Two day week

For some members of the team there were two consecutive work days this week.

Wednesday 8^th April

Five of the team (John, Phil, Ian, Peter, Andrew) attended the Safety in the Use of Abrasive Wheels training course at Toddington. Run by Toddington workshop manager, Geoff Goring, this course covered all the essential points when using both portable and fixed wheel tools. Plus some practical experience both in a workshop environment and outside.

In the afternoon, John and Andrew assisted Infrastructure Manager (Sarah Clayton) and Chief Civil Engineer (Peter Brown) with some surveying at the slip site between Gotherington and Bishops Cleeve. Part of the remediation work is the provision of a new toe ditch on the up (Malvern) side at the foot of the embankment inside the boundary fence. The objectives of the survey were to determine the length of the this new ditch (it will extend beyond the actual slip site); and to decide which existing cross drain outlet it should empty into. Additionally we also looked at potential access routes for the contractors plant. As ever with lineside work, embankments (and cuttings) make access from both above and below tricky.

The low spring sunshine and cut vegetation reveal the old medieval ridge and furrow farming patterns at the foot of the up side embankment south of Gotherington. 

Sarah and Peter setting off the explore the area just outside of the railway boundary.

Thursday 9^th April

Today we had a variety of odd jobs to keep the attending eleven team members busy.

Polly, Martin (J) and Peter headed to Stanley Pontlarge where the main task was to remove the build up of sandy silt from the outlet of cross drain 28A. A surprising amount had built up since we last performed this operation back in the autumn. Whilst there, the group checked the roadside gullies underneath bridge 28. This is one of several underbridges which can get flooded if the gullies are obstructed. Then back to Working Lane for another of the regular tasks, cleaning the exit grill of culvert 24C. With over a week of almost dry weather, the level of water in the outlet ditch was low enough to undertake some debris removal. We are always surprised at the amount of debris that accumulates here. One of the bars on the exit grill had broken since the previous visit. This will require fixing, or maybe if the drier weather continues we might be able to rebuilt the exit here.

Pete (l) and Polly on the exit of 24C. [Photo by Martin(J)]

Back at Winchcombe, Jonathan and Ian were under taking vehicle maintenance. Some of this was routine, and some more of a repair. Special attention was given to the white Ranger, thoroughly cleaning the inside and outside as the First Response team will be using this as their control vehicle during the Vintage Weekend event.

Dave, Dee and Nigel spent some time painting some of the new milepost heads we have in stock. Particular attention was given to the insides of ‘hollow’ heads; as we have noticed that these tend to weather faster than the solid ones.

Dave and Dee painting milepost heads.

Phil, Andrew and Martin (S) made a start on materials reorganisation around the wooden shed. This was in order to extract some concrete kerb stones required for the Stowe Road improvements at Toddington and some concrete chamber lids needed in the afternoon; and also to measure up the lengths of flexible twinwall pipe we have for use in the new toe drain at Gotherington. The other objectives of this ‘spring clean’ were to consolidate all our materials near the wooden shed, and to re-stack other building materials on stronger pallets. This required Jonathan with the telehandler, and the three painters to help with stacking bricks and blocks. For a couple of hours it was like a giant Chinese puzzle, moving pallets around. All the major moves were completed by lunchtime, in order for the telehandler to go to Halls for its annual safety checks. Some of the unusable materials went on the scrap heap, whilst most of the rotten wood and damaged skips made a one way journey to the bonfire.

Jonathan concentrating on getting positioning of the telehandler spot on.

A lot neater and tidier, we can now see what we have got! The area behind the wooden shed on the left will be next.

Most of the team congregated in the mess at Churchward House for lunch. However a couple braved the breezy cool weather on the platform to watch the trains.

After lunch; five of the team, Dave, Nigel, Pete, Martin (J) and Martin (S), took the extracted concrete chamber lids down to the cutting leading to Greet Tunnel. They replaced the broken lids on five of the cess chambers leading up to the tunnel mouth. With the unavailability of the telehandler; recovery of the broken lids was not possible. They are the very old thick lids which are too heavy to move manually. The option of a rail mounted trolley was out of the question as well, since passenger trains were running.

