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...