GWR – Permanent Way Progress - October 2007

The majority of October has seen the GWR P-way department continue working on the Broadway extension – but not in the traditional fashion…

Track laying had reached a climax towards the end of September when we ran out of rails to lay – only a minor set back! This little ‘problemette’ might have been a well-planned tactic though as now that the sleepers had almost reached the infamous B4632 road bridge, the trackbed north thereof hadn’t been cleared of the 10-years of scrub that has grown there since the clearing gang were last in attendance, giving the gang some amusement for the next three weekends chopping down the trees and bushes that were impeding our northbound progress.

Plenty of bonfires and a huge carbon footprint later, clearance work had progressed to well north of the Stanton Fields Farm Bridge with Laverton now in sight!

At the very end of the month, the long-awaited brand new rails were off loaded from the lorries at Stanton and stacked neatly ready for laying along with a few hundred sleepers loaded onto a wagons by our own Alan and Glyn. Needless to say, with some ‘proper’ P-way work to look forward to in November – will the track reach the B4632 road bridge over the next few weeks…? Tune in next month to find out!