Wednesday 15 June 2011

Today was the Day!

Despite some lousy weather mid afternoon, 12 coping slabs were laid to finish off this section of the Platform 1 wall. Congratulations to everyone on site today and to  all those people who have contributed to the task over the past 9 months or so.  In particular Richard from Fairview Trading, without who's help we could not have achieved our goal. I was hoping to have some good pictures and video clips of the last slab being laid, but the weather prevented this. However there will be many more photos over the coming days, so look out for those.

Thanks goes also to the Friends of Broadway Station and members of the BAG Team who have already sponsored 45 out of the 52 coping slabs. Their names and home town will be recorded against each slab and be displayed in the new Station's Booking Office for all time . Thank you one and all.


Slab 52 looking South





Slab 1 looking North














Gordon, Dave and da do Ron Ron have marked out the exact position of the Platform 1A footings and, depending on some funding from the Railway we will start this job on the 6th July 2011.

More news on Saturday.

11 comments:

pwllyn-veg said...

Do you have a Broadway account with the Railway? where your followers could contribute and the railway get the benefit of gift aid?

Bill said...

Yes we do. Money can be donated to the GWR Trust and Broadway recovers the total including gift aid.

Bill

Anonymous said...

Many congratulations on the progress to-date. Do you plan on filling in the gap behind the wall and providing some kind of platform surface in the short term?

Best wishes,
Nigel

Bill said...

Nigel,
Yes, the plan is to infill at least a section of it for open days and exhibitions. The difficulty is that the new platform is 250mm higher than the original surface so there is only fresh air to hold the infill at the rear!
Bill

Jim Boyles said...

This may be a stupid question but why is the new platform 10" higher?

Dave Bowie said...

Thanks Nigel - nice to know that someone at least is impressed by our achievement

Tom Pilling said...

Just a quick note to say congratulations to all of the volunteers, both new and old, who arrive in all weathers to continue work on the platform.
I have had great pleasure in meeting you all, and being able to work alongside you. Thankyou for the warm welcome and the assistance that has been given to me by the members of the Broadway Area Group, who really are a fantastic group of gentlemen.
Im sorry I couldnt be there to see the last coping slab to be laid on the wall, but I look forward to returning to the ranks soon to get in the way, annoy people, and generally wreak havoc.
The success that we have seen so far is brilliant, and there are many obstacles yet to overcome, but as a team, I think we are more than capable of getting through it and really creating a first-class rebuild of the old station building.
From humble beginnings and all that!
All the best gents
Tom - your youngest volunteer :)

Toddingtonted said...

Tom, that's a brilliant post, good for you. We are seeing the regeneration of what will be a fine railway station which will do us proud I'm sure!

Andy said...

If the new platform is 10" higher, how many hundreds of tonnes of extra ballast are you going to need to bring the rail head upto the correct level, surely would it not be wise at this stage to reduced the current platform down in height also meaning that you won't need so many bricks

Bill said...

Hi Jim and Andy,
The extra height on th platform is to achieve the desired depth of ballast over the adjacent bridge, the new extended platform virtually meeting the bridge. The specifcation was given the thumbs up by the Head of PWay.

The ballast we are using is contaminated ballast from the trackbed and is ideal for infill, in particlar to get a good compaction for laying slabs around the station building.

Thanks for your commments and interest.
Bill

Bill said...

To Tom
Thanks for your comments - I think T T expressed my sentiments exactly.
Bill