Thursday 15 August 2013

Wednesday 14th August 2013 - Pushing On

A great turnout today of 20 Volunteers and we were looking to push on with the work on Platform 2.

Bob & Clive rightly admire their handywork...
The bricklaying gang had to make the transition back from  laying the 2lb Lego bricks at Cheltenham to laying the  50lb blocks along the new 2B footing at Broadway. A total of 87 were laid the full length of the footing. This was a remarkable achievement by Clive and Bob, only made possible by a constant supply of "muck" by Roger. Jo was able to add a further 7 rebars to our reinforcement of the back row of blocks.


Roger keeps the muck coming with a smile....










crazy paving.....
On another Front Roger B and the slab laying gang were itching to set to at finishing the coping slab laying on Platform 2. A delay in the arrival of the Faiview lorry allowed some of the Mythe spoil to be placed behind the wall and ballast, scraped from beyond the bridge, to be dumped in and levelled.








Richard and his trusty lorry came  at 11:30 and the slabbing began in earnest. The challenge was to get the 16 slabs on before the close of play. The gang    (Roger, Rod, Terry, Peter and of course Richard from Fairview, together with Peter Q and Roger J  on the mortar supply) worked tirelessly until the 16 slabs were laid. By 4:30 the job was done. An extra thank you to Richard who must have been late in returning to Fairview.
The finished job, clean and tidy!














The Mr Cool award today goes to Terry Andrews
who wore his designer safety goggles with panash!

 A couple of extras  must get a mention - John Crawford worked most of the day in remote isolation beyond the the  Evesham Road  bridge with only Steve Bucknall's visits with the dumper to break the the monotony!  He is a glutton for punishment - he and Jo are coming back for a Friday special to finish the job off. If anyone wants to join the team and rake ballast, let me know!



Record of the day goes to Ron Dobson, one  of the elder statesman of our group who achieved a personal best of cleaning 60 blue bricks. If anyone thinks that doesn't sound much, please come along and try to better it! Thanks to all the brick cleaners, who were brilliant as ever.

6 comments:

Jo said...

Just a little statistic in support of our brick layers:

Sor far we must have laid about 30.000 bricks at Broadway, perhaps 40.000 when we finish the final piece of platform 2. It's a huge number.

Every one of these bricks is second hand, and was recovered from somewhere. Each one was stacked, inspected and cleaned of mortar with lump hammer and bolster by our valiant team of brick layers.

On top of that, the bricks are all traditional imperials, and much heavier than modern bricks.

Well done, guys !

Roger said...

Being a total dunce at these things, why are the blocks for CRC so much lighter than at Broadway?

Anonymous said...

I have been following the planning application comments daily and I am aghast to see that someone has made an attempt to lob a huge spanner in the works by declaring part of the trackbed to be a public right of way from Springfield Railway Bridge to Station Road Railway Bride which runs right through the station site. The applicant actually applied back in October 2011 on the basis that the route had been regularly walked for 20 years without let or hindrance. This application comes to light now because it is referred to in the response from Worcester Public Rights Of Way who advise that it will not even be looked at for at least twelve months. It does seem like the application is a deliberate attempt to block the reinstatement of the railway given the section of the trackbed "bagged" as a public right of way. I'm really worried that if nothing else this will delay the whole planning application procedure for at least a year because no decision can be made until this application has been dealt with. See worcester planning response and right of way application

Best wishes,
Nigel
(not happy)

Bill said...

Roger,
I was comparing the modern facing bricks being used at Cheltenham with the old foundation concrete blocks at Broadway.

Bill said...

Nigel,
You have picked up on a critical and sensitive issue here. I suggest, followers, we don't open up a debate here that might inflame the situation.
Bill

Anonymous said...

I would suggest that this spurious application could be accomodated within the existing boundaries of the society owned property - as long as the pathway is along the same route it would not necessarily have to be along the trackbed and could satisfy the requirements in any response to the planning requirements for safe and satisfactory provision of a public access footpath for the exercising of pets (which would have to be on a lead of course as it is private property and the owner calls the shots in this case). Just a suggestion of course.

A supporter.