Before I post the news from Monday, a report from the Wednesday gang... yes, a small gang consisting of John C and John O reported for duty and quietly laid 300 bricks on Wednesday! This was a very pleasant surprise for the remaining CRC2 gang, who arrived this morning with the wall a bit further built than they thought.

John C on the penultimate layer before corbelling. John S is backing up, John O is - stunned!

John S is now a regular on the Monday gang, and this has made a big impact, allowing John C and Bob to concentrate on laying blues. Today we laid bricks on the 50m, 60m and 70m sections, and a new 80m section was pegged out, ready to start next time. 110m is half way.....

The Gloucester lads on the attack.

A very welcome return today was the lads from the Gloucester College. We gave them their own section, and they laid 200 reds! In the picture above we can see them passing extra reds over to Keith, who is stacking them on the boards ready for immediate use.

So tired....

Having passed over half a ton of reds, an extended rest period was required for these frail young bodies, while their tutor carried on hard at work.

You want sand, you get sand.

With all the extra hands on site, we quickly ran out of sand, with just about one wheelbarrow load remaining when the cavalry came to bring us some more. A lorry load is five tons, and we must have gotten through five or six loads like this since we started this job last August, all wheeled down to the site 200m away in wheelbarrows. Amazing what we have achieved, bit by bit.

Just like doing dishes, really. Keith has got his Marigolds on.

One thing we hadn't realised last summer when we started bringing the bricks down from the top of the cutting was that once stacked, the lower two or three rows of stacked bricks, and all those at the rear of each pile, quickly got dirty from splashes at the front, and collapsing cutting sides at the rear. Now that we want to use them, we find that they are covered in clay and many need individual washing before they can be used. After working bent over double by the trackside, we eventually used the trolley for a sort of rolling kitchen sink that we could move around. This worked rather better, but there are a lot more to go. In the meantime, we will not be bringing any more bricks down from the top until much nearer the time that we need them.

When I nod my head, you hit it with a hammer...

Given the sudden rapid rate of progress, it was decided to peg out a new section The picture above shows John C and Bob marking out then end of the 80m section. The slabs on the embankment behind them represent the half way mark, so just a little bit more to go.

Fully rested and strengthened with lunch, the Gloucester lads attacked the wall again. Here we can see them laying those 200 reds, backing up the 300 blues laid on Wednesday. This is what they are here for, to gain experience on the job, and with us they have the opportunity to do so. We are helping each other.

All in all, we laid 650 bricks today, a very satisfying result. At the end of the day, the site looked like this:

The beginning of the wall is slowly receding into the distance....

As we approach the half way mark, the consensus is that we will then back fill the wall that we will have completed, before moving on to the second half towards the signal box. We need to get in drainage and pea gravel around it, before using a small dumper to fill the void behind the wall.
CRC2a and CRC2b, if you like.