Wednesday 21st May 2014

Well what a busy and enjoyable Wednesday that was! The sun shone and with  20 volunteers on site, there was plenty to do!

The big challenge of the day was to level the infill that Steve Warren and Jo had piled behind Platform 2B. A team of 5 set to raking the ballast level. It was hard graft for those who drew the short straw - the ballast is largely ash and using tarmac rakes, the arms soon become weary.

Lamppost sockets in situe

When the level is somewhere handy the roller comes into play to create an even surface. Here Steve B is man handling the roller(which often seems to have a mind of its own!) and Gord, Dave H and Keith take a well earned break.

Keith S at work....

The next part of the exercise is to lay the ducting for the lampposts + a general services duct. Here the 50mm and 100mm ducting is being settled in a bed of sand. By the end of the day the job was completed. It then requires another layer of rubble before the top surface of ballast is put on.  This was a great job done - it's been on the back burner for a while and I was pleased to see it moving forward.

Graham D - Artist at work!

The other great step forward for us today was the painting of the white line on Platform 2B. The picture above shows the completed line and nicely highlights the curve in the platform. What a brilliant job Graham......









Where to next ? Well Clive and Peter H were laying bricks on 1C  - This is coming along steadily and I hope it won't be too long (September!) when Grahams back to paint the white there!

Tony in action ... 

At the southern end, the signal box continues to rise - another 3 courses were laid. I had to wear a hair shirt all day because the bricklayers reprimanded me for incorrectly reporting that 2 course were laid last time, when it should have been 5! Whoops. Hell hath no fury like an under counted brickie....

Tony and Paul - note the internal scaffolding on the right...

For the arm chair voyeurs, you will have noted I have realigned the security camera.....

Back to the finishing off of the new cabin - here Mike S tacks the batons around the rubber membrane. Thanks to Peter Q et al, it now looks somewhat better than new!










It was a day for taking a rest in the sunshine over the lunch break. Here the motley crew take in  the sunshine.

In the car park Vic continued the landscaping  and also did a tour of the village distributing some information on the impending bridge repair work.

It's difficult to say what makes a good day great, but for me the painting of the  platform white  symbolises the culmination of months of hard work by so many  people. Brilliant!