Another day of rain ! I suppose we have deserved it, after such a fantastic summer, and one of the driest Septembers on record. Despite the dire forecast, eight people volunteered today. Amazing.

But first things first, another smaller party of five set to work on Saturday 11th. It was a pretty ideally sized party (if you are not shifting materials around, as we mostly do) and the dynamic duo of John O and Derrick made up the mortar and barrowed it down the line, while Bob, Tony and Pete laid bricks in rapid style. Bob completed two half courses of blues on the120m section, and two courses of blues on the 130m section. The first three new sections are looking pretty advanced now!

At the same time, Tony and Pete supported Bob by backing up behind in reds on all three sections currently in hand - 110m, 120m and 130m. About 550 bricks were laid in total, not bad for a damp day. The weather held off until 4pm, but then thick drizzle came down and that was it for Saturday.


Today, Monday, the forecast was for rain and gusts of wind all day long. Even though the forecast was dreadful it was not too bad at Cheltenham.  Tony, Pete and Bob laid two and a half courses of reds on the 120m section and one course on the 130m section. Approx 300 bricks were laid in total. The mortar was supplied by John O and Keith.  Brian, Chris and Derrick moved and cleaned surplus blue bricks from the 120m section, cleaned and stacked red bricks for use behind the 120M section and moved the concrete blocks ready for the 140m section. The 140m section? Yes, we are planning ahead for the next setting out.

At 1.30pm the rain got even worse and the team went home.  The morning working was nevertheless productive. Unfortunately the weather was just too bad for photographs. Not only was it dark, but gloves get wet and sticky with mud, a combination not allowed for by Messrs Canon and Nikon. 

However we do have one picture to show you:

CRC during the winter of 1911 / 1912. A real find !

Cheltenham race Course station was opened on 13th March 1912, when the railway line was already in situ and open. The above picture is a rare one as it shows the platforms actually under construction. It is cold; there is snow visible among the bricks scattered around and the men in the background are dressed in heavy coats and hats and have their hands in their pockets. It looks wet and miserable. There are people standing in the four foot of both lines, but perhaps the chap on the right was the lookout, even though he was standing in the middle of the up line. A brick layer's 'spot' is lying in the foreground but there is no sign of work actually going on. The walls are covered up with cloth held down by bricks - we still do this today when there is rain about - and the men in the distance may well be an inspection party on a non working day. Note that the walls are being back filled as the walls progress, and this may have contributed to them rotating years later, leading directly to our work today! Nowadays we wait for the mortar to have hardened for quite a bit, before back filling anything.

The picture also shows clearly, without the pines there today, that the station was built in a cutting, which is eventually bridged by the Evesham Road overbridge you can see in the distance. Zooming in on the left, we can see what is possibly a NG truck, off its track, and perhaps the tracks to the left of it. So this is how they moved the materials along! But we have tracks too, only standard gauge....

If there is anything you can add, or have another picture of CRC we could put on our blog, do let us know.

Back next week, with more smiling faces of happy slaves...

A day out with the PWay gang ! BAG received a call for help from Clive to help with fishplate greasing at Gotherington for a day. Three BAG members responded - Mike, Vic and yours truly. What a load of fun we had. It's so interesting to cross fertilise with other departments of the railway, and it's an excellent opportunity to get to know new faces and swap experiences. In fact, it reminded me quite a lot of my son, who is engaged in spreading best practice between the different power stations of one of the nuclear operators.

Nine o'clock saw the three of us at Winchcombe, where we met the rest of the PWay 'Wednesday Gang', who were doing fishplate greasing on - a Thursday. Hmmmm. The members were called together using a neat little internet function called Doodle, which is an on-line diary where a task is described, and people can register to attend. I counted 12 faces at Winchcombe - this agreed with Doodle, so all present and correct !

We set off in the PW train. If the 'P' stood for Pullman, it was certainly luxury, with a buffet car attached and hot and cold running coffee and tea. At Gotherington, the equipment was unloaded; the heavier items with a hoist powered by an electric generator and the whole scheme was well equipped and organised. The train then set back for a quarter of a mile towards Greet, so revealing the point at which we were to start.