One of the broken lids was both large and thick, it required a four-man lift (Pete, Nigel, Martin(J) and Martin(S). [Photo by Dave]

The down side cess chamber near the sleeper built hut that the Heritage team are reconstructing just required one lid replacing. [Photo by Dave]

An interesting comparison between the old thick lids and the 'newer' thin one. [Photo by Dave]

Phil and Polly helped make more space in the yard by removing one of the redundant IBU plastic tanks. Jonathan, Ian and Andrew worked on milepost upright preparation. This included cutting the good sections out of the bridge rail lengths recovered from the old fence at Stowe Road. This was hard work, even using the powerful rail saw borrowed (with permission) from PWay. We just wonder how the Victorian GWR engineers cut this stuff.

Jonathan in flame retardant PPE takes the rail saw to a length of bridge rail.

Wildlife report: A few years ago, sighting a Red Kite was a rarity. Now we take them for granted as we regularly see pairs all along the line. The interesting observations are to note whether it is crows, gulls or buzzards mobbing them. One pair of kites are nesting just north of Winchcombe yard, one of these was making regular low passes over the yard. No doubt checking to see if our clearance work had uncovered any rodents. We saw no rodents, just lots of spiders and woodlice, especially underneath old pallets that had rotted. Those that took lunch on the platform at Winchcombe observed a couple of grey squirrels bounding in the pine trees on the up side. At Stanley Pontlarge, a wren was observed. Finally, after a few sunny and warm (well hot really) days; there was a very noticeable increase in butterfly activity.

Red admiral. [Photo by Dave]

And finally..... 

Every GWSR blog has to have a picture of GWR Railcar No 22. This was early on Wednesday morning, before it was moved from the Toddington unloading road after it's arrival the previous evening.

Filling in

Thursday 2^nd April

A day when the feeling of the weather changed from winter to spring as the day progressed. Again a dozen of the team in attendance, working at two sites. Both sites involved filling in work.

On the up side River Isbourne steps, John and Martin (J) installed the last two old car tyres. They filled these in with spoil and stone that was left in a dumpy bag in the yard. Ian was also working at Winchcombe, he assembled the two new brushcutters obtained with the Farming in Protected Landscapes grant. Later in the day he assisted the electricians undertaking PAT testing of our newly acquired mains electrical items. Meanwhile, after completing the Isbourne steps, John and Martin sorted out some of the lengths of old scaffolding that we are going to use a headwall safety markers.

The other nine team members were engaged on the Stowe Road drainage improvement at Toddington. Peter and Dave took the tipper Transit to collect a tonne of No1 stone from our supplier in Bishops Cleeve. Jonathan drove the telehandler up to Toddington; using this to tip into the ditch is more controlled than from the tipper Transit. Dee, Phil, Martin (S), Polly, Nigel and Andrew were the rest of the crew.

First job was to fit the blue mesh GRP chamber lid, which is bolted down. Then some left over stone from a pervious job went into the ditch. Next the we cut the length of half perforated pipe to fit the ditch and installed it. This did involve a slight enlargement of the hole in the chamber rings, as the pipe has a slight rise away from the chamber to ensure water flows. Then a final check of the pipe gradient and in went the stone collected from Bishops Cleeve. The one tonne we obtained was the perfect amount. 

Peter and Dave bolt down the blue mesh chamber lid.

Martin (S) fettles the hole for the pipe guided by Dee from above. We do not often have tasks best undertaken by lying down. [Photo by Dave]

The half perforated pipe in the ditch.

Using the telehandler ensures a more controlled deposit of No1 stone. [Photo by Dave] 

After lunch the ditch was in-filled to ground level. The telehandler proving useful here as the now dried clay is not easy to shovel by hand. Also we use the telehandler to extract the remaining length of bridge rail from the old fence. It, and the length removed last week, were loaded onto the LWB Transit and taken back to Winchcombe for use a milepost uprights. 

Extracting the upright length of bridge rail. 

Finally we cleared the site of all the metal, wood, concrete and vegetation debris, removing them to appropriate disposal sites at Toddington and Winchcombe. At the road end of the ditch we inserted a vertical length of large twin wall pipe. This is temporary shuttering, it will be removed when we install a concrete catchment area with a gutter gully. 

