Early photos at Winchcombe

 I've had a whole load more photos stashed away ready for another blog post, but what with my fellow bloggers doing an excellent job in keeping us all looking and various other things I've barely had a chance. So I thought I'd squeeze one more set in before we get back to normal-ish work next week (hurrah!).

So, this week we start off with some "brand new" views, I don't think I've ever seen any photos of the inside of Winchcombe goods shed, now our central workshop, as we found it when we first moved in before:

Here the photographer (sorry, I don't know who took any of these photos, if they're yours, or you know, please shout) is standing on the loading platform. Today they'd be standing in the metal-working area, looking towards the paintshop end. 

The outside view, I'd guess this is maybe 1986-ish? as the newly laid running line is there (Winchcombe station off to the right) but no sidings yet.

The building was in a bit of a state, I wonder who's up there repairing the roof!? Apparently it's Malcolm Tulloch, first head of C&W. I'm told he only had one arm, so it was quite an achievement replacing all the roof lights! 

Back inside again looking the other way, they look like they could be the original doors perhaps?

Behold, track has been laid! Looks like some internal painting has been done too.

The loading platform appears to have gone by this stage. I believe when those early volunteers removed it they found thousands of fruit stones/pips from workers of days gone by who presumably decided that traders wouldn't miss one or two pieces of fruit here or there. With the volume of fruit traffic our line handled, that's probably true.

Looking back towards what is now the paintshop end again, I hadn't noticed it'd all been bricked up at some stage before. Someone's camper van can just about be seen through the door, I wonder if it's the one that still makes regular visits?... I'm also a bit curious as to the construction of that track, it looks very, erm, primeval!

Behold, a coach! I'll take a punt and guess this was the first one in?

And the proud team after their hard work, it looks good. I'm puzzled by the number though, after a bit of detective work I think it ought to have been 34676, which left the railway in 2011 and is now at Strathspey, out of use.

Anyone pick out any names? Richard and Dan have identified Richard Unitt on the far left, one time head of C&W and long time head painter. Then after him left to right; John Elridge, Malcolm Tulloch, Ken Carpenter (?), unknown, Bob Unitt, George Standley, Phil Bateman, and on the far right we think maybe Kevin Bartolf. 

Another surprisingly early carriage in the works was "Santa's grotto", a converted SK.

Also in the background is probably the first wagon in the workshop, this LMS brake van:

This wagon has also left, a few years ago now, although we do have another, identical example recently restored.

Back-tracking a little bit now (quite literally) a couple of views as the track laying gang approached Winchcombe:

Here we're probably not far away from the road bridge behind us looking in the Toddington direction.

Track just coming round Chicken curve, must have felt amazing to finally have another railway building in sight for the track-laying gang.

I think the crossing here is in the same location as it is today, by the bracket signal. Of course these days Winchcombe has lots of sidings, and the following photos show how busy the yard was in those early days clearing the site and laying track to accommodate our accumulating stock:

It wouldn't be a proper C&W blog unless we ended with some steam, so here we are. I wonder if these photos are a little later than the previous ones in the same album, as we're now going through Greet tunnel.

The middle photo is now in the middle of the paintshop, the bottom one might have been taken from the newly erected signal box from Hall Green, the second platform at Winchcombe just an ambition at that point. Double heading though, a special occasion?

I wonder if this was a special occasion too, perhaps the first ex-mainline steam engine on the railway, GWR pannier 7752? Or maybe the first through Greet tunnel. Track looks fairly newly laid, no ballast, and just a single coach. We can't wander round the lineside like that any more either!

Hope that's been an interesting trip into the archive. Apologies for the less than perfect photo re-production, they're all in an old photo album and I didn't think whatever was sticking everything together would survive being unstuck and stuck again for proper scanning. With this year being the 40th anniversary of work starting at Toddington site, expect to see plenty more archive stuff this year, if space permits, on this blog, but certainly elsewhere.