Work continues at Broadway, and with the original blog 'frozen' I thought I would post a few pictures of work that went on today. I hope the Cheltenham guys don't mind me 'borrowing' their blog.

This is a photograph taken a few days ago and shows Peter Q starting on the T&G boarding inside the SB. At the end of the day he had done the area above all 6 windows, except for 4 boards that he didn't have. Below him is the floor, as yet open. This will be boarded over later, when there is less risk of damage from activities above. Scaffolding planks suffice for the moment.

Today, and up above, Tony and the two Johns cut and placed the ridge tiles, seen here on the northern end.
A small, interesting fact: They do not go down on a bed of mortar, but are attached to each other with mortar. This is to allow for expansion of the roof to take place.
Just visible on the centre ridge are the tops of the two cast iron ventilator tubes. The ventilator cowls are shoehorned over the top, and have wide skirts that go over, and grip under, the edge of the ridge tiles. These are of a special pattern, rounded over the top, not pointed. Typical for a GWR box.

Because our roof is fitted with insulation sheets to meet today's building regulations, the tops of the cast iron tubes do not stick out far enough, and we plan to extend them to the correct height. This will then give the cowls enough to hang on with.

One or two minor jobs remain after the ridge tiles. After that, the plan is to wash down the exterior brickwork with a special cleaner, to remove remaining traces of mortar. The joiner can then come and fit the remaining windows, after the scaffolding has been taken down a level. As the scaffolding is rented, it is in our interest to take it down as soon as possible.

Here is a glimpse of our new bric-a-brac shed. It's only a temporary building, so don't worry about the architecture. We will move the bric-a-brac from the old shed out into the new on a date yet to be decided. The old shed can then be taken down and the station building footprint fully revealed. Today's activity centred round the placing of the patio slabs and further sand around it.

There were only 11 volunteers today. That's a bit on the low side, but there was strong competition at Toddington! If you listened carefully, you could hear foreign whistles...

In this picture above you can see Phil painting some marker posts that were placed this morning. It's not much of a development, but represents a big step. These 4 posts designate the area for the footbridge tower foundations, and on the far left you can in fact see the first riser of the original footbridge. It's still there! This area needs to be marked so that a test excavation can be done on behalf of our consultant engineer, who will be designing the new foundations. We are also talking to potential fabricators for the new towers, but nothing has been decided yet. As extension money is limited, we need to prioritise and the BAG committee is currently considering this tricky issue.

Earlier in the week, the BAG committee met to elect a new chairman. We are very lucky that a committee member has indeed agreed to take on this challenging role, and we therefore welcome Roger Brindley as our new BAG chairman.
The position of project manager for the station rebuild, a separate job, is currently vacant, and the search for candidates is on.

Elsewhere on site brick cleaning continued using the remains of  the station foundations, and the new catch pit covers were given more coats of paint.

On Friday the annual BAG open evening was held, and there was a good number of guests, many brought in by London double decker bus from Broadway centre. The beer ran out within a quick 45 minutes, resulting in an urgent trip to the supermarket for some ad hoc bottles. There was an ample supply of beefburgers, but almost all of these went too. People were clearly hungry for refreshments, as well as information about the project. There was a steady stream of visitors to the footbridge centre span where explanations were being given, and at the end of the evening the platform 1a lights came on, and someone had even rigged a light in the shell of the SB. Very atmospheric, that was. All this was accompanied by live music from Mike S and his friends.

At the end of the day today the SB looked like this - the ridge tiles are all up, except for a short stretch in the middle. The name board is off centre, but it's a dummy made of wood, hanging between two window posts. We'll use a tape measure for the real, cast iron one later.

A small gang of 2 will continue on Monday, while a further expedition to Wishaw is planned for Tuesday to recover the last of the wooden planks for the footbridge centre span. Busy busy busy! Wednesday is the next normal working day then, and the last for your blogger, who will take a long awaited holiday in Italy.