Starting the compressor

The Geismar nut remover, with Alasdair at the controls

We operated in three teams: One to undo the fishplate nuts - see above, one to prise open the fishplates and

 inject a modicum of grease,

BAG Vic on the injection team. The man with the cleanest jacket gets to play with the air powered grease gun!

and to follow up, the closure team, with a second Geismar to do the nuts up again:

The closure team, and a recalcitrant diesel engine.

In the team of 12, there was only one man who knew how to start the second Geismar, but he was at the other end of the site, and there was no mobile phone reception with which to ask him. The instructions were in Italian ! It was felt that the task of starting it should fall to a board director. It was a diesel engine, and it was most reluctant to start. After six pulls, the task was cascaded down to the next member of the gang, also without success, until yours truly drew the last straw and actually got it going, to acclaim all round. So the BAG was of some use after all.

The STUMEC Geismar, aka The Beast. It's heavy.

In the picture above you can see the business end of the nut remover. It has a two speed gearbox, plus forward and reverse, and beside lifting chair screws it can operate sidewards as in the above picture and remove fishplates in a few seconds...

...IF they are not on too tight. If they are indeed too tight, we have to revert to the tried and tested manual spanner method, and if that fails, we revert to the spanner and 'Birmingham screwdriver', as in the picture. Come on Paul, give it some welly! The greasing team stand and watch in awe.

Oh - oh, anybody notice that sky?

Once we had our rhythm up, we did extremely well and nutted and greased right through Gotherington station - chat to Bryan - and through the long loop and beyond up to the bracket signal. Then, suddenly the lights went out. An enormous black cloud hove into sight from the south. What do they smoke at Cheltenham? We wisely decided that it was lunch time, and headed quickly back to the train. Arriving there, we were greeted by a huge downpour. A very enjoyable lunch break ensued, with tea, steamed up windows and good chat.
After lunch, we removed several more difficult nuts and a second large cloud appeared on the horizon. This time we were not going to get caught out and we put on the heavy duty rain gear:

John gets his hood done up for him. Not too tight, though !!!

After reaching the bracket signal, we threw the whole machinery into reverse and proceeded down the other side of the loop. We were going well again, when there was a tap on my shoulder - the greasing team had run out of petrol and could not follow. Walking half a mile to the train, and back half a mile with a fresh jerrycan of petrol was not worth it by this time, so we called it a day and started to pack up. The problem with a mobile gang such as PWay is that you have to get yourself and your equipment on to the site, unpack and trundle it to the coal face, and at the end of the day do the whole thing in reverse.
This does not always go according to plan either:

The wheels came off at the signal box.

Outside Gotherington signal box the Geismar caught the foot crossing board and derailed its undercarriage. Five men stare at the job, four are required to lift the beast back on to its carriage. Who is the lucky escapee?

There are two alternatives to the Geismar: By hand...

Or, why not like this, with an motorised impact wrench. Didn't ask, did you?

Behind us, some last minute adjustments are made to fish plates close to the frog, where the Geismar doesn't reach. Who designed these things anyway, there's no room in here at all?

You can let go now, Doug !

At the end of the day, we loaded everything back in to the train. They have a neat, home made little undercarriage here, which allows them to roll 'the beast' along the ballast without lifting.

A great day out, with a bunch of fun guys. They have great plans for getting to Broadway.... more will be revealed during the volunteers meeting on November 1st ;-). Our railway is an exciting place to be!

It rained today - and it rained. Your blogger stayed at home and looked out of the window. Big mistake !
The gang was down there OK, and even got quite a bit done. But it was a miserable start indeed, an extensive tea drinking session was held in the cabin, until at 10.30 it was felt to be dry enough (or less wet enough) to venture outside to get on with some stuff. How do you know it's raining too much at CRC? If you can't see Cleeve Hill from the cabin door :-)

The team ventures out. See those hats? First time this year.

The images I received from Bob were rather dark, which I suspect reflects the true conditions on site, but I have brightened them up a bit. In the picture above, some of the drain pipes stacked in the container are being moved to the start of the new works, ready for the drain that goes in behind the wall.

