Saturday 2 December 2017

A Quiet Day

Saturday Dec 2nd

There were 12 volunteers on site today, some working indoors and others outdoors. It was a cloudy day and to start with dry but after lunch it was drizzly weather so wet weather clothing was required.
The hoped for connection to mains electricity was not done on Friday, as modifications were needed, but hopefully we will have power in two weeks' time.

Early Morning

In this photo the mess room is being 'got ready'; water in boiler for tea or coffee. Heater on to keep warm and everyone to sign on before working.


[Shut that door, you're letting all the heat out]. Ooops!!



Plasterers


The two lads covering the walls have now moved on to the ticket office and entrance hall. Tony, John C, Peter K and Keith S helped move the scaffolding and carried the plaster boards to where they were required.



The Gents, Disabled and Ladies toilets have been completed. Neal was working on the entrance door for the Gents so hopefully that will be in its rightful place on Wednesday.


Wooden Fence

Vic and Robin fitted the last of the rails to the bottom of the fence to complete the current build.
This was then coated with wood preservative by Steve and Robin, who fortunately finished the coating before the wet weather arrived.



















Telephone Box

The next stage is to move the telephone box down the slope. A small wall will be built around the box and the fence can be continued to the station building.


Gardening

Vic resumed his gardening duties which had been rather neglected whilst busy elsewhere. First, all the lamp posts along the driveway were cleared of soil and weeds from around the bases. Next the flower bed under the Station Board at the drive entrance, then it was on to the garden at the Station frontage where cutting back was required.




When spring arrives bedding plants will once again give a display of bloom to greet our visitors.



Blast from the Past

In last Saturday's Post, I stated that 2007 was the start date for the Broadway Station rebuild, but photos 1 & 2 depict 2009 and photo 3 from 2010. So a few years have passed by.

With the ground area being cleared and the old foundations being uncovered, there was now a need for bricks. An appeal was put out for help, as Imperial Blue and Red bricks were required and, as I now show, was answered from many sources.

Bricks Part 1

I was advised by Steve B that a response came from a school in The Forest of Dean. Unfortunately no photos of this.






The above 2 photos are from 2011. The first picture, a load of bricks some of which are from Broadway Station, recovered during the clearance, also from Honeybourne where BR were modifying the station and Wisley a disused sewage works.

The year is now 2012 and bricks were flying in from all over: Taunton, Winchcombe and Ashchurch.
























This photo shows some of the hard working brick cleaning team. It was a hammer and chisel job to remove the old cement and produce nice clean bricks for the brick layers who were building the walls, initially for Platform 1, followed by Platform 2.






Vic (the Garden Gnome)














8 comments:

  1. Does anyone have a rough idea how many bricks were reclaimed and cleaned?

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  2. Back of a fag packet calculation - making some very very broad assumptions, I'd say it was about 110,000. (+ or - quite a bit!) For both platforms, that is. Quite a few more were probably partially cleaned but discarded as damaged (and used as fill).

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  3. The station looks quite the 'BIZ' now that the tracks are in on both roads! Must make you feel more part of the railway and less of just another building site 'bod'. The station looks good with lights on in some of the rooms, even though it is just (at the moment) for the walls and ceilings works.
    Your blog heading says, "A quiet day", but I would have thought with P Way working just off the south ends of your platforms, it would sound rather like a motorcycle scramble! Well, we both may have different ideas of quiet.
    Excellent work by you all. Regards, Paul.

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  4. At this time of year and with the weather as it is, twelve was a good number. Still a good deal of work done, sometimes it can seem to take forever to complete a building but suddenly you turn a corner and your there! Good work still being done though, our new "Lady" is starting to really look the "biz".
    Regards
    Paul & Marion

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  5. I guess that there is an argument for disposing of the 1920s designed K2 telephone box asap, as it is totally out of character with an "Edwardian Period" GWR station such as Broadway now is (the 1st phone boxes didn't appear until post WWI). However, as the K2 phone box is considered a National Icon, and this particular one has been very carefully restored, there is also a sound argument for keeping it. I can see some folks "photo-shopping it out" of their images though!

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    Replies
    1. It has been moved off the platform though (for the purposes of authenticity) and will be better located on the forecourt/drive, where station telephone boxes used to stand.

      With the help of 20 sponsors we spent £1000 on restoring the box, but even £1000 was not enough to fund a genuine button A/B coin box, so we had to settle for a glas fibre replica.
      We're still in the market if someone has a genuine one to give us!

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  6. Is that traditional telephone box a working asset?
    Or just to add character to the station area?

    Otherwise, great progress everywhere while that reverse clock ticks away the minutes, hours and weeks to next year's proposed opening date. Well done, chaps!

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  7. Toddingtonted is quite right on both points. The telephone kiosk is totally anachronistic for a railway station circa 1900 - 1910. Equally, none of us wants to lose the iconic GPO telephone box. A happy compromise would be to site it in a less conspicuous location, which seems to be what you are proposing. A very sensible decision !

    Recreating Broadway in the Edwardian era was always going to present extra challenges, since the further you go back in history, the more you run the risk of anachronisms creeping in.

    But where do you stop ? Horse and carriages only outside the railway station ? No electric clock under the station canopy ? Passengers are unlikely to turn up in Edwardian dress. Or vintage coaching stock at platform one. And I doubt the neighbouring garage will oblige by turning itself into a livery stable !!

    No, we have to be sensible. Some compromise is inevitable. And what has been achieved so far has been magnificent.

    Thank you to all involved in this project. You are a wonderful lot.

    Peter Wright

    ReplyDelete