Saturday 24th January 2015

There were 14 of us today, trying our best to keep the show on the road, despite the cold weather. The easiest job to keep warm at is the recovery of wood for the bonfire, but hard work! The picture is early in the day - by the end of the day all of debris on the bank was gone! A credit to all of the volunteers who took their turn.









A similar job was being carried out yesterday at the furthest point north, by Steve B and Richard. They are working southward.  A great job!










The work continued on the enclosure for the footbridge span. Jim, Peter Q, Dave and Brian spent the day getting the roof batons in place. I think they have a Turner Prize in mind!

We had a disappointment during the week when the slip behind Platform 2C started to move again. The ballast that we retrieved from Toddington was intended to act as the main infill. Unfortunately  the size of the slip in the bank is such that we are going to purchase some free draining stone and install gabions along the last 17m stretch. George Law have been chosen to do this work. It began yesterday and they hope to finish by the end of next week




Here a 360 excavator sits on top of the ex Toddington piles of ballast. A 6 tonne dumper ferries it northward.













There was a real milestone event today when Robin  cleaned the last of the bricks (an ex Paddington one). Its impossible to count how many bricks Robin has cleaned - tens of thousands no doubt. The great achievement is how Robin has turned up each Saturday at 08:00, for the past 5 years, fair wind or foul, works steadily through the day until 15:00. At break time he keeps us amused with interesting facts, or  a merry quip or two. He has served his apprenticeship now, and will be moving on to the next task! Well done Robin - you're an example to us all.