Good old Fairview with another reliable delivery.

Coinciding with the improvement in the weather a delivery of cement and blocks arrived from Fairview. That'll be for the 130m section then, we need 90 of them there.

Can you see me, mother?

The heavens opened again about 11.30 so the gang decided to have an early lunch in anticipation of it improving. 

How to lay bricks in the wet. John contemplates a holiday in Malta...

It did improve, and work commenced again around 12.30pm and continued until about 4.00pm.  There were seven volunteers on site at the end of the day and considering the awful weather much was achieved.  Three courses of reds were laid on the 120m section and one course of concrete blocks on the 130m section.  It was too wet to lay any blues today. 

 

Keith and Brian have just uncovered the working section again, after the rain.

Keith on 'split a brick in half with this hammer' duty.

Finishing off the blocks laid on the 130m section.

In addition to today's achievements, Bob and John O sneaked down to CRC2 on Friday 3rd and managed to lay two courses of blues on the 130m section and two half courses on the 120m section. That is dedication! All 3 new sections are now busy - time to set out another one?

We arrived on site today with bated breath - were the caravans still there? They had - gone ! Phew.... We were all ready for a giant tidy up session, recovering the bricks that had been scattered about the field, but, oh joy, some kind people had already done that, and stacked the bricks on our side of the fence. Thanks, guys ! The big stone block was also back in front of the gate by which the caravans had gained entry, so all is well again.
This left us with just 1 1/2 pallets of bricks remaining in the field to move round to the platform, thus removing what we had parked there temporarily and stacking it all ready for use at the coal face. Your scribe, and later Keith and Chris handled this, and even cleaned the bricks of the crumbly mortar inside. In the end, we didn't lose any bricks (we think) but just had to gather them all up again.

It was a rather smaller team today, between 5 and six (depends on when you count them) but brick laying proceeded regardless. Manning wasn't helped when your scribe was unexpectedly called away half an hour after he arrived on site. Through Bishops Cleeve twice in the rush hour, with an additional queue by a temporary traffic light for a new gas main. Great.
In the picture above, we can see Bob laying a row of blocks on the 120m stretch, with Paul spooning in the mortar. This went surprisingly quickly, allowing Bob to move on to the next task of brick laying. Keith is just off to fetch another block from elsewhere on the site. The logistics of this job...endless.
After laying the blocks, Bob put down two courses of blues on the same section, and a course of reds behind. You can see the reds stacked on the blues in front.

On the 110m section, JC (in the distance) laid the final row of facing blues and then moved back to the start to lay the first row of corbelling on top of it. Brilliant ! John O and Keith also helped keep the mortar coming, a job that gets easier and easier as we slowly build our way back to the mixer. Or so I say, not having wheeled any of it today.

Pete also came along and helped JC with backing up. Paul, in the red in the picture above, also did some backing up, so we had up to four brick layers today, which meant a lot of mortar was required. Here is John O, off on another mortar run.
At the end of the day, Bob managed to erect a pier at the end of the 130m section (along which we laid a concrete foundation course to get the level right last week) so when we return next Monday, we can lay a first course of bricks along here too.
Look at the completed stretch of platform behind JC in the picture above ! Haven't we come a long way, it vanishes away into the distance.
We were happy to receive a visit from the Chairman today, and understand that he too was impressed. Happiness all round.
But come and join us next week, we were a bit thin on the ground today.

Another 8 people on site today, it must be the hot weather that brings them out (or is it the good company?)
This enabled us to attack the platform on several levels:

First of all, you need a lot of mortar. We made sure there was a steady stream today. Here is Paul about throw a Herculean shovelful into the mixer, with John shrinking away to avoid the inevitable splashback out of the drum. Paul did the sand and cement, while John was responsible for the precise amount of water in the mix. Last week, one load of mix was sent back from the coal face for being to dry, and the next was also sent back for being too wet. No more ! Here's how:

We now add the water by the tea cup full. A little at a time, from a bucket, until the consistency is just right. A little like making cake mix, I suppose.

