Bridge 5 gets its concrete - great news ! Here is the story with pictures:

Yesterday morning a pump with a long arm arrived, backed up by a number of lorries bearing loads of ready mixed concrete. Above you can see the rig set up and ready for action, parked in the lane that leads to Little Buckland. We are looking at the Cheltenham end of the bridge.

In this detail shot, you can see the concrete pump being filled. The destination of the liquid concrete is behind the wing wall immediately behind the pump lorry.

This is a shot from the other side. In front there is a huge void waiting to be filled behind the abutment and both wing walls. The concrete is pumped up the jointed pipe, which is directed to the place of interest by the attached hydraulic arm. Better than a load of navvies with wooden wheelbarrows.

And this is the business end - lots of lovely concrete pouring out into the void. The temporary shuttering has been removed again, but you can still see the dowel bars that have been bonded into the abutment and wing walls to arrest further movement. They will beheld back by an enormous concrete block. Job done !

Here you can see the pool of concrete slowly filling up, with a relatively tiny pipe feeding it at centre top. This picture was taken near the end of the first pour, with the white line on the wing wall indicating the desired level. It took a full 8 hours to complete.

Bridge 1, Broadway.

Here too, we have news. The steel fabricators are back from Wales, with a supply of bits to be attached to, or welded into the bridge.

And the painters have been busy too, as this shot shows. All of the top now has a coat of paint of some sort, while the three main girders even have a top coat in dark chocolate brown - two more coats are to follow, to get a nice thick covering. The deck itself is orange, which is a pre-waterproofing coat of primer. In the foreground are some of the moth eaten bits that will be replaced with the new pieces manufactured off site.

Initially, the fabricators couldn't get to the bridge yesterday, as there was a large lorry with a HIAB parked on the trackbed right in front. What's going on here then?

Yes, it was the arrival of the long awaited bracket signal for the southern end of the up platform! After this was erected, the fabricators were able to unload the heavy replacement plates for the underside of the main girders, Broadway side. The plan this week is to deal with the main structural repairs, which includes fitting the new plates in the picture, as well as removing the upside (Evesham side) damaged plates from the outer girders.
Good progress is being made on both sites. Your scribe is now impatient for the bracket signal to be fully equipped, for an against the light sunset picture. With a train on it.