Still in the summer high season, it was not clear how many people would turn up due to holidays and other events - we spread ourselves thinly, viz last Monday doing the foundations at Broadway - but nonetheless five of us appeared on site today, and a good start was made on the back edging along the whole site.

We have 200 or so new concrete edging slabs, about 20cm wide each (rather than the 2' by 2' ones we used at Broadway, much more difficult to place) and about half of them had been positioned along the platform a few weeks back, straight off the back of the lorry. The other half is still at the signal box end, waiting for transport.

You can see the new edging slabs strung out along the platform edge here, and a start made on placing them in the ground between the first two lamp posts. Although there was a bit of a merry-go-round on the jobs to keep the interest going, basically Johns S and C dug out the trench for the slabs and placed them, while John O as usual worked the mixer to make the concrete, and Brian and Peter Q did the ferrying with the barrows - 250m each time, although progressively getting less.

Brian did a bit of maths for us: 250m per direction from the signal box, 500m there and back, 40 trips during the day, that's two people pushing barrows over a total of 20 kms ! Seems an awful long way, are you sure you got the maths right, Brian? Well, three wheelbarrows didn't last the day and developed flat tyres, so they were certainly hard at work. I guess it does indeed all add up, what a performance!

 The pictures of the detail above do show the value of a bit of expertise, those edges look lovely and straight.

 

 

 By lunch time, the small team had reached the running in board. You can see that they had two barrows of concrete on the go; it took about one barrow load to set one slab.

Here is our stalwart John O pouring out another load, each one being 12 shovels full of aggregate and two of cement. Look how twisted the barrows are getting. And so are we....

You might ask: How did he manage to make so much concrete with such a small pile of aggregate at his feet? Good point, that man - he ran out ! 

What now?

After some head scratching, it was decided to take John's truck down to the local builder's merchants and acquire a dumpy bag of fresh. A 1T bag of aggregate weighs... one ton, and John's truck is rated for 1.3 tons, so we were in the green. Off they went.

Half an hour later they were back, a ton of aggregate in a large bag in the back of the truck. It's not like getting an extra pint of milk though, this bag was so heavy it had to stay where it was, and John O had to shovel the stuff straight out from the back of the truck. Here you can see him with Peter Q, with the mixer parked right up beside the truck. Turn it the right way round, and you can stand in the back of the truck and shovel it straight down the 'ole. Resourceful lot, this.

Only when the bag was nearly empty again did they manage to drag the remains out and on to the deck.

After lunch, they carried on past the running in board, and the completed length already looks very respectable.

Brian is on the shovel here, while JC is on his hands and knees placing the slabs.

At the end of the day you can see them approaching the next lamp post, with a total of 44 slabs laid, say about one quarter of the overall total required. Pretty good, we thought, for a day's work with only 5 people. They could really have done with a  few more on the barrows, but it's holiday time, and people are away. We need to get this job finished, so that we can concentrate on where we came from - Broadway !

See you again next week, thanks for checking in!