Here is a round up of the work being undertaken by the Permanent Way department over the last few months; as you will see, our work can vary quite a bit from week to week and is always out in the fresh air - an invigorating place to work (except when it rains!)

Sat 3rd May - Spot re-sleepering on the mainline: 17 rotten wooden sleepers changed between Chicken Curve and Hailes Bridge.

Sat 10th May - Continuing spot re-sleepering: this time from Hailes Bridge northwards towards Toddington.

Sat 17th May - Completed spot re-sleepering between Hailes and Didbrook in the morning. The afternoon was spent re-aligning the temporary line into road 8 (third road of the David Page shed) at Toddington which was laid by the loco department the previous week.

Sat 24th May - This week was spent up on the northern extension straightening out sleepers on the between Stanton and the B4632 road bridge (sleepers near the joints are moved when the welding teams work on them to allow the rails to be moved in line freely).

Sat 31st May - Today the gang worked in Winchcombe yard recovering scrap rails and chair bolts. With the price of scrap being high, we might as well cash in on some of our scrap materials!

Sat 7th Jun - Split into 2 gangs today, one team went north to drop and 'Shark' some ballast on the northern extension just north of the Viaduct. This is to prevent any buckling of the track over the summer. The second gang had the slightly less glamorous task of clearing sleeper tops in the Stanley Pontlarge area - this is to assist the tamper drivers known where the sleepers are when the time comes to tamp the line.

Sat 14th Jun - Again, the p-way gang split into two halves today, gang 1 continuing ballasting and
Sharking on northern extension, this time from the occupation crossing towards Stanton. Gang 2 continued sleeper top clearing, this time towards Cheltenham RC.

Sat 21st Jun - Today the gang assisted Malcolm Walker and the S&T department by replacing two timbers on the south turnout at Gotherington with longer ones to allow the point rodding to be installed ready for the signal box commissioning.

Sat 28th Jun - This morning was spent clearing the sleeper tops from Toddington north headshunt
towards Stanton (on the extension) to allow for tamper trials (which were a success). The afternoon was spent sorting sleepers and recovering scrap chairs at Winchcombe.

Sat 5th Jul - For the final time, we spent the morning clearing sleeper tops in yet another location on the line; this time just south of Bishops Cleeve (adjacent to playing fields). The afternoon was the same as last week; in Winchcombe yard sorting sleepers/scrap.

Sat 12th Jul - With several dozen sleepers to sort out, we continued sorting the old chairs out at Winchcombe and continued loading the scrap skip with chairs and old rail fixings.

Sat 19th Jul - Three gangs this week! Gang 1 finished the recovery of the scrap chairs from redundant wooden sleepers in Winchcombe yard; Gang 2 loaded concrete sleepers from the P-way sidings onto wagons ready to be transported to Toddington for the northern extension; after all, "Broadway here we come!". A smaller third gang spent the day packing the south ground frame at Toddington.

Sat 26th Jul - This is the first of many weeks we will spend working on the remodelling of the yard at Toddington. The turnout from roads 2 and rest-of-yard was removed and brand new timbers laid out for the new turnout which will go in its place. A set of switches and the crossing work were also bought up and laid in approximate positions. We'll see how this goes…all the operational steam and diesel locos are stored on Siding 1 for the time being so at least the train services aren't at risk!