Removal Journal
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Day 1 - Saturday, 16th September
The start of our adventure...
Travelled to Exeter by train, asleep most of the way, meeting Ian and George at St David's. We travelled to site in George's van via a very long-winded search for a B&Q. When we arrived at the site, John Simms, who was already there, and I worked on lever frame while George and Ian worked on guttering and assessing how to take building down. We managed to get about 50% of the lever frame apart. It's heavier than it looks.
Man days: 4. Danny's photos from today.
Day 2 - Sunday, 17th September
Raining this morning, so we're all inside. Lots of internal cladding comes off, flooring coming up, we continued on lever frame. The box really starts to look like it's coming out now. Some significant panels are numbered to ensure they go back correctly, ie, triangular pieces at the gable ends. By the end of the day we finally start to work out how the building is constructed.
Man days: 3. Danny's photos from today.
Day 3 - Monday, 18th September
Lots of work on roof - two torpedo vents came off. George managed to get off about half the tiles on the east side. I stayed inside and continued on the lever frame - dismantling about as much as I can. The bits left now are either structurally important or too difficult to undo! Ian is still concerned about the fixings in the roof, it seems it is held on by very little! Quite windy today, so not brilliant for the cherry-picker. It is slightly concerning that from the outside it looks as if we've done absolutely nothing! The inside shows all our hard work though. I should imagine that once our work starts to become from the outside it will be a very quick affair.
Man days: 3. Danny's photos from today. George's photos from days 1-3.
Day 4 - Tuesday, 19th September
John Simms joined us again today, and he and I worked on the lever frame. John managed to unscrew the few remaining levers and quadrant plates. George continued on the roof tiles and managed to complete removing the tiles on the east side. We are slightly concerned that tomorrow, and especially Thursday, will be too windy to continue with this task. We were also joined by Kevin, a Moveright-man, who is helping us as well. The locking trays all remained in place until last thing when we bought an impact-screwdriver, when I managed to get about four out at the Plymouth end. Andrew joined us at the Ley Arms late in the evening, who has come down to see how we are getting on. Let's see what the weather holds for us tomorrow...!
Man days: 5. Danny's photos from today. George's photos from today.
Day 5 - Wednesday, 20th September
The wind is not excessive today, but is still too strong to safely continue removing tiles off the roof. Therefore we have about one day's worth of work to occupy us all inside the box but after that, we're stuck. So we might be going home tomorrow. Between the four of us we removed all the remaining parts of the lever frame we can, including all remaining of the twenty-eight locking trays, after a sterling effort by George. This made it possible to dismantle the locking frame grid, which came apart quite easily. After a 'nut and bolt round-up' and general tidy-round there was little more we could do. The weather forecast looks windy for tomorrow, so it is likely we will load up a lorry with the parts we have recovered so far and go home tomorrow afternoon, to return next Wednesday, by which time hopefully the weather will have settled, to complete the job.
Man days: 4. George's photos from today.
Day 6 - Thursday, 21st September
Well... where WAS the storm?! When we arrived at the box this morning it was about the calmest morning yet. Luckily though, we stayed with our plan of not starting to remove the tiles, as by lunchtime it was quite windy. George removed the guttering off the front of the box, but the tiles on that side are still in place. There was a lorry waiting for us when we arrived in the morning, and we loaded the lever frame and other parts from inside the box into the cages and loaded them onto the lorry, which left us for Ashchurch, where the parts are going to be stored, pending the setting-up of a more serious workshop.
Having finished quite early, given that there was little to do, we went down to the Paignton Dartmouth Steam Railway (or whatever it's called now) for a ride and a look round - which was nice. Home tomorrow. Then George and Ian are coming back next Wednesday to finish stripping the tiles, and I (after late turn Wednesday at Swindon) will come back on Thursday. Let's see how we go....
Man days: 5. Danny's photos from today. George's photos from today.
Day 7 - Wednesday 27th September 2006
George and Ian are back at the signal box today - I am still at home because I have to work this evening :( Good progress was made - George managed to strip ALL the tiles off the west side of the roof in one day, despite the poor weather.Man-days: 4.
Day 8 - Thursday 28th September 2006
Today, being our contingency day in case the roof tile removal could not be completed yesterday, we didn't have the crane. So we used the day to remove all the windows from the box, and generally prepare for the arrival of the crane tomorrow, which we would use to actually start removing the sections of the box. The window removal was rather funny: The original windows had been vandalised in the mid-90s, and were replaced, unsympathetically, by contractors to the RSPB. As a result, instead of opening in the conventional, slidey, signal box fashion, these were hinged at the top and opened outwards from the bottom. To get them off we opened them up, outwards, to the horizontal, and then moved the cherry-picker up underneath. Then, having unscrewed the hinges, the cherry picker was lowered down to the ground. The whole time George being inside the picker! When it was raining, the window over the top of the cradle did keep George dry though!
