Coming to the end of the wall now - make the mix, in the barrow, and hup - you are there. Just a short trot now. Three brick layers today; John S switching to Broadway to give the fascia boards another coat before the painter comes on Wednesday to do the top coat. JC was back from Ireland, so much progress was made, and we are nearly at the end now.

Here is our opening shot, with Bob corbelling, Tony backing up, and JC cutting bricks to size for the slope on the last section.

Bob has been sneaking back to CRC mid weeks and did quite a lot on his own, which allowed Tony to apply the sloppy mix along the 180m section today. The corbelling here is already done.

Here are our two mortar mixers and barrow pushers John O and Keith. Keith has got a barrow of sloppy with him, and was spooning it on to the wall in the foreground quite liberally, so that Tony could work it into the gaps and finish it off nice and smooth.
Behind them is the 190m section, where Bob has already corbelled his way out of sight, a row of 'soldiers' bearing witness to his efforts.
A little chat between jobs is what makes CRC2 such a pleasant place to be in good company.

JC spent about an hour cutting bricks in half diagonally. The result is a fine slope, and a huge pile of pink dust. You can also see that there are almost no bricks remaining in the ready stacks behind the wall, they have almost all been laid.

JC having laid the visible stretchers along the front of the slope, the remainder was filled in - with concrete! Isn't that a bit of a cheat there? Keith made up a special concrete mix for this. It means washing the mixer out again afterwards. John O is always very meticulous about his mixes and washing the tools. A couple of times though there have been complaints about foreign objects in the mix - mostly pebbles, lastly a stone the size of half a brick. Today a brickie's trowel was discovered in the mixer drum! It almost went on its way in a barrow, what would Tony have said on finding that in his pile?

A few moments later the end slope looked like this. It almost looks as if the wall is finished, but there are probably 3 more days work on it, mostly corbelling.

After finishing off the concreting, JC set out the first corbelling row, with a few bricks at each end, between which the line is drawn.

A van then drew up, filled with sandbags. Could they borrow our trolley? Of course they could. These guys were strong, they carried two sandbags each at a time. Hmmmmmm....

Last week we planted the first running in board post, and this has now set in the concrete and was back filled.
Now that it is stable, we were able to plant the second post a bit further along, in the hole dug last week. B & S , next to making the board itself, also made a special former frame, which is the same size and shape, and allows us to put up the second post in exactly the right spot.

Can you see what it is yet?

Here a bit of dry mix has been poured into the hole, and Keith is stamping it down while JC keeps an eye on the level. Then back for 2 further barrows of mix, a bucket of water on top, and leave to set. Next week, take down the former, and put up the real name board. Simples, eh?

When both posts have set, we can fix the two cast iron finials to the top.

Then, quickly back to the brick laying job, the 'Colonel' is on patrol !

At the end of the day we finished off the 180m section, did a row of corbelling on the 190m section, and laid two rows of backing bricks behind it. Next time, we can finish off the 190m and penultimate section with a final row of corbelling and backing up.

Just before packing up, a delegation headed south to inspect the other end of the platform. Management wants a flight of steps here, how to do this?

Then the best bit (after eating mini Swiss rolls), signing off the section we have just completed:

180m is ticked off, just two bits left to do.

Underneath is a picture of CRC in BR days, with the original running in board. We have to refer to the original from time to time, you know!