As today's normal Monday working day has been moved to Wednesday 31st December, there are no working pictures for today, but perhaps our readers would be interested to see where we have come from?

Here's a historical view of the trackbed from the road bridge, looking north. This picture was taken nearly 20 years ago, while your blogger was passing through while on an expat visit to the UK. Little did he realise that he would be helping to put back the platform here in 2015 !


The picture is one of several taken that day (and earlier ones, again on passing through visits) and can be seen in the Flickr album here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/73536293@N02/sets/72157628884568463/

Down at track level, the platform looked like this. Even then, the lean inwards esp. on the Malvern side was patently clear, although it seems the lean worsened when the trackbed was cleaned out for track laying, and eventually the lean became so acute that the Malvern side platform was taken down in 2005.

Fast forward to summer 2013 ! Following the pouring of new concrete foundations, volunteers from the Broadway gang were asked to help with constructing the new platform.

Taken on July st 2013, this picture shows the almost endless strip of foundations stretching away nearly to infinity. What have we taken on ???

On top of that, 50.000 new bricks (seconds) had been delivered, but due to the constraints of the site, they had to be dumped on top of the cutting, rather than along the trackside, where they were actually needed.

What to do? How do we get to move all these? Bob is confronted by a sea of reds and blues stacked three pallets deep.

Our first idea was a good one, but we didn't get the scale right. Using a length of guttering, we slid the bricks down one by one. This was soon replaced by JC's pukka ladder chain, which enabled us to slide the bricks down three at a time. Much faster!

Then, just a 200yd push saw 500 bricks at the other end of the site, where we stacked them ready for laying.

To lay the bricks, we needed mortar, 90kg barrowloads of it. Rails reduce rolling resistance, right? We tried everything, to make the job easier...

Then came the day we laid the first brick. Where to start? Expert advice is needed here. Well, I wouldn't start from here if I was you....

And here we are, 18 months later, and just another 30yds from the other end. Haven't we done well?

Well, the heavy work has taken its toll. The wheelbarrows are all twisted, and some of the volunteers seem little better... Two of our valiant mortar mixers and carriers have got funny hats on, but, yes, it's been tough!

But now the trip to the coal face is getting shorter and shorter, and our spirits are rising. We should see the end of brick laying itself by Easter, and there'll be a change of activity then - back filling and lamp post planting.

This Wednesday will see us do one more day in 2014, then it's 2015, the year we will finish the job. Then it's back to Broadway to build us a genuine GWR station!

We wish our readers a Happy New Year, and thank you all for your interest and support. See you all in 2015 !