Securing the site with the temporary heras fence panels after clearing all the debris. Note the temporary vertical pipe as a placeholder for the run-off and gutter gulley.

Wildlife report: Certainly it is now spring – several lineside fields are bright yellow with oil seed rape; blackthorn is in full blossom, with pear trees and hawthorn starting to bloom. On the ground we spotted plenty of primroses and a few bluebell buds beginning to open. Also a lot of dandelions, probably the most overlooked spring flower. At Toddington we added Goldfinch to the list of observed bird species.

Good progress

Thursday 26^th March

All twelve team members working today were glad that the weather did not repeat the previous days temporary reversion to winter. Although rather chilly first thing, the strong sunshine made it look a lot more like spring. Most importantly, no rain or other forms of precipitation!

Dee, Phil, Martin (J), Peter and Stuart worked on the tyre-steps at the River Isbourne bridge. They used up all the stock of tyres we collected a few weeks ago, plus two telehandler bucket loads of spent ballast and spoil. This almost completed the steps, we are two tyres short. The resulting steps are a lot easier and safer to use than the wooden peg ones. Cost of materials is a lot less than building wooden steps. However, the installation effort is not insignificant – certainly not as easy as the YouTube videos imply!

Stuart checking the levels from the bottom of the steps. [Photo by Martin(J)]

The almost complete set of steps. [Photo by Peter]

Polly, Dave, Nigel, John, Jonathan and Andrew progressed the new crest ditch at Stowe Road, Toddington. They installed the GRP rings which form the new chamber; and excavated the crest ditch which runs almost to the roadside boundary. Most of the excavated material from the ditch was used as backfill around the chamber. A bonus was the removal of part of the old bridge rail fence support. This has a sufficient non-corroded length to become a milepost upright.

Trial fitting of the GRP chamber rings. After measuring we moved one of the thinner rings from the top to the bottom, as this then made the ditch less deep and thus reduced the amount of excavation. [Photo by Dave]

Jonathan excavating the ditch whilst Nigel, John and Dave backfill around the chamber rings. The ladder and spirt level were used to check the depth of the ditch excavation.

Site secured at end of day with the necessary warning signs. Removed length of bridge rail just visible - we were not able to take this back to Winchcombe as the tail-lift fitted Transit was out of action.

Roger was our twelfth man. He spent the day in the workshop at Winchcombe cutting numerals for mileposts from acrylic sheet. This does produce some neater looking numbers that casting in our concrete moulds. Additionally by using black coloured sheet, it will avoid the need for painting.

Wildlife report: Pheasants seem to be out in force today – there was even one in Winchcombe Yard. We spotted a large flock of crows in a field near Toddington – probably eating freshly sown seed. Lambs in one of the fields adjacent to Stowe Road confirmed that this is spring.

HRA Award Photo Extra

 Thursday 19th March

 Here are a couple of pictures of (half of) the team with the Heritage Railway Association Infrastructure award plaque taken by Infrastructure Manager Sarah after the end of day cuppa at Winchcombe.

Click here for the full story. 

Left to right:   Martin (S), Ian, Martin (J), Andrew, Peter, Dave, Jonathan.

Ring, ring

Thursday 19^th March

A last minute change of plan for us today, as C&W required the tail-lift fitted LWB Transit to collect a piece of machinery from Cheltenham. We also required it to deliver concrete catch pit rings to Stanton Yard. So our plans changed – no work on the steps above the River Isbourne to enable deployment of extra manpower at Stanton to enable offloading of the rings and returning the LWB Transit to Winchcombe for C&W use.

So Jonathan loaded the five concrete rings on the LWB Transit with the telehandler. Then he departed to Stanton with John driving the Transit. Also heading that way in two other vehicles were Martin (S), Martin (J), Peter, Dave and Nigel. [One downside of a larger team size is that we need several vehicles to get us all to site. The work at Stanton was to replace some broken rings on the cess chamber immediately on the high mileage up side of Stanton Bridge. As you can see from the photographs, this is very close to where fresh supplies of ballast are delivered and then collected. Hence this chamber is prone to damage from close encounters from vehicles. First task was to remove some of the ballast hep from around the chamber and then the two damaged rings. We inserted four new rings, thus making the chamber higher and more visible. The telehandler made this job as lot easier and safer – these concrete rings are very heavy. Moving them by hand needs four strong folk. We covered the chamber with a blue mesh lid, bolted down, and placed two blue painted marker posts in front of it. There is now no excuse for failing to spot that chamber now.

