Monday 28 October 2013

Monday, 28th October 2013 at CRC2

A hardy group of 4 braved the weather and ended up doing some serious bricklaying at Cheltenham. Here is Jo's report - what would I do without him!




Hi Bill,
Welcome back!


Four dedicated followers of fashion at CRC today. I don’t know what happened to the 80mph storm, but it hadn’t arrived when I went to bed, and this morning all was calm. A 06.45 decision was made to press ahead, and it turned out to be the right one. The day was breezy and often sunny, with just two sharp showers of heavy drizzle, which we used to break for tea and biscuits. Otherwise, all was dry for brick laying.Keith and I made up two barrows of mortar, and left John and Tony to themselves. They certainly got on with the job – section 2 is now finished, after a final course of corbelling, and section 3 has had two full courses added to it.







Meanwhile Keith and I decided to have another go at shifting reds, given that we are expecting the Gloucester College lads, and still need to give them an adequate stock of bricks to be getting on with. Between the two of us, and allowing for various supplementary mixes of mortar made during the day, we shifted two pallets from the top of the embankment down to the track, along to the ‘coal face’ and then piled them up again. That makes about 1000 bricks picked up twice each; our backs can tell the tale.

John and Tony stood in 1 ½ ins of water most of the day, and would appreciate some scaffolding boards on site. At least I got a nice reflection out of the standing water.
Came the close of the day, somewhat earlier now that winter time has arrived, and there was a low sun that shone down the track bed. I wondered if there was a day in the year that the sun would set above Hunting Butts tunnel, and shine exactly under the road bridge and down the CRC track? Perhaps on Sir James Inglis’ birthday !

Best regards,



Jo


 

4 comments:

Alex said...

Hi, I noticed this post on the internet regarding a footbridge: [url]http://railpicturelibrary.zenfolio.com/blog/2013/10/network-rail-donate-station-footbridge-to-stainmore-railway[url]

that footbridge has gone, but it says the next station getting a new footbridge is shirley, is it worth enquiring? seems fitting seeing as the signal box design is based on Shirley's...
Alex

Bill said...

No, but we have our sights on the next - Hall Green.

Alex said...

excellent news! is it worth passing onto the CRC folk, or have they found one too?
Alex

Anonymous said...

Pictures five and six on this entry would make very nice jigsaw puzzles.

http://broadwaygwsr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/catch-up.html