Another hot and sunny day. Can this be an English summer? If so, it is a very good one. Before we start work, I slap on the sun protection cream, and put on a big hat. I got through most of a 2L bottle of water. But the success was there, we put up the CRC2A lamp posts!

The Dutch milk maid

 The rebuild of this platform has always been a very physical job. Not only have we had to move 30.000 or so bricks by hand, but also all the mortar mixes that go with them. Here is another example of the physical nature of the job. We needed water to make up the lean mix for the lamp posts on site, so the most obvious way to get some was to put it in buckets and carry it down from the cabin. Later, we discovered a gardener's hose pipe attached to the gent's loo. That had to be flipped backwards and forwards across the tracks, as trains were running today, exceptionally.

The next physical bit today was to organise a supply of ballast for making up the lean mixes on site. At first, we tried to use the mini digger to lift the 1T dumpy bag into the 1T dumper, but the loops broke. So back to the tried and tested shovel-as-much-as-you-can-by-hand method.

The Cheltenham gang had already positioned 5 lamp posts along CRC2A, but there was one more to go. We scratched our heads for the best way to do it, but decided in the end that the Cheltenham lads had got it figured out, and that we couldn't improve on their system. So 6 of us, including brave Pat Green, long retired, lifted a cast iron post on to a little trolley, rolled it over the bridge and down the CRC2 ramp.

It arrived at the bottom, perfectly intact. Next, we used the mini digger to lift the posts into their holes, dug last week and filled with lean mix first thing this morning up to the right level for standing the posts on.

'X' marks the spot where the post had to come to rest. Carefully measured from the platform edge, and from the neighbouring post as well.

The mini digger then lifted it into place, whereupon it was upended by hand and stood upright. Heave-ho.

Simples!

Brian is fulfilling a vital function, holding the post in place while a tape measure is fetched to check the position. Notice the little hole at the top of the post - this was a critical little hole, as it had to exactly face the platform. Later, it will hold a suspended 'Platform 2' sign. The lamp post is slightly taller than the others for this role, and comes from - Leckhampton ! Isn't it nice to have such local input. At Broadway, a kind supporter has donated us one from - Littleton & Badsey! Again, a lovely piece of local history. Are there any more out there?

Once in place, the lamp posts were fitted with a short connection from the junction box, so that the supply cable has a continuous run to the top of the post. The blue rope will help us pull the cable through later on. The plastic sleeve stops the concrete from running into the middle of the post. Bob spent a lot of time with the level, trying to get the post vertical. Very tricky - the post is conical in shape. At the end of the day, we had placed all the posts, and concreted 3 of them. Nearly there then.

To our delight, we had the visit of 2807. She made three return trips with her shareholders and supporters, who waved to us with much enthusiasm.

At the end of the day, we had 6 posts in, with three set up and concreted. In the picture, not all of the posts are fixed yet, so no comments about 'this one is a bit off, isn't it' please.

At 16.00 we called it a day, and your blogger set off to inspect the bridges, for a further report. No, don't click yet, I've still got to write it, haven't I !