the contaminated gravel with the telehandler and taking it away from Churchward House and tipping it further down the railway yard. 

The water was still coming into the yard at quite a rate and so more trials were done by Pete D, Colin M and Austen S to try and see how we can get the water away. 

10th October - Removing The Old Shipping Containers

Jim H had arranged for a specialist removal company to take these containers away. The original plan was to have an empty container lorry come from slough, arrive at Winchcombe, load one container and take it to the disposal site at Gloucester, come back, repeat the exercise and depart back to Slough.

Unfortunately it didn't quite work out as Jim was led to believe. Here is Jim's record of the whole exercise.

The wagon arrived an hour later than agreed, and when it did arrive strapped to the bed of the wagon was a large double axled trailer.

The trailer was unloaded using the double Hiab unit and put to one side. The first container was then loaded onto the trailer.

The trailer was hooked up to the lorry and the pair maneuvered to the second container. The second container was then lifted onto the lorry bed.

When all were secured there was a major exercise getting both out of the yard.

Despite coning off part of the car park Jim had to get one car moved in the public parking area, and with a very tight squeeze the convoy just managed to get out of the yard and head off out of the station, much to Jim's relief.

In the meantime all the electrical circuits in the building and workshop are being tested by our independent electrical contractor Buzz Electrics. The central heating has been run up and tested and kept on for a day to prove everything works correctly.

All the old phone cables and sockets are being removed from the walls and any holes filled and made good.

12th October - Saturday Working

Pete D, John W and others started investigatory work on cladding and beams so that the new stud wall could be anchored safely. This wall will separate the Operations Manager's new office from the general meeting room on the ground floor.

More work was done on removing unnecessary fitments and electrical equipment and work was done to work out where the services could be routed to form the new mess room.

The group also recycled the old stud timbers to form a new stud infill where the superfluous office door had been removed. This will soon be covered with plasterboard both sides and skimmed with plaster.

16th October - The Office Refit Gains Pace

With all free C&M members dispatched to work on Churchward House again the planning group began to assess all the new issues that had arisen since last week and began to plan how these would be addressed.

In the meantime Rod W and Phil T set about building the Operations Manager's new office door from all the component parts retrieved from the office upstairs. 

Believe it or not, the downstairs doors are different sizes to those upstairs and so the lads had to make a 50mm infill panel above this door to fix the door framing to the brickwork opening

Finally the door fittings were fitted and the architrave added. You would never have guessed that this door its frame and all the fittings were recycled from upstairs !

In this last picture the structural framing has been exposed ready for the new stud walling to be built below to split this large area up into two separate office spaces.

Pete D, Colin M, John W, Jim M and Austen S all set to re-decorating the new Admin office. Here Colin who is camera shy can be seen busy painting the walls.

Downstairs in the workshop John W has new skirting boards and architraves and is cutting them to size before applying several coats of paint.

There's loads more happening on a daily basis, but that's all for now ....

More Activities at Churchward House, Work on The Raft and the Woodstore at Toddington

Churchward House Yard Clean-Up Continues

This Wednesday the C&M Team have been doing extensive work in the yard at Churchward House. From comments on last week's blog I will aim to include some external shots of the site so that you can see the extent of the clearance work that has been needed. 

The first picture shows where the team have taken down the external lean-to and begun to clear out all the muck that had accumulated below it. Pete D led a team of John W, Jim M, Austen S, Colin M and Terry A. This shot shows the last of the brambles and greenery being burnt on the upper level. 

The upper level is about 2m higher than the yard, and following the ongoing saga of seepage on the rear yard retaining wall, we found out last week that this raised area carries a high-level culvert that feeds the ditch which runs down the western boundary of the station site.

Our colleagues in Lineside Drainage had cleared the sides of the ditch near the outfall to do investigatory work for us. This picture taken by Austen shows the outfall and the rear corrugated fencing to the upper area.

In the second view you can get a better perspective of the levels involved and can just see the top of the workshop to the right behind the fence.

Back down at yard level Terry A is seen here clearing the muck between the retaining wall and the back of the workshop. Just out of shot were John W and Colin H who by this stage had formed a human chain of diggers and shifted an enormous pile of mud soaked gravel which was dropped into the middle of the yard. 

The water you can see behind Terry has all seeped into this low area through holes in the retaining wall.  We are still trying to see whether the cause of this water is leakage from the culvert or natural groundwater coming off the higher ground outside our boundary. Either way we are going to have to route it into the railway's drainage system

Back on the upper level Colin H, John W, Jim M and Austen S were stoking the bonfire and clearing years of muck off the concrete base.

In the next photo you can see the rear of the main building and the attached green workshop area. The containers left behind by Cook's that can just be seen, are going to be removed and taken for scrap.

Whilst all this activity was going on Dave B, Alan M and Jim H were having meetings with various parties trying to firm up where all the required facilities were going to be provided in the main building.

In this picture a team from S&T were discussing the facilities available on site and what others would need to be acquired for their use. The giant heap of muck in the middle of this picture has all been hand dug from the back of the workshop and left to dry out before we move it with the telehandler.

Toddington Woodshed Fencing

For the last couple of weeks a team from C&M have been working hard on installing new fencing posts to go around the wood store area at Toddington Station. Rod W, Terry A, Keith S and Bob W have all been doing a grand job setting the posts into Postcrete ready for the new fencing wire to be applied. The two photos taken by Terry show the posts in the last remnants of golden sunshine taken last week.

The fencing wire and gate have deliberately been left off  ready for the concrete base to be poured and levelled.

It certainly has tidied up this part of the site.

Weighbridge Hut Base Update

The Heritage lads have been hard at work on the steel reinforcement again this week. Two hundred specially formed plastic spacers have been fitted underneath  the lower layer of bars and a good number of the crossing bars fixed with tying wire. - That's a painful job that really tests the muscles in your forearm and wrists.

The team are now working on the stirrup spacing bars which will support the upper layer of the cage.

Well done to that team, you're certainly making good progress. It will be good to get the concrete in and cured before the first frosts of winter arrive.

That's all for this week. The team will be back in action again on Saturday !