Friday 14 April 2017

Repairs and a new build

The B&S gang are now refreshing the Flag and Whistle building on the outside, which needs a periodical repaint.
The boarding along the top of the southern, sun facing section has been taken off. You can see how the paint urgently needs to be refreshed underneath.





Although this is not facing the customers so much (being behind the office) it all needs doing, and that's a nice coat of brown paint going on there already. They've even got a scaffolding tower to get to the highest bits.









Of course, the idea is to stand on top of the scaffolding tower, not underneath it....

Here, some of the boards being taken down reveal doors and windows that were in use when the building had a different function. Did you know that they were there?







Down below, new boards are being cut to size, as each one has to be made to fit its own particular place.





The final touch of course is a nice shiny coat of dark brown, here being applied to the lighter undercoat by Mick.







While the gang was at Toddington, they also gave the 'pods' a new coat of waterproof paint, as you can see here. The relentless sunshine we have in Gloucestershire (don't laugh) does attack south facing facades, roofs and the tops of the carriages.

New visitor centre

The builders continue to make rapid progress here.

The internal concrete block walls are going up between the steel uprights.




This is more striking from the car park side, where the building is much higher.

What is underneath the black plastic then?









The black plastic was lifted, specially for the blog followers.

It's the start of the external cladding in Bradstone. The fresh pointing still has to go off, so it will look lighter.

The shape of the windows is also apparent.





A test area for the colour of the pointing was prepared on one side. The LH side is a paler colour, while the RH side is a pinkier style. The pale colour was selected for the building.


6 comments:

  1. The wooden cabin outside of the 'Flag and Whistle' would almost have looked good in two tone, i.e. the undercoat above the brown top coat. The good shed comes on apace. The 'Bradstone' looks good and, yes, the pale morter colour does look best. Regards, Paul.

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  2. I remember one Easter many moons ago when the Flag and Whistle (which was originally a workshop I believe) arrived on the back of a lorry in flat pack form. It was in need of some TLC but the panels were relatively sound so we assembled it on the newly-cast concrete base. I have vivid memories of us struggling with a couple of corner panels until we were able to bolt them together and make a sturdy corner piece. The rest of the panels followed with rather less of a battle. I knew it was Easter because it was blowing a gale and snowing in the wind across Toddington car park (well, it wasn't really a proper car park then). I wonder now how we coped without the good old flag and whistle - the short answer was that we didn't really! Toddington Ted.

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  3. I was helping that day Ted... Easter 1986 I believe

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    Replies
    1. That's right, and it was so good you said it twice! Toddington Ted.

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  5. Was the Flag & Whistle building the one donated by Walls factory in Gloucester, if so, I helped to take it down at its original site in Gloucester. We even got free ice creams on the day, I remember!

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