Thursday 23 November 2017

Bye Bye Shed !

Wednesday 22nd November 2017

It blew and blew all day but at least the rain that was forecast kept away, so most of the outside jobs could be carried on with.
We saw 22 windswept volunteers arrive today mostly with one mission in mind plus the usual ongoing jobs on the drive and around the Station building.

The main job of the day was the dismantling and the removal of the Broadway shed. A small gang started the task of hunt the screws which held the thing together. Some obvious and some hidden and some stubborn.


Clive on the screwdriver drill releasing as many screws he could find.
Dave and Ray prizing out a stubborn screw
Outside Pete and Steve were lifting the roofing felt looking for the screws which held the roof down.


After not long and with the help of others all that was left was a pile of panels

One by one they were taken away to an area just off platform 1 down by the storage containers.



Slabs that surrounded the shed will be recycled, the better and suitable ones are going to be used on the platform, the others will be going into storage.

Clive on pickaxe lifting the slabs, Dave supervising, the others who knows?


Then after the slabs had gone in came the big boys with their big toys.


Steve in the JCB made it look easy breaking up the concrete slab, Adam in the dumper took away the broken slab to the rubbish pile, anything useful, like hard core, was taken over to the infilling behind platform 1. At the end of the day the mini digger was removing the last of the debris, all signs of the shed having ever been there will have been removed.

Over on the other side of the drive the team led by Rod and Terry made progress erecting the fencing and edging slabs towards the Station Building.

Vic and somebody with a new coat fixing one of the horizontals.


By the end of the day.
Fencing installed up to the  manhole and edging slabs were not far behind.


Only one painter today, Mike ( is it another man with a new coat? ) was on his own giving the window frames their first coat.



Apparently Graham was keeping a watchful eye on him via the cameras !!

Peter Q and Dave H re-fixed and re-sealed the previously removed guttering by the broken and replaced dagger boards. Dave H whilst there gave the boards a first coat of paint.

You can't see the joins 
Inside the booking hall Neal has been working on the wood work.


A line of batons have been fitted around the room and the dado rail fitted above, below the openings a shelf / counter installed. More batons below will be fitted just above floor level and eventually tongue and groove boards will cover the lower part of the walls. The openings, which are the ticket windows, will have sliding hatches that will rise behind the wooden sheets. The design copied from existing stations still with having the original layout.

Elsewhere the plaster had skimmed the first of the toilets.



And finally .
The volunteer of the week goes to

Cant see me!



8 comments:

  1. So goodbye shed, hello Broadway Station! The site is really being transformed and already looks so different than even this last summer(what summer?) Who's that it the new high viz jacket? He looks younger than before! (LOL) Great progress despite the poor weather conditions, well done every one.
    Regards
    Paul & Marion.

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  2. The dagger boards 'repair' seems to have blended in nicely. Keep mini diggers clear of the area for the future!
    Sad to actually see the shed go now, as it seemed to blend in well down the drive.
    Booking hall and toilets are coming on well and really look the business! Regards, Paul.

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  3. Great to see that repair to the "dagger boards" - as I expected, you wouldn't know that it had happened!

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  4. Glad to see the driveway cleared, opens up the way to the team to complete the curbs and landscaping. Out of curiosity, is the driveway private, adopted, or shared between the land owners and the local authority? Would think it a fitting gesture, given the investment of time and money the railway and volunteers have made, and the benefits the railway returning steam to Broadway will bring for years to come, if the local authority provided the surfacing as their contribution.

    I have pondered before whether bricabrac is actually profitable enough to pay for the costs of the shed and base it's been sold from. I hope it more than washed it's face.

    Wayne

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  5. The driveway is coming along very nicely. A lot of tidying up being done there.

    Looking at the dark brown of the window frames, the colour (which I've decided I really like,) seems to me more like LBSCR than GWR ! Of course, you can't really always tell from a photo ...

    For authenticity, please think again about adding a cosmetic glazing bar, chaps. Windows make such difference to the appearance of a building. Yes, I know you've got plenty to do before Easter 2018, but will you at least think about it ?

    Peter Wright

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    Replies
    1. I agree it would be a nice thing to do and improve the look of the building, but it seems an excellent candidate for something to do after the station opens at Easter when there's less time constraint!

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  6. On a slightly related topic, if the search for GWR spear top fencing is still on, there might be some available in Bristol.

    Some original GWR fencing alongside the Bristol Harbour Railway at Cumberland Road is currently being replaced (with a frankly rather unconvincing replica). The original fence is in poor condition, but as there's about a mile of it there should be enough to make up many good panels. It's an interesting early variant, with a 'spike and spear' design.

    Here's a Google photo of the fence:

    https://tinyurl.com/bristol-gwr-fence

    The Bristol Harbour Railways is part of the 'M Shed' museum these days. Presumably the contact page here would be the place to get in touch in the first instance:

    https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/whats-on/train-rides/

    Slightly closer to home, the GWR spear top fencing around the former Cheltenham Malvern Road loco depot was recently dismantled - and donated to the Vale of Berkeley Railway, a start-up project which aims to run steam trains on the line to Sharpness Docks. (I have no idea why the fencing wasn't donated to the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway!)

    The Sharpness line was built by the Midland Railway, so GWR fencing is not appropriate for the Vale Of Berkeley project, as I'm sure they realise. But I can understand that they weren't about to turn down a gift of genuine period fencing.

    I would be inclined to offer a donation in exchange. At the VoB's stage of development, money is probably more useful than the wrong type of fence. So they might be willing to do a deal.

    If anyone wants to start up a Fence Fund, I'll certainly put in a few quid. The fencing includes the wonderful gates with the entwined GWR monograms - they'd look great across the drive at Broadway.

    Here's a Google photo from last year, showing the gates and fencing. The entire site was cleared soon after this photo was taken. This included the demolition of the loco shed, which had survived as a warehouse. It's now a housing estate.

    https://tinyurl.com/malvern-road-depot-gates

    And here's the Vale Of Berkeley Railway:

    http://valeofberkeleyrailway.co.uk

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    Replies
    1. A BAG team looked at the Malvern Road fencing, and discovered that it was a different, taller type designed for fencing off loco areas, not platforms.

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