Thursday 30 January 2014

Wednesday 29th January 2014 - A Different sort of Day!

Sorry for the delayed post - I was laid low with a migraine last night.

The Wednesday Gang had to split themselves 3 ways yesterday - Cheltenham, Broadway and Toddington.

At Cheltenham a team of 5 gathered, to recover  redundant(we are not pinching Cheltenham's stuff!) bricks and slabs from the Station Site. Rod sent me the following account of the day:-

Bill,
After I spoke to you, Terry took Keith, Steve and myself (Bob W was there also) over to CRC. After speaking to Bob we set to and
moved a total of 56 3’x2’ slabs from the old waiting room site the 120 meters to the signal box crossing.
We utilised a couple of planks to get them to rail level and our favourite P-way trolley to get them to the signal box, where they were stacked
to await loading. Whilst waiting for Richard from Fairview we moved a few reds for Bob.

The slabs were duly loaded, along with one pallet and three dumpy bags of the recovered bricks and we all returned to Broadway.
The slabs were positioned at the back of the platform as near as we could get them to where they are needed, whilst allowing space
to get the dumper past them.

The bricks were placed near to where the cleaners are working as we assumed they would be required before we extend the platform.
As ever Richard(Fairview) was brilliant; he has saved us a lot of hard work over the past couple of years hasn't he.

Brian in the Rain (h'es from Wales you know)
 .. the cissies are in the container
The  lads duly returned to Broadway at 2pm and wasn't it a wet afternoon!

Back at Broadway after a morning of dodging the showers, the bricks and slabs were unloaded ready for use.

The paving slabs were unloaded behind 2B, ready for placing vertically behind the rear edge of the platform.










The bricks gathered at Cheltenham from the old Platform 2 wall were then placed near the brick cleaning benches ready for final "polishing" before going into stock.










Progress was made on other fronts also. Here Peter Q is on his knees sorting a new piece of wood on our latest line side cabinet.








And here Paul is sorting the doors in preparation for a coat of paint.














Meanwhile over at Toddington, 4 of us were attending the Broadway Extension Steering Group Meeting, (attended by the great and the good.....  and the two Chairmen), where we plan and agree the next steps at Broadway. It was a useful and positive meeting and when the decisions have been ratified by the GWSR Board, I will be able to share the main features with all our Blog Followers.

If there's been a more hurried  and ragged post than this before, I cant remember it,  but bear with it - normal service will resume on Saturday! Bill





5 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.search.windowsonwarwickshire.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?theme=1671&originator=%2Fengine%2Ftheme%2Fdefault%2Easp&page=2&records=25&direction=1&pointer=20656&text=0&resource=7151

if that link works correctly it is a photo of doubling of the track at Wilmcote

Jo said...

Works for me, interesting picture. But 1920? Isn't that a bit late?

Anonymous said...

Yes

Perry said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmcote_railway_station

The Great Western Railway opened the present two-platform station in 1908, at the same time as the inauguration of its North Warwickshire Line, which created a new main line route between Birmingham and Cheltenham Spa. It replaced an earlier station that had existed since 1860 on the Stratford-upon-Avon Railway Company's line from Hatton on the Great Western's Birmingham and Oxford Junction Railway.

Michael Johnson said...

Talking of the north-of-Honeybourne section, the current issue of the Great Western Railway Journal has an in-depth look at Milcote station in the 1950s. Lots of photos which I'd never seen before…

There's also a big article on West Ealing station, which is of interest because the old milk platform is about to be demolished - a good source of Great Western blue bricks, possibly?