WYTHALL WORKS
With the 'open' season upon us, there is a lot to do in keeping the site looking good for the visiting public. Throughout the summer Dennis Herbert has yet again done an excellent job in keeping the grass and other vegetation under control. Mick Doolan is often to be seen with garden shears and wheelbarrow (most recently a new one!) attacking the brambles and various saplings that keep encroaching on the display areas if you turn your back on them. At another level (literally) trees, both within the site and on the approach road, have been trimmed to allow passage of double deckers without branches brushing against them. This latter exercise has been done using Kev's tow truck and some long handled shears and, most recently with James Munro hanging out of the emergency door of a Bristol VRT.
Early August saw the final demise of the prefab. All the content had by then been sorted and mostly moved into the new Blueline store behind the Shire Hall. As recorded in the last "Omnibus" Pete Murphy did most of the removal of the cladding and was then helped by a number of others, including Tom Couling and Kev Hill to dismantle the steel frame. All this activity generated a lot of steel scrap so our tame scrap man was called in to finally clear the site. The concrete base of the prefab has been pressed in to service for the rest of the season to park the Leopard recovery truck and the two electric milk floats which kids are allowed to sit in.
Having dealt with the prefab, the next priority is to clear the railway carriages and the store at the end of the café and shop building. Recognising that without these and prior to the new lottery funded hall there would be a storage problem, even with the Blueline stores, a mezzanine floor was ordered to go over the engineering area in the Shire Hall. The intention was that construction of this would take place during the June - July eight week gap between major event days. To allow construction, the entire floor beneath had to be cleared and thanks to a good team effort this was effectively done and part of the partition wall at the end of the pit removed. In the process all sorts of things that had been lost for years turned up! It has also given the opportunity for some cleaning and reorganisation. The construction of the mezzanine was not as smooth as it might have been, the suppliers having got some of their measurements wrong. However the basic construction was done in time for Midland Red day at the end of July. Walls to partition off the upper deck were added in early August, as was electric lighting. We now have a workshop with more workbench space and lighting that you can properly see what you are doing! One of the complications for the construction was that the exhaust extractor from the pit crossed the mezzanine at a height too low to walk under. Pete has solved this by raising the pipe, with the aid of the open top D9, and at the same time a more efficient extractor fan has been fitted.
A by-product of the mezzanine was the need to move the compressor. Being inside the noise has always been a source of irritation and was expected to be worse under the mezzanine. The solution is to provide the compressor with its own house at the right of the pit door. This is built along the lines of fuel stores sometimes seen outside Midland Red garages. Pete did the basic - and substantial - construction with Maurice wielding the paintbrush to paint it black.
Few of our visitors will realise the amount of background effort that goes in to planning each event day, preparing the buses for service, getting all the floors swept, setting up displays etc., not to mention the acquisition of food and preparing it in the café. And then there is everything to put away again after all the visitors have gone at the end of the day. As our events get more successful, so does the mound of rubbish that we have to dispose of the following week! Thanks are due to all who help in any way, whether it be before, during or after the event days.
Finally, work has commenced on restoring the AA box so it can be erected in our grounds. Pete Murphy has cut a large amount of timber to repair/replace the main structure and work continues on this. In the meantime the interior of the seperate roof section has been cleaned and given a coat of white paint to brighten-up its appearance.
Phil Ireland, AA box notes: Bob Williamson
Chapel Lane, Wythall, Worcs B47 6JX
Tel : 01564 826471 e-mail us
A registered educational charity no 507191