Couldn't we just throw in the whole bucketful? No, because we are perfectionists and want to get the consistency just right.

Down on the coal face, two barrows of muck have arrived. The first one of brown is for the concrete blocks, which were lifted on to the concrete slab poured last week. This row went on amazingly quickly, as we have now developed a system whereby one team puts the block on a bed of mortar, while second team fills in the gaps with runny mortar afterwards. In this way the 120m stretch soon filled up with blocks. The second barrow was one of black, with which Bob laid two rows of blues along the front - the first row is shown in the picture; a row of facers followed afterwards, as well as a tower on the end for next week.

Here the blocks are in, and Pete has just started on a layer of reds to back up behind the blues that Bob laid. In the middle is Derek, who was 'asked' to clean a complete pallet of second hand reds of the very light mortar that clung to them. Boring and repetitious, but also useful and in good company. The pallet of blues leaning precipitously in the middle was also shifted along a bit, via the PWay trolley. Easily said....

Here is an example of one such brick shifting activity. The bricks in question are second hand and part of the same lot that came from Broadway. Jolly useful they are too. But they need to be put in the right place. Rather than walk them over to the back, it was decided to do an 'aerial ' transfer. (I throw this brick, you catch it, mate)

At the end of the day.

At the end of the day, we had achieved a row of blocks, two rows of blues and a double row of reds on the 120m section. In addition, we laid a slab of concrete all the way along the 130m section, which will be the foundation for the start of this next section the following week. The 110m section, the first new one, received a magnificent three rows of blues, but last Wednesday. This completely escaped your blogger's notice, no offence intended. It means that after backing up, corbelling can start on the 110m section. Not long before we can tick this one off.

As you can gether, there was quite a lot of brick moving about today. However, there were also other logistical moves required:

I hate to say this, but does it look like fun rather than work?

 We had to quickly gather up Pete's canopy painting scaffold and lock it up in the container, to protect it from unfriendly eyes. The same was necessary with our supply of 25 10m drainage pipes:

These has been delivered a few weeks back, and stored in the grass along the rear of the platform, ready for use. They were no longer safe there, because...

... we were very disappointed to discover that someone had broken open three of the four pallets of second hand bricks brought down from Broadway, and taken most of them. We couldn't believe our eyes, who would do that??? Further investigation revealed that someone had also tipped out the contents of the dumpy bag used to collect the metal strips from the new brick pallets and taken the bag, while our scrap pile had been rifled through and anything heavy removed. Bizarre, or what?

Visitors to CRC.

We can also report that adjacent to CRC2, about a dozen caravans have appeared....

Back next week !

Work at CRC2 has resumed at a cracking pace, and your blogger has been repatriated from deepest France, no expense spared. Excuse the faintest whiff of Garlic in this posting, the stuff is very clinging. The English drizzle today wasn't strong enough to counteract all traces of the French.

During the last two weeks the blogger may have been away, but the CRC2 crew were certainly at work. They have set out the next three sections, prepared the foundations for brick laying, and laid the first courses on the new 110m stretch. Readers may remember that we paused at 100m (out of 220m total length, including the northern ramp) to do the back filling and lamp post posting.We've got all the ducting in, and the fill is now settling down and compacting. Onwards to the new bit!

Today we had 8 volunteers on site. Eight! I was impressed.

The mixer was humming away when I arrived at a 'late' 08.45. It was making up concrete, and several loads of this were ferried down to the coal face by Brian and John. The purpose there was to raise the level of the foundations by a few inches over a lengthy strip, so that it was the right height to lay bricks up to the required platform level. This foundation 'start' varies every few yards, as the new concrete foundation goes up in steps, while the platform top is on a gentle slope, reflecting the level of the rails. This makes it impossible to lay the first bricks in an identical manner all away along the job - every bit is different.

At the start of the day, the job looked like this:

John S is backing up the 110m stretch, John C and Bob are laying blues on the 120m. The unstarted 130m bit is in the foreground. Next to Bob you can see the strip where the concrete was poured. After we had mixed enough concrete, four of us decided to get out the ladder chain again and bring down some blues from what we thought were two packets on top of the embankment, near the place where they would be wanted. Great. We'll soon have those down.
We thought.

You know what it's like when you get over the top of a hill, and then there is another one? Well, in our case the two visible packs of blues turned into 9 - arrgghhhh ! But with some persistence, and two men at the top, two men at the bottom, we cleared four of the packs of blues, or about 1800 individual bricks that all went down the slide. Half of them were stocked at the bottom of the slide, near the coal face, and the other half was loaded on to the trolley and wheeled some distance along for future use.

In the picture above, Brian and Keith are emptying the trolley again, double handling, unfortunately. After quite some head scratching, it occurs to us that our job would be made considerably easier if we had the use of a fork lift for a day. You can see from the picture that we are now much closer to the northern end, and some of the packs could be lifted straight on to the trolley by a fork lift, so that we only have to unload them. We also have some reds from Broadway to clear near the signal box - these are second hand, and are coming in really useful (a big thank you to Terry and Paul, by the way).

Broadway reds wheeled down to the coal face, and being unloaded. The pile of stones in the background marks the half way point along the platform. To the right of this is the site of the former waiting room. New lamp posts in the distance.

Two Johns attack the first of the new sections, at 110m.

Bob on his knees, in the ballast. It's hard to stand up afterwards!

At the end of the day, we had laid two courses of blues on both the 110m and 120m sections, both of which were backed up by John S with reds. As you can see from the picture above, Bob also managed to get in a first course of blues on the third new section, at 130m. This section was lined in (temporary) concrete blocks at the end of the day, so that we can put in a layer of concrete first thing next time we come. All the brick laying then had to be pointed at the end of the day, which is always very time consuming. Pointing needs black mortar, but oh, what is this?

It seems the mixer fell over into the barrow, as the mortar was being poured out. Well, to make an omelette, you have to break eggs. Did you manage to sneak the load past Bob, without him noticing, John?

It was a day of satisfying progress, and most important of all, of good humour. It's good to be back.

Our brick laying gang is about to return, and work on CRC2 will resume. But - now it's my turn to go on holiday! What kind of planning is that, you might rightly say, but I planned it to be outside the main holiday season, now that the kids have left. So there you go.

So what is going to happen on our incredibly long platform rebuild?

This coming Sunday, JC and Bob will set out the next 3 sections of the second half, or CRC2b as one might call it. We have another 110m to go, but the distance from the cement mixer will get less and less. We do still have a big logistical exercise again, as all the required bricks will have to be brought down from the top of the embankment, or ferried round from the behind the fence, where we dropped a new load a few weeks back.
Another time consuming issue is that the size of the job has increased (known as 'mission creep' in the military). Brought down to 'help' with the building of the platform wall, we find ourselves in sole charge, back filling, ducting, placing lamp posts, a running in board, the slabs and probably some sort of support for the cutting side slope as well. Where does the job stop?

So Monday 1st September (at last) sees the resumption of work on CRC2. Do come along.
We will start the first courses of blue bricks on the first 10m.  A lot of materials are being delivered, including sand, cement, blocks and corbelling blues, and the two remaining bends to complete the lamppost ducting.

Depending on how well we do, we may be laying the first row of blocks on Monday the 8th. They will have to be brought down form the container area, as well as supplies of reds and blues and those blocks. Many hands make light work. I am reliably informed that a fresh supply of mini Swiss rolls is in position.

Yours truly will be up a French mountainside for 14 days. I can't blog from up there, so radio silence on this blog will be maintained, alas. I will be back on Monday 15th September, and can't wait to see how you all got on.

In the meantime, here is a picture of Cheltenham race course Station taken in the early 1960s. It's only a little preview off the internet; you can get a full sized picture from the STEAM railway museum, (www.steampicturelibrary.com) who have the rights.
Interesting are the little concrete modesty screens; remains of them exist to this day, but I never realised what they were until I saw this image. Those buildings, in the style of today's booking office, were never more than a toilet and a little waiting room. What could we put in their place, and still be authentic?

Back soon !