Tuesday 7 February 2012

Platform 1A - The Lads Press On!

Much of our energies this week are aimed at finishing Platform 1A as soon as we can and a 3 day session has been set up to make this happen. John Crawford has been masterminding this effort (particularly with Ron B away) and here is his report from the trenches!


Hi Bill,
What a day it has been, with a small but keen gang we managed to get a complete layer of fill the full length of 1A by lunchtime and by knocking off time we had got the final fill up to platform level along three quarters of the length and that is ready for rolling by tomorrows gang, we have also concreted round three of the lamp post bases to within a short distance of the top of the shutters
Surprise of the day was a visit late morning by Ron who was pleased to see progress, needless to say the job stopped for a few minutes for everyone to have a chat and hand shake.  

More Good news, no need for the gabions, we successfully built up the bank with earth to support the high level of stone fill, and where did we get the soil from, by starting to clear the base for the signal box and we also found one undamaged platform slab and a few bricks, but a lot more must be dug out before the final levels are achieved.
Finally, Dot is back up an running, poor thing had a fuel pipe blockage and the sediment filter was full of gunj, so she now boasts a complete new fuel line, cleaned filter and new clean fuel in the tank, and she is rareing to go tomorrow!!

See you tomorrow
Regards
John C


 Here are a set of photos from Jo :














The Lads - Knackered but Happy!



























And for the icing on the cake - A YouTube  video

Thanks Jo and to everyone who worked themselves to a standstill today - what will tomorrow bring?

4 comments:

Jim Boyles said...

Three words: Brilliant work guys!

Jim Boyles said...

Hi again, Bill,

I don't want to say "I told you so!" but I have said, more than once, on this blog that you would find plenty of useful material around the old platform 2 waiting room, given the height of the remaining earthworks! (This is not a criticism, just an observation!).

surfsuprich said...

Speaking of Bricks, Bill - Ive got 12 lovely blues waiting for you down here in Basingstoke, with another 10 to be purchased in the next few weeks - Just need to find a way of getting them up to Broadway as where in Basingstoke, hampshire.

Anyway, Brilliant work guys and keep up the excellent work :)

Richard

Ken said...

Richard. Very generous of you & will be very welcome. As to how to get them to us?

I sometimes 'run down' to Southampton and back, but always at short notice. Could we perhaps meet at Sutton Scotney Services? If so, send an email to Bill, via the GWSR.com Contact with your email and telephone number(s).

Alternatively, if Stuart at Fairview Trading has contacts at Spiers & Hartwell, a local Haulage company who regularly run into the Sainbury RDC at Basingstoke, we might be able to arrange something that way. However, you can't really mix Brick dust and foodstuffs so they would need to be securely taped in Rubble bags.

I've got an idea for a 3rd possibility, but I'd need to explore that further.

Forward you contact details to Bill and we'll see what we can do.

Ken.