Our last working day of the month! And probably the coldest, driving to CRC down the Vale was quite tricky in places this morning, with traces of frost on the road where you didn't expect them.

On site, it was more than traces! John had to beat his way into the water butt, breaking up floes of ice 2 ins thick. While the air was a warmish 3 degrees+ and rising, the ground was still very cold. Even the ballast was frozen in the bag. The solution was to add hot water to the mix, and after an hour or so, and with the sun out, we felt confident enough to start the concreting on the new 170m section.

Rod and John concrete in the 170m section

Due to the change in foundation levels, the southern end was rather deep and we got through the ballast rather quicker than we wanted. In the end we ran out, and your scribe and Brian set off to get 10 bags from a local DIY store, with 5 bags of cement just to make sure. That car looked a bit low at the rear end, but we got the job done. Next week, it'll be two rows of blues here, to get ready for the concrete blocks to be rolled in. Maybe there will even be time to set out the 180m section? What a start to 2015 that would be.

Here we can see the new 10m stretch of freshly laid concrete, with ballast brought by car and hot water form the tap! We don't let little problems get in our way.

Today was a running day. We were amazed at the number of passengers the trains drew, the steam service was well filled. Good for the railway! It was the blue timetable today, hence a mixture of steam and DMU. Here the DMU trundles into platform 1, past our newly laid concrete. We like the DMU, it doesn't run round, so we can carry on working.

Dinmore Manor also made several appearances, here past Rod and Brian who were re-burying the temporary pipe in order to make it less of a trip hazard.

The day's jobs other than concreting were corbelling and laying of reds. Unfortunately we only had two brick layers today, which did make itself felt. Bob completed a row of corbelling bricks on the 140m section, leaving just one final row to go before we can tick this one off. It didn't quite make it into 2014, alas.
John S laid a row of reds during this time, and when he had finished doing this, Bob came and laid a row of blue headers along it.

In the middle of the day Dinmore Manor came to inspect the work, in passing as it were. It's quite a noisy engine, nice.

Here she is, ready for the right away. The signal is off; curiously, this was replaced by a green flag from the box later on. Some gremlin in the locking room, no doubt.

When the time came, your scribe took this picture of the actual departure. Working mostly on Mondays we don't get to see so many trains, so this adds a bit of excitement to the daily grind of mortar mixing and brick laying. You can see that it was cold - look at all the steam escaping from the steam heating. Next year you can take this picture, dear reader, standing on the new platform. This year, it's for working members only :-)

Here you can see Bob's row of newly laid headers on the 160m section, while John S backs them up with 3/4 length reds, each one of which has to be specially cut to size. You do this with a brickie's hammer, hitting the brick with the sharp end repeatedly on the same spot, until it breaks somewhere completely different! Stupid bricks....

This is our closing picture for 2014 - the DMU about to depart CRC as the sun sinks below the horizon. Bob is pointing his work, while John S covers the concrete and backing up work to protect it from rain and frost. Time to tidy up, reset the mouse traps, and head for home, with the car heating set on 'full'. Mmmmmmmmm.

We're back at CRC2 next Monday, 5th January... 2015 ! Happy New Year to all our readers, and see you again soon. Thanks for checking in.