GWSR Broadway Developments

A problem that I don't think will ever be solved, can't retrofit sewage tanks to vintage rolling stock due to insufficient space under the frame so pway will always be dealing with raw sewage on the tracks. Very unfortunate

 

I was told yesterday that since the share issue opened last Wednesday, the GWSR have had over £250,000 subscribed! Thank you to everyone on this forum that have bought shares.

Link to this news on the GWSR website: http://www.gwsr.com/news/latest-news/sh ... llion.aspx

 

As was said many times on this thread during discussions over Broadway Stations authentic GWR future shape and style, if you build it they will come.

Now here is the proof.

 

Indeed - one wonders what the response would have been if Broadway had been "blessed" with a Trumpton style signalbox ala Gotherington and Cheltenham Spa Racecourse.

 

Lets not go there! They can be fixed at a later date, perhaps after another share offer entitled We're So Sorry but with your Money we can Fix them!

In the meantime lets all contribute to this GWR miracle taking place in the heart of the Cotswalds. The signal box and the footbridge, even unfinished take my breath away with admiration.

 

Agreed, that was all in the past, lets focus on the present, and the amazing progress the chaps at Broadway are making. Whenever I've seen any of the directors wandering around recently they've all been very cheerful indeed!

 

Congratulations to all there. excellent news.

This isn't an exercise in willy waving - honest - but as an interested observer I kept a note of SVR announcements of progress in 2012 and the GWSR compares well. The SVR reached £260,000 after four days, £309,000 after eight and £1.22m [the nearest comparison I have] after 141, but I don't know how much of that was lined up before the launch date.

Regards

Patrick

 

A small gang went all the way to Falmouth to pick up a GWR No. 2 lamp post. This is the slightly taller post, with ladder bar, that typically stood outside the station or on the approach. At Broadway we intend to put a line of them up the drive. We now have 3. (an original can be seen in the 1904 opening photograph on the corner by the entrance)
These original posts are hard to find esp the No. 2 type, but they do appear occasionally when, having been planted in a garden, new owners of the house do not want them.

It snowed today at Broadway, a surprise, as we were about to lay a first course of reds on the southern gable end. The weather cleared by lunch time, but it was too late to start, and do the pointing with the mortar gone off a bit. Instead we filled the time moving a pile of rubble, and bringing up piles of new reds off the trackbed to within the 'cage' as it is now referred to. Do not feed the brick layers ! . We need to evacuate the trackbed of supplies, so that in due course the PWay can come through with the supply of rails. There is no date for this yet though. All eyes are on the share issue, to see how well it will do. Will it reach the minimum (£1.25m) or can we do more? We're off to a good start, but £250k is only 20% of the minimum amount needed. Fingers crossed!

At least the snow allowed a couple of atmospheric photographs. Good old Robin soldiered on, brick cleaning in the snow. There's dedication for you.

 

I was hoping you'd have some nice atmospheric shots of the station in the snow! It certainly was impressive weather this morning, virtually all gone by the time the first train made its way down though. I did think of you, out in the cold, as I was in our nice warm paintshop...

 

I was hoping that somoeone would post a progress report with the share issue, so thank you for the update. Please keep them coming! This is great news - a fantastic start to the final push for Broadway. I will endeavour to ensure that there will be another donation in the post at some point before too long,

 

The Monday gang had a dry day today - good! We resumed brick laying on the main station building, with 4 brick layers in action. Two were busy with plain blues along the length of the building - it is 80 meters in girth, so quite a stretch to get one course finished - one along the front third putting the plinth headers on, being the final row of blues before we switch to reds, and one started a corner in reds to give a first impression of what this will look like. Although it is perhaps not perfectly clear, the corner is round, with the bottom brick a transition from round to square. Very traditional. We will continue on Wednesday, which looks like another dry day.

The third picture shows a small team that had been given the task of filling in the gaps around the flexible bolts securing the footbridge towers. Problem: the holes were full of water; the second tower stood in a small pool even. How this was solved you can see in the picture - a mop and bucket for the pool, and, unrecorded, a piece of hosepipe, a bucket, and a powerful pair of lungs to evacuate the water from the holes around the bolts. At the end of the day: Job done !

Finally we had 7 unexpected visitors today. They were welcome inasmuch they nibbled at the prolific growth of grass on the cutting sides, but your poster was enraged to find at the end of the day that they had also nibbled one of the pine saplings he had planted. We had no idea where they came from, so could not shoo them back. Let's hope they leave the other saplings alone until Wednesday, when a taller roll of chicken wire will be installed. Baaaaaaaah!

 

£313,000 today, 25% of the total according to Facebook.

 

Hello,
Baahhhhhh!

Nick

 

Ah, you like sheep? Here's one I took earlier:


Can't sleep :-(

 

Posted on the GWSR Facebook page yesterday:

On the up: Broadway share offer success continues!

Today the share offer applications we have received totaled £313,000, 25% of our total! Thanks to everyone who's applied already - only 12 days after we launched the share offer! It aims to raise the £1.25m needed to complete the Broadway extension and station.

More details, including the share offer prospectus and application form here:http://gwsr.com/support/broadway---the-last-mile.aspx.

 

Boardroom blog today, £350,000, £900,000 to go! Rail purchase may be brought forward if we continue like this. http://gwrboardroom.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/broadway-last-mile-share-issue-update.html?m=1

 

Just a quickie today, and an exclusive preview of the first window sills going in. These are for the cafe, platform side. Three such sills were placed. The SW corner in reds is going up first; elsewhere round the building the other 2 brickies today were still laying the blues. They'll be at this for a few more days. The weather was ideal today, with the mortar drying quickly to stop the blues from sliding around, as they like to do.

Note the detail on the corner by the door - square going to round. Love it !

 

Re the beautiful red sculpted bricks, are they a standard stock or special order ? I didn't realise that it was possible to get such bricks still.

 

They were specially made for us.

 

Just a question about the brickwork, no criticism intended, just curiosity.

From looking at the pictures, it's evident that the brickwork on the new Station at Broadway is quite different to that at Toddington. The bull nosed blue bricks are missing on all of the corners, as are (excluding the outer four corners) the red bull nose bricks beneath the decorative bricks around the doors and windows. Also of note, is that the decorative bricks around the doors are starting on the second brick above the blue bricks, instead of the sixth as at Toddington. Lastly, the door frame is set half a brick in length into the building (width of one brick), whereas at Toddington, the door frames are set in a full brick length (width of two bricks), and the window sills do not appear to be the same shape as the ones at Toddington, which are shaped to fit in with the moulded bricks above them. I do apologise if i'm being an irritating pedant, I can assure you it's just out of pure curiosity. Is there a reason for these differences?

Study these two pictures of Toddington station to see what i'm talking about.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Toddington_station.jpg

http://www.daysleeper.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/gwr/030517toddington/030517_toddington_29.jpg