C&M Christmas 2019

Churchward House Update

During the last four weeks considerable progress has been made towards getting the building ready for occupation at the end of January/early February.

The electrical work to install additional sockets in the Admin, Finance, Operations and Meeting rooms has been completed. Additional 240 volt spur points have been provided to power the fire/security control units when these are installed, and also the IT hub, which is now connected to the fibre optic cable and live with it’s own UPS power supply.

Paul G supervising BT Openreach Engineer Installing New Fibre IT Service

On the first floor decoration is complete in the corridor, the Admin, Finance and Meeting rooms.  It is intended to leave the General Office for now.  A start has been made to strip out and make good in the Directors’ office, however this is needed as a temporary workshop for door modifications - see details below.

On the ground floor the walls in the corridor are painted and the woodwork is awaiting a top coat to complete. Here you can see Mike and Jim M and then Austen S and Jim M applying the Gardenia top coat.

Ground Floor Corridor - First a White Base Coat,

And then the Final Gardenia Top Coat

A start has been made in the entry hall, which just leaves the staircase and first floor landing still to be started.  It is intended that the first floor as well as the two offices on the ground floor will have their new carpet tiles fitted during week commencing 20^th January.

Unfortunately stripping out some of the old redundant equipment has caused some damage to the walls which has taken several sessions to rectify.

Colin M Removing the Old Trunking and Making Good in the Reception Area

There is now a requirement to improve the fire resilience of the building by fitting intumescent strips to all the fire doors as well as escutcheon plates to all the office doors.  

New Escutcheon Plates

The former requires the doors to be taken off and a groove cut into three edges of the door, into which is glued a special fire resistant strip. An escutcheon plate has also to be fitted to cover the key hole to prevent smoke escaping through it.  Hence the need to use the Directors’ office while work is carried out on the first floor doors. 

In addition three doors on the ground floor need to be replaced to meet modern requirements and a further two doors for security reasons. With the Christmas break the expected delivery date for these doors will mean that this work will now not be completed before the end of January.

Fortunately the asbestos survey has not revealed any concerns.

An order has been placed for a new intruder alarm/security system and it is expected that a contract for the Fire Alarm system will be placed later this month.

Commencing on the 6^th January a start will be made running data cables from the main IT Hub to all the desk positions to provide IT and telephone facilities.  It will be interesting to see how all the IT/Security/Fire System/Door Control cabling can be organised as the basic construction of the building at ground floor level does not make any provision for the routing of modern services.

Please accept our apologies for a lack of photographs, but getting a good photo inside a cramped building is not easy.

On the outside of the building Pete D has been busily working away on the scaffolding tower removing the large quantity of moss that was covering the eastern face of the roof. While he had the tower assembled he has cleaned out all the gutters and then made a start on trying to clean the fibreglass rooflight panels in the workshop.

A brief Distraction for Formarke Hall

Wednesday 4th December there was some busy activity out in the station yard. Apparently Foremarke Hall has had to leave the railway for a visit to Tyseley Workshops. The railhead at Toddington was blocked by the new construction work for the Welfare Facilities and so she had to be loaded onto the transporter at Winchcombe.

Access to the station is tight at the best of times for big lorries but a car had parked in the way on the double yellow lines just in the station entrance, and so it was a feat of great skill for the driver of the low loader to get his trailer into the yard.

On the way out he had to reverse the trailer complete with loco out onto the main road with a significant number of shuffles and lowering the bed of the trailer to get under the telephone wires with the chimney, and raising it at times to pass over the kerbs and crown of the slope.

Getting it Lined Up Ready

Reversing out under the Overhead Cables - Note the towelling on the Chimney

And finally out onto the Main Road

It was a case of really skilkful driving, taking their time, and good teamwork with the back axle driver. The assembled crowd were all very impressed !

Toddington Kerbs & Paving Project

The work at Toddington next to the North Gate is proceeding extremely well. The area directly in front of the gate - Zone 1 - was completed on time, and allowed the new access to be in use ready for the Santa Specials at the start of December.

Here you can see Rod W, Terry A and Bob W checking it's all OK before the public were given access.

Final Checks Before The Public Get to Use The New Paved Area

Zone 2 - The section up to the small brick building was fenced off from the public during the Santa Special days, but was still being worked on right up until the last C&M working day on 18th December.

The photo below shows the progress at the end of work on 11th of December with the final complicated bits still to do.

Progress As of 11th December

In the photo below you can see the level of accuracy Rod and the team are working to when they decided to make the paving slabs a perfect fit around the original postbox.

It takes skill to get this such a good fit

And here is the final result of all the hard work on the evening of Wednesday 18th December when we finished for Christmas.

Zone 2 - Ready for the Final Slab and Grouting Up

Zone 2 is almost finished. The camera does not show how dark it had got by this point and so reluctantly the team had to stop. There was one small slab left to cut but the light had gone and it was not safe to carry on with the petrol disk cutter.

We could not do all the final grouting around the posts and fencing as our suppliers have had great difficulty sourcing the specialist material we need to finish the job, and so that will get done early in January when the materials are due in.

The Paving Zones Explained

We have had queries about the various zones, and so here is an explanation. When we put forward the proposed design of the paving, concern was expressed about the impact that the new works could have on visitors coming to the Santa Specials. In order to ensure that C&M caused no disruption to normal running the work was broken down into four discrete areas of work, each of which had to be completed within time-limited slots. These were designed to fit in with the operating calendar.

Zone 1 is the area around the north pedestrian gate.
Zone 2 is the remainder of the northern area.
Zone 3 is the area around the south pedestrian gate.
Zone 4 is the brick paved area the road side of the main station building.

Here is a copy of the original submission approved by the Commercial Director and the Santa Special organising team. 

As the weather has not been as bad as it could have been over the period, Zone 2 activity was brought forward on the basis of mid-week working, and the other dates adjusted to allow the work to proceed as quickly as possible, but without impinging on the operation of the railway.

Looking Ahead

So what have C&M got to look forward to in 2020 :

1. Churchward House completion of Phase 1 ready for the office move from Toddington Station.

2. Kerbs and Paving for Zones 3 and 4 at Toddington Station.

3. Station repair activities at CRC, Winchcombe and Toddington.

4. Completing Broadway Footbridge and starting the new Platform 2 building.

5. Building Platform 3 brickwork at Winchcombe and the new Weighbridge Hut being built with the Heritage Team.

6. CRC Station modifications and extensions.

7. Electrical inspections at many locations.

8. Various Broadway projects.

9. And lots, lots more..........

And trying to keep on top of the ever increasing number of facilities requiring remedial activities or replacement around the railway.


Happy New Year from all of us in Construction & Maintenance !