Progress Report - June 2025

Over the winter the team spent a good deal of time bringing the ground around the new building up towards its final level. This has involved importing a good deal of spoil onto the site, either by dumper truck from other works on site or by rail wagon from the heap placed along 8-road for this purpose when Oxford Road platform was originally built in 1985. Thank you to Steven Tomsett and to Mick Howse and Dave Godfrey for their mechanised support for this operation. 

All of this material has then been placed by the traditional railway construction technique of shovel and barrow. Emptying a wagonload of spoil by hand proved to be about a day's work for our team.

Emtying a wagon of spoil - 13-March-2025

Whilst the level on the forecourt side of the building has still to be accurately defined, we next brought the platform up to its final level along the length of the building.

Wagon emptied and duly swept out - 13-March-2025

This then allowed us to start laying the 3ft x 2ft paving slabs, originally recovered from Tiverton Junction, to form the new platform surface. There was a certain urgency to this project as the management had asked that this additional length of platform be made available for the Rivals Reunited event in the second half of May. Laying the slabs on sieved ash, and with a few additional working parties, this was more or less achieved and we could enjoy the spectacle of Flying Scotsman arriving at Heyford station building!

Tim Masson, Alan Whiffen, Steve Ryder and Tim Part laying paving slabs - 24-April-25. Photo F. Dumbleton

Chris, our stonemason, restarted after the winter at the beginning of March, and has now completed much of the stonework up to and including the window cills. We think you can now get a very good idea of the quality of the stonework, and start to see how the building will look when completed. 

Meanwhile Frank, our volunteer architect, has continued to identify the recovered stone, and produce a plan for where every part of the puzzle fits. One outcome of this has been that we have purchased a further three pallet loads of new stones, to replace those that have been identified as missing or unsuitable for re-use. These have been recently been delivered to the building site.

New stone as delivered - 2-June-25

We continue to assist Chris by moving stone from storage along 8-road, to more convenient positions adjacent to the construction site, as required. 

Work has continued on the former Castle Cary cast iron urinal. The base has now been placed in its final location, and preparations are in hand to connect up the drainage, and the water supply. We have continued cleaning up and painting the curved end panels, and have now repaired several panels using a specialist glue, which appears to be effective. We have also made a start on the diamond brick paving which will eventually surround the urinal itself. 

The urinal base installed - 11-March-2025

We are now starting to put plans in place for work week – August 2-10. I can’t give any details of what we intend as yet, but likely to include a further push on moving stone up to the site and work on assembling the urinal. We may also be looking at producing some window and door formers by then.

If you can help, please contact Tim Part gws.heyford@outlook.com or via the Didcot Office, or turn up any Thursday.

Flying Scotsman adjacent to the extended platform - 26-May-25. Photo. F Dumbleton