Sorry for the late post - I have been away for a couple of days. It was a pretty miserable day weather-wise at Cheltenham, but was significantly brightened by the Gloucestershire College Students attending to assist with the brick laying.
Here is Jo's report:-
A drizzly
day today all day long, but just about bearable for laying bricks at CRC. We
had the usual Broadway gang of 3 laying bricks – John C, Bob W and Tony B,
while Paul C made the mix and a group of 4 – Brian, Keith, John O and yours
truly - brought more bricks down , in between jobs, such as cutting
polythene sheet to size to cover the stacked bricks and protect them against
expected winter snow. We moved about 1000 blues today. From the pictures, you
can see that the distance between the stack of blues by the chute and the 100m
mark where we are currently stacking is getting quite short. Progress !
On the
brick laying front, John finished off the corbelling on section 3, which gives
a total of 22m completed. Bob put two layers of blues on section 4, and Tony
backed them up.
The big news was the long anticipated arrival of 6 lads from Gloucester college, and their tutor. Today being their first day, it was more in the nature of a running in turn, but they did manage to kick off a new stretch of 10m around the 60m mark, leaving a gap between 40m and 50m. Their first row was an immediate challenge, as it needed a row of blues as well as underneath, to bring them up to the desired level, a row of half thickness bricks, each one of which had to be separately tailored to size. When this has gone off, they are in a good position to start the serious laying and get some speed up.
We gave
them some basic safety training, including what to do in the unlikely event of
a train arriving, as we are in the closed season now. And to our amazement, a
train did arrive – Neil Carr on the EMD, with a bogie wagon of sleepers. No, it
was not for Broadway, not yet.
At 16.00 we
called it a day. Rain was increasing steadily, and darkness was falling.
Judging by the number of barrows of muck that were being ferried – sometimes
two at once – we were much more productive today than on previous days, so a
hearty thank you to Gloucester college !
Here is Jo's report:-
Hi Bill,
The big news was the long anticipated arrival of 6 lads from Gloucester college, and their tutor. Today being their first day, it was more in the nature of a running in turn, but they did manage to kick off a new stretch of 10m around the 60m mark, leaving a gap between 40m and 50m. Their first row was an immediate challenge, as it needed a row of blues as well as underneath, to bring them up to the desired level, a row of half thickness bricks, each one of which had to be separately tailored to size. When this has gone off, they are in a good position to start the serious laying and get some speed up.
Best
regards,
Jo
5 comments:
07.44
I see early morning activity at the signal box site!
What's happening? Aaron
Er, since when has the 73 been refered to as an "EMD" ? ED, for electro-diesel, yes but "EMD" a definate no. That refers to the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors, and those company locos are altogether different beasts.
Piles!
What have French batteries to do with it?
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