Workday Wednesday Work With Jigstones

Workday Wednesday Work With Jigstones

Dispatcher Doug sent me the following message detailing the accounts of the new WDWD crew's endeavours with structures as they worked away in Fred's garage.

The following is the account by Doug of their efforts.

Thanks Doug for taking the time to snap some pics and do the write-up for us to enjoy!

Last week, Fred, Lawrence, Bill (Scobie) and I organized the shop in Fred's garage and took a first look at the buildings to be repaired.  

This Wednesday, with Fred, we examined the buildings more closely and started the repair process.  Lawrence dropped by as well to do some work on the Rat Portage station.

 Fred was up early and started the wood stove to take the chill off the air.

The shop was warm and cozy by the time I arrived.

 First off, we took a look at the Scobie's Foods building (from Craig Leigh).  In the following picture, the deterioration of the jigstones along the base from dampness that collects there is evident.

I ran a bead of gray silicone caulking along the base to seal the jigstones from further wetting by rainwater.  The base (the gray line across the bottom of the building beneath the deteriorated stonework) was still solid excepting at the far end where some minor delamination had occurred.  The seams at that end were filled with exterior construction grade PL1 glue and clamped tight.  Pictures of these repairs and a further assessment of how successful they are will be done next Wednesday.

 Then we turned our attention to the Craig Leigh station.  This big building, unlike Scobie's Foods, is not under the garage eave and is exposed fully to the weather.  Over the years it has suffered some extensive damage as shown in the following photo.  Along the base, the jigstones have deteriorated due to wicking up water.  On the left hand end at the bottom of the wall, a loose jigstone piece is visible.  Although the main roof has only very minor damage, the tower is another story.  Some of the plastic roofing of the tower is sitting on top of the station.

The station is L shaped with a building front to act as the baggage and express handling facility.  This part of the station suffered even worse damage as shown in the following photo.

A closeup of the base of the building (below) reveals the extent of the repair needed.

The tower on the station was built with a plywood formed hipped roof sheathed in plastic.  The plastic was unfortunately not fully watertight and as a result the underlying plywood absorbed rainwater from leaks and eventually rotted.  The rot can be seen easily in the picture beneath this text.

The plywood bases of the two parts of the station surprisingly seem to be mostly sound.

For next week, an assessment will be done of the repairs done to Scobie's Foods building plus work begun on the roof of that building.  Pics will be taken to show progress.

 On the CL main station, the loose jigstone will be re-glued and a bead of caulking run to seal the base.  I took the tower roof assembly home with me and I will start a reconstruction of the hipped roof.  The baggage wing will be left for the moment and looked into later.

I also measured the space where the old Glen Hammond station sat just outside the dispatcher's cabin.  The station which was located there essentially self destructed from years of sitting fully exposed to the weather.  I will draw elevations of the track side of a proposed new station for review by the "architecture committee" ie anyone who stops by the shop and has an opinion :) 

Thanks again to Doug, Fred, Lawrence & Bill for their commitment to the refurbishing of the structures made out of Jigstones.

All the best, the workers of the OVGRS

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada