Great progress today by two teams - the platform extension team, and the signal box team.

On the extension side,  we received two loads of spent ballast, removed from the David Page shed at Toddington where a nice new concrete floor is going in. What better address than Broadway, platform 1, for this excellent backfill material? The lorry carefully reversed down the full length of the platform, positioned itself next to the extension wall, and the driver very kindly used his grab to unload and position each grab full on the right spot behind the wall, so that Dave and Clive with the rakes did not have too much back breaking work in leveling it.

The first of 20 tons goes in.

After the second load had been delivered and spread out, the infill was rolled, and in all the rear of the platform has risen by about a foot. Great!

A nice smooth result.

After rolling - check the smooth surface in the picture - the gang turned its attention to preparing the platform 2c extension area. As we reported earlier, this unfortunately cuts right through the cleaned brick stocking site, so requiring an enormous logistical exercise to get the many 1.000s of bricks moved to somewhere else. A gang of 8 led by Roger attacked the remaining piles and at the close of play they had moved and re-stacked no fewer than 16 pallets. All that now remains is a stack of heavy bull nosed parapet bricks and two cages of slates, which need the JCB to move them.

The planned slabbing exercise unfortunately did not go ahead, as Fairview had too many deliveries to make this afternoon. However, further 1c slabbing must be imminent.

Down by the signal box a gang of 3 - 4 spent most of the morning setting up a scaffolding tower inside the box. After a lot of measuring and packing, this reached the correct height and was planked over. In this way the final hole in the lever room floor was plugged, and it allows Tony to lay the inner skin bricks from the inside.

The scaffolding tower goes up inside the box.

 In the picture you can see Tony and Peter looking down on Bob, who is directing affairs from within the locking room. Running through the centre of the picture are the two heavy duty steel beams which will support the lever frame. You can see that from the inside, the box is now quite a respectable structure.











In the middle of the day, we were surprised by a sudden rushing noise, which turned into a loud roar as a Hercules flew over the tree tops at only 250ft! Did I get a picture? No. It was so low that we saw it for no more than 3 - 4 seconds, then it was gone. Long enough however for our aircraft enthusiast Tony to determine that it was a C 130, version J, from Brize Norton, he gave us the squadron name and even the registration number! Impressed, we asked him for the name of the pilot. He didn't know!

Prior to recommencing brick laying, Bob and Peter repaired to the cabin to study the beautiful drawing made by JC of the lever frame and its interaction with the shorter floor joists.

Really? A sceptical Peter looks on as Bob explains.

We then found them back on top of the box with their pencils and notebooks:

Measuring and counting the remaining shorter joists still needing to be fitted.

...and the upshot of the excercise is that Peter will now be ordering the joists and sawing them to size. Soon, we will have a pukka floor to walk around on. This is usually the trigger for as signalman to bring in a comfortable chair and a kettle.

In the foreground is the front wall, on which Bob and Tony laid two rows of reds in the early afternoon, as well as two towers on the two front corners. These towers are at now window sill level. The southern gable is one row below, and the front wall is two rows below, so that you can see how close we are to putting in the big sliding windows.

Tony rubs down the day's work, while Bob and Steve set out the SE tower up to window sill level.

In response to the question in the penultimate posting, yes, we have located the newly made cast iron name board for the signal box. Next to it was a wooden mock up, so we had the bright idea that this might look rather good mounted outside on the scaffolding:

''BROADWAY SIGNAL BOX''

What do you think?

Finally, a look back over the site cleared by the hard working team of 8 at the northern end:

The bricks - there they were, gone...

 Just three more (heavy) pallets to go. Well done, lads!