The only other interesting think worthy of note today was a visit by ITNews to see what we were up to. They interviewed us and got some shots of us working (rare) for tomorrow's 6pm news.
Man-days: 6. Danny's photos from today. George's photos from today.
Day 9 - Friday 29th September 2006
The crane arrived.... late. Apparently it broke down on the way here - so we were off to a brilliant start. We started off by craning the 1941 roof off. The first lift being a very nervous one, we were all a bit concerned that the whole thing might crumble into a million pieces when we lifted it! But, Andrew knows best - and it came out no problem, lifted down into the car park - perfect. So we'll listen to Andrew from now on! After the 1941 roof was off we removed the upper wall panels from that half of the building. The end one came off first, then the rear wall, then the front. The front (with the windows already removed) wasn't that robust, so didn't come out as complete as we would have liked. Then we were all back up into the roof for the 1924 roof to be lifted. It had taken us a long time to work out exactly how the roof was attached to the rest of the building, and eventually we worked out that it was unceremoniously nailed on with big nails, in a very un-GWR-like manner. So we had to locate all these nails and then get them out. Easier said than done! Eventually we settled on bolster-chiselling the roof up from the frame about half an inch, then angle grinding the nails off at that level. The crane sling came through a hole made in the roof by removing the boarding along the ridge, and was secured round the ridge-beam. This, second, roof part was 50% larger than the first one, the original box being about 24' long, and the 1941 extension being about 16'.
We then started to remove the front window panel, because that seemed to be the most wobbly. But we found that this panel had been heavily repaired (by BR?) and didn't like the idea of being removed. We didn't realise how well it was invisibly secured to the floor joists until we tried to lift it and heard all the frames crack at window ledge level! So we left that for a while and removed the back walls instead, which came out relatively painlessly. By that time it was well into the evening so we called it a day, and retired to the B&B to watch our news appearance on ITN!
See the Videos Section for videos of some of the lifts.
Man-days: 6. Danny's photos from today. George's photos from today.
Day 10 - Saturday 30th September 2006
Rain, rain, rain. :( Thankfully not all day though, as forecast. Just lots of annoying showers through the day. We had the biggest staff today though - 8 men, as we were joined by John and Malcolm from railway S&T.
The day started (damply) by removing the last of the upper panels (in the end we sawed out the later repairs to the front panel and kept the original stuff). The building, which was now the shape of a long box without a pointy roof, reminded me of the box at Evesham! We unscrewed the last remaining retaining bolts of the lever frame before that was lifted out (impressive). The rear section of the upper floor followed after. So now, with our open-top locking room, which was all that was left of the signal box, and nowhere to stand out of the rain, we decided to lift out the rear centre panel of the lower walls first. This looked to be one of the most robust and most likely to come out easily. Interestingly, this was the only panel out of the whole box to have a runner fitted down the side so it slid vertically upwards out of its gap.
Next followed the next panel towards Plymouth, which came out easily enough, then the next panel towards Exeter, which didn't. The design of the box is that each panel has an edge-piece on each side, and the edge-pieces of adjacent panels are bolted to each other. So we just undo the bolts and hey presto, apart they come! Unfortunately, the end piece on this panel had been renewed, so instead of being two pieces, one connected to each panel, it was one big piece, connected to both. So one side or the other had to get mullered, but luckily we didn't cause that much damage in releasing it. So that was out, leaving a 'C' shaped set of walls, with the gap being in the back wall.
It would have been nice to continue working round the box from this point, but inherent in the design of these boxes is a massive (and heavy) piece of wood running from one end of the box to the other, at operating floor level, about 12" by 8". So 12"x8"x40' is a lot of wood! We had to take this out next, as it was laid over the front and end panels. How on Earth are we going to do that? The large, supporting, length of wood was in fact two separate pieces, joined at the point of the 1941 extension. so we lifted out all three 1924 panels and the 1924 beam in one (massive) lift! Pretty impressive. This left two, separate, free standing ends. The south end was dismantled first, with various degrees of success, but overall positively.
The north end, with the stairs still in (leading to nowhere!) was going to be difficult. We decided to try to lift out the stairs, the floor joists from above the stairs, and the large supporting beam described above from the 1941 extension in one go. This turned out to be rather more difficult that first thought, when a few concealed fixing were discovered that were a real pain to get out, but it was managed eventually. Having been lifted we realised the interesting question of how we were going to put down this odd-shaped arrangement! It ended up being diagonally placed on the foundations of the box, ready to be picked up by the hi-ab over the next few days.
By now it was well into the evening and the light was starting to fail. We have left the lower part of the north wall and the lower part of the northern most panel of the west wall standing. It's Thomas day at the railway tomorrow, and George has to drive Thomas, so we're all going home tonight or early tomorrow, and George and Ian are coming back next Tuesday to take down the last two panels and load up all the parts we dismantled. Then starts the long period of restoration and renewing the box and the frame, and then re-kitting it out. See you all there!
See the Videos Section for videos of some of the lifts.
Man-days: 8. Danny's photos from today.
Day 11 & 12 - Tuesday 3rd & Wednesday 4th October 2006
George, Ian and Andrew returned today to take down the last two panels and load all the parts on the lorry. Unfortunately, on being lifted for the second time (once off the roof onto the floor and once off the floor onto the lorry), the smaller of the two roof sections (the 1941 section) couldn't take the strain and stapped down the centre. Oh dear - that's the opening of Broadway Signal Box put back by a few months.Man-days: 6.
TOTAL MAN DAYS TAKEN IN REMOVING THE BUILDING = 54.
Signal Box Jigsaw.
The details below are recorded here simply to stop them getting lost in time. They refer to pieces of the signal box as they were taken apart and/or numbered. In most cases the wording is copied exactly from the original handrwritten notes made at the time of the deconstruction to preserve their original meaning. In a several cases we note that measurements don't match where they should. This could be due to inaccuracies in the measuring at the time, for whatever reason, inaccuracies in the recording, or due to the fact that part of the article is actually missing, as some parts of the box had been recovered by BR after closure.
NUMBERED COMPONENTS
Notes.
- The white interior boarding from inside above the [front] windows has a bevelled edge to match the roof.
- Locking trays numbered as per levers.
- Parts which weren't numbered were described, eg, "Top Left, Plymouth End".
- Yes, I did bugger up the numbering sequence in several places! (But the duplicated numbers (thankfully) refer to obviously different components).
- Number 155 was unaccounted for. Maybe we'll find it at the bottom of the pile of bits in years to come!
| 1 | Interior boarding: South wall (from inside) top left diagonal board |
| 2 | Interior boarding: South wall (from inside) top right diagonal board |
| 3-8 | Interior boarding: South wall (from inside) vertical boards from floor to roof, numbered L to R (Note. 8 has "8 top" and "8 bottom"). |
| 9-20 | Interior boarding: South wall (from inside) vertical boards above window, from window to roof, numbered L to R. |
| 21-27 | Interior boarding: Under stairs (from locking room) vertical boards, numbered L to R. |
| 28-30 | Catwalk supports (Shoulder height) |
| 31-35 | Cable ties (Above catwalk) |
| 36 | Superflous(?) support for access platform, rear of frame, inside of low end wooden upright |
| 37-43 | Vertical supports from floor - locking tray grid |
| 44-45 | Horiz. bar at top of frame |
| 46-52 | Connectors for above two |
| 53-59 | Floor plates for 37-43 |
| 60-74 | Vertical bars for locking tray grid |
| 75-76 | HORIZONTAL support under frame beam |
| 77-79 | Connectors for above |
| 80-83 | (East & West) Vertical beam supports |
| 84-89 | Long vertical locking tray supports |
| 89[sic] - 90 | LOWER SUPPORT on back of beam support |
| 84[sic]-140 | Wooden boarding around stairs. [Interior boarding: Around stairs. Starting in inside of corner, towards the track (down the stairs), then towards Exeter, then towards the back of the box (up the stairs), then towards Plymouth (up the stairs), then, on the other side of the stairs, back down the stairs again.] |
| 140 | "Middle" inside of stairs. |
| 141 | Left of Locking Room door (from stairs) |
| 142 - 151 | Short locking tray grid supports to beam |
| 152-154 | As 44-45, 18" higher, just below trays. Short and long support bars connect to these. |
| 156-164 | Stairs: Bannisters |
| 165 | Upright. [Part of stairs] |
| 166 | U-profile, lever trough, joiner |
| 167-172 | Odd electric lock support for lever 61. |
| 173-177 | REAR main uprights (top) |
| 178-182 | REAR main uprights (uprights) |
| 183-188 | REAR main uprights (bottom) |
FLOOR BOARDS: (L to R)
(Rear of Box)
Row 1: Toilet Room - 13'4" - 13" (stove) - 2'8" - 11'4" - Stairs (26'29")
Row 2: Toilet Room - 13'4" - 3'9" - 11'4" - Stairs (27'17")
Row 3: Toilet Room - 12'11" - 2'7" - 13" - 2'7" - 11'6" - Stairs (28'8")
Row 4: Toilet Room - 3'8" - 7'2" - 3'7" - 1'3" - 12'7" - Stairs (26'27")
Row 5: 10'0" - 22'3" - Stairs (32'3")
Row 6: 22'1" - 15'3" - Balcony (37'4")
Row 7: 15'4" - 22'0" - Balcony (37'4")
Row 8: 19'4" - 18'0" - Balcony (37'4")
(Lever Frame)
Right of Frame:
Row 9: 6'8" - 3'1" (9'9")
Row 10: 3'0" - 6'7" (9'7")
Row 11: 6'8" - 3"1' (9'9")
Row 12: 15'3" (?!)
Row 13: 8'11"
Row 14: 8'11"
Row 15: 22'0"
(Front of Box)