Wednesday 24th September 2014 - Jo Roesen Reporting!

After early showers it was a lovely sunny day today, and we got a lot done. We split into several groups, including gardening (Vic) and brick cleaning (Chris and David). We took delivery of the remaining floor joists for the signal box and some rolled up 50m sections of plastic pipe, which proved to have a vigorous defence when we tried to unroll and straighten them. But first, news of the carpentry gang:

You using feet and inches, Mike? Dunno, what's it say on the tape measure?

Vic, Mike and Peter built a third frame section for the footbridge tunnel, and started on some of the roof trusses. This involved a lot of measuring and sawing which went on all day along the length of 1c. Opposite this, on 2c, Jim met the crane man for discussions on how to lift and place the HIA footbridge centre span, ready for further work at Broadway:

The other I caught was smaller.

This seemed to involve a lot of arm waving, but we understand that a satisfactory outcome was reached.

Over on the central section of platform 1, a gang set out to bury a stretch of pipe between the cabin and the telephone box. The purpose of this is to lay a communication cable between the two. However, the pipe threw up a surprising amount of resistance and the process did not go as smoothly as had been hoped:

There seems to be a knot here..

Jim battles with the great Broadway sea snake. I'll hold its head, while you hold the tail...

Force feeding the great sea snake, which was reluctant to swallow the spanner and fishing line it was offered.

Untangling the fishing line again.

The great sea snake winds up its coils, and lunges at Gordon. David pulls from a safe distance.

We bury the great sea snake - there !

At the end of the day, and after much hilarity, the gang gave up on the first length of pipe, but did manage to dig a ditch along the platform edge, and bury most of the first 50m length of an alternative and less reluctant example.

Are they level ?

Great progress was made with the final length of platform 2, thanks to two teams doing different jobs here. The first team, consisting of Bob ('the builder') and new recruit Martin, managed to lay almost all of the blocks in the second row, leaving just 12 to lay next time. Yours truly cut up the supplementary rebars, and secured them in the holes drilled last week with what was left of the resin. It was just enough, perfect. They're in !

The second team started to fill up the two layers of blocks with concrete:

Terry and Paul fill up the holes.

Hero of the day was Keith, who single handedly supplied both teams with both mortar and concrete from the mixer. He shoveled away an entire pile of aggregate and must have gotten through a dozen 25Kg bags of cement, all of which had to be carried from the cement hut some distance away. Well done ! Yours truly shuttled away with the wheelbarrow, leaving for home at the end of the day with very long arms.

View of the site at the end of the day

At the end of the day, the concrete infill had reached the two thirds mark The shiny bit on the platform extension in the picture above represents the bit that was infilled, and which is now ready for the first of two rows of half size blocks, to get us up to the first row of bricks.

Work on the signal box is expected to resume on Saturday.