New welfare building boosts Toddington volunteer facilities
GLOUCESTERSHIRE Warwickshire Railway volunteers have taken occupation of a new welfare building created by a £500,000 extension of the GWR goods shed at Toddington which has doubled its size.
The completed new building – known as ‘The Goods Shed' – offers nearly 4200 sq ft of space over two floors, including a ground floor yet-to-be-fitted-out extension to the machine shop, which occupies the original building. The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway Trust provided £371,000, while more than £20,000 including Gift Aid was raised by volunteers.
The new facility comprises a sign-on lobby with noticeboards, ground floor male and female toilets, changing rooms and showers; while on the first floor are meeting rooms, medical room, office, washing facilities and spacious mess room with a kitchen complete. There is ‘clean' and ‘dirty' access to the first floor, the former via an internal stairway and the latter via an external steel flight and the first-floor external mezzanine.
Local firms were involved in the construction, the main contractor being Middicott & Rodway while sub-contractors were ABS Heating, Buzz Electrical, AJ Furniture and Steelway Fensecure Ltd for joinery and steelwork. The architecture was by volunteer Keith Smith, while Mark Young, also a locomotive department volunteer, oversaw the contracts through his own business, Berry & Young. Windows and brickwork match the original.
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Although mainly intended for the steam and diesel locomotive departments, the facility, replacing a Mk.1 coach that has been used since the Eighties, is
open to all volunteers and it is where they sign on and off, if not done via a recently-commissioned online system.
Completion of the building is about a year overdue, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the siding giving access to the unloading road in the car park has been relaid and the surface between the David Page locomotive shed and The Goods Shed concreted, thanks to a further trust grant of £20,000.
Steam locomotive department chairman John Cruxon said: “This is a game-changer and it is a testament to the volunteers who have provided a significant amount of funding for the project.
“It is an exciting time for our railway as it emerges from lockdown restrictions. This facility must be one of, if not the best of its type on any heritage railway, providing outstanding standards of welfare and hygiene. Our regulator, the Office of Road and Rail, is rightly taking in increasing interest in the welfare of volunteers on heritage railways and The Goods Shed certainly more than satisfies such requirements.”