Sunday 26 February 2012

Saturday 25th February 2012 and Spring Around the Corner?

AWOL today - having to take her Ladyship out for the day as she is railway tolerant on most Saturdays in the year!

I can post this report from John Crawford however with photos courtesy of Jo.


A glorious day, light westerly breeze and a keen gang have all contributed to a lot more progress on the car park, with no work carried out to the platforms.
A well earned rest
6 fires were lit in locations along the car park and flames and lots of smoke left local residents in no doubt that we meant business but fortunately only one moan from a caravaner (apologies, no fun being smoked out on a sunny day), but a tremendous amount of timber was burnt and Dot succeeded in pulling out several 

roots, sadly however she died just after lunch and Steve thinks it is still fuel problems.


The two trees adjacent to the signal box are now felled and all the timber is stacked on site and a visit from Bernard confirmed that it was our responsibility to dispose of it.   There is also a lot of timber from today's felling stacked for clearance.
A last minute panic at 4.15pm when one fire on top of the embankment appeared to get out of control, so Steve, Jo and John set to with rake and shovels to spread out the embers only to find that old timber and roots long buried in the edge of the embankment had caught fire - so we hope we succeeded in preventing it from getting any worse - we will find out when we get the call from the Fire Brigade!!! only joking.
Andy seems to think that another day with his chain saw on Wednesday will see all the major trees/bushes cut down before the 1st March deadline.

Regards
John

And finally can anyone shed any light on the old bottle found on site today? It was produced by The County Mineral Water Co. - Cheltenham & Gloucester


Steve Bucknall
Another great Jo Roesen Photo

And finally, finally when she,s good she's very very good and when she's bad she's awful! .Dot in action in the morning





7 comments:

Richard said...

The Chicken Curve repair work has begun and they are finding ash/clinker/slag within the embankment. This will have to be removed. Could it have a use at Broadway, for example as the temporary car park surface or as platform infill?

richard said...

Richard, the slag etc will be considered hazardous waste and will need to be transported and disposed of accordance with Environmental legislation, redeploying it "off site" will involve planing permission etc

Andy Protherough said...

I would just like to post a public thank you to everyone who put in a tremendous effort yesterday in the car park. It has been a difficult task in cutting down the trees and scrub in the first place, but reducing it all to size suitable for tossing on a fire is just as difficult. A task that I believed would take a further couple of months after the nesting season to complete, hopefully will be done by next Saturday....weather permitting. Thank you lads once again. Andy P.

SWrural said...

Just a query on the gap in platform 1. I assumed this was to allow access to the track well until that and the platform opposite are completed. Is there a danger that when it is closed off, that the bricks won't match very well?

Thanks for the answer on the drain covers by the way.

Bill said...

Howard,
You won't see the join and that's a promise!
Bill

Anonymous said...

Given the embankment troubles on the line further south, are you content that there are no horrors lurking in the one adjacent to the proposed Broadway station car park?

Dave B said...

Horrors there may well be, judging from the mix of glass bottles, metal sheeting and old buckets we unearthed in the one trial dig. In any case there is clearly a drainage problem, with low-lying wet land adjacent to the embankment, which will need expert assessment.