Martin (S) and Martin (J) removing some of the ballast pile around the chamber. [Photo by Dave]

Unloading the pallet of rings to enable the Transit to return to Winchcombe for use by C&W. [Photo by Dave]

Jonathan carefully reverses down the slope to the trackside with the first replacement ring. [Photo by Dave]

Martin (J) directing the placement of the third ring.[Photo by Dave]

The completed stack of rings with lid and markers. [Photo by Dave]

After the work at Stanton, Jonathan returned the telehandler to Winchcombe. His next task was to sort out a flat tyre on the Isuzu pickup. The next jobs for Martin (S), Martin (J), Peter, Dave and Nigel were further north. These were to install lengths of bridge rail for the posts of replacement mileposts 6 and 6¾. The bridge rail lengths for mileposts are 6 foot long; so these are quite heavy too. They require a two foot deep hole in the ground – another task requiring some muscle power.

Martin (S) and Peter inserting the new post for milepost 6¾. [Photo by Dave]

Final task for the group of five was to complete the checking of the distances between the mileposts up to Broadway. Martin (J) has repair our measuring wheel using plastic welding; whilst Martin (S) demonstrated some skilful balancing by running the wheel along a rail head to avoid irregularities caused by uneven ground.

Meanwhile back at Winchcombe Yard, John had joined Ian and Andrew working on two GRP catch pit rings that are destined for the new chamber on the crest at Stowe Road, Toddington. The task was to cut a 265mm diameter hole in the ends to take the inlet pipe of the new crest drain. Whilst these GRP rings are considerably lighter than the concrete rings, they are extremely hard. Hence the hole cutting took quite some time, using a variety of power and hand tools.

Ian preparing to cut the GRP rings. Fist drill a small hole in the middle of the cut out to enable marking a circle leaving equal amounts in each ring.

Completed set of rings and length of pipe test fitted. Excavating the ditch and fitting this at Toddington is next week's task.

 

After lunch, Jonathan and John make a quick visit to Pecked Lane at Bishops Cleeve. The job here was to install some additional warning signs by the footpath gates. Unfortunately, the fixings on the back of the signs proved incompatible with the tubular posts already in place. So a return visit will be needed with some different sized fixings.

Wildlife report: Spring had certainly sprung - this was the warmest and sunniest workday for us so far this year. Consequently we observed a noticeable increase in inset activity, spotting solitary and bumble bees and several species of butterfly. At Winchcombe we observed at leat six magpies which appear to be nesting towards the school. They were being mobbed by at leat three crows. The yard’s resident robins were also noted. The change to spring weather has certainly brought out the blossom on the blackthorn trees and bushes, and on a couple of cherry trees. Daffodils and narcissi are now just past their flowering peak, whilst in a sheltered spot near broadway we spotted primroses in full flower.

Primroses. [Photo by Dave]

Three or five?

Thursday 12^th March

Once again the increased numbers in the team allowed simultaneous work on multiple sites. Three of these were lineside, with one extending over nearly two miles of track. The other two ‘sites’ were Churchward House and Winchcombe Yard. OK, that is rather extending the definition of work site – but at least those two were out of the strong winds and squally showers.

First group departing from Winchcombe Yard were John , Martin (S) and Martin (J). They headed north to the two mile work site. Their task was to recover mileposts 6 and 6¾. Like many on the Laverton to Broadway section, when replaced for the reopening a few years ago, wooden posts were used. Rot has now set in – so we are replacing these with lengths of former broad gauge bridge rail. Also we shall replace the heads and fit correct pattern GW numerals – not ‘house numbers’. The reason why the work was spread over two miles rather than three-quarters was to check the spacing, using milepost 7¼ as a datