Pea gravel day! At last a change from brick laying (for some...) as we start to prepare the back filling of the first 100m of the platform. A large supply of pea gravel was delivered early in the morning (no deliveries possible on bank holiday Monday, so our working day was moved to Tuesday) and it now sits behind the signal box:

Go ! Start shoveling....

It struck me what a beautiful view this is... how lucky we are in the Cotswolds. I wonder which hill this is?

The logistics of the pea gravel excercise are:

- Shovel pea gravel into a wheelbarrow
- Push wheelbarrow up special ramp on to PWay trolley
- Add second wheelbarrow
- Push PWay trolley down the loop to the far end of platform 2.
- Fill buckets with pea gravel out of the wheelbarrows on the trolley
- Hand to accomplice behind the new platform wall
- Accomplice pours pea gravel over drainpipe.
- Push trolley back to signal box
- Repeat...

Such fun !

I was convinced this trolley pushing would come to a sticky end if the sprung brake lever was ever inadvertently released a tiny bit. This happened with a barrow of mortar a few weeks back, and while the trolley stopped dead, the barrow went on, mortar all over the trackbed. But no, all the pea gravel arrived safely at the other end. Well done, guys. Steady hand on the brake lever, apparently.

The start of the pea gravel pouring, at the far end of CRC 2.

It was quite satisfying to see the pea gravel fill the channel we had created for the drain. This will be repeated with a second layer, once we have back filled the rest to this initial depth. At the end of the day, we had filled about 50% of this channel, say 50m, so another day should see this job completed. About 4 -5 tons were moved in this way, in buckets. Oh boy. There must be another way...

Pea gravel train meets passenger train, all at 5mph...

While a team of three was doing the gravel run, another 5 volunteers carried on with muck making, and brick laying. We need to finish off the initial 100m section of the wall, so that it can be back filled, before starting the second half. The weather was superb, and they got a lot done because it was nice and dry. The 90m section reached row 1 of the corbelling, and the 100m section row 6 of the blues, just over half way up. The four brick layers put down a (record?) 1010 bricks today. Respectable !

The end of the middle. Nearly there!

A large supply of donated crushed concrete has been sourced, and once the wall is complete and the rear drain in, it can be ferried in with a small dumper. Won't be long now, either.

The long trudge back to the cabin, and tea.

This being an operating day, we enjoyed the intermittent arrival of either the 8F, or the 3 car DMU. The only negative here is the delicious smell of bacon butties, which we can smell, but not eat. Oh to be a passenger ! How lucky they are.

30T of topsoil, anyone?

Another interesting wrinkle today was the start of a shuttle of Kier lorries taking subsoil from the excavations for the new racecourse stand to a big pile of it being created in the field behind the signal box. This pile was moved around by an impressively large Caterpillar tractor. Two banksmen guided the lorries across the L/C, in consultation with the signalman.

Back next Monday !

A video of our day's activities. Your blogger however was having tea...
http://youtu.be/a8VjyR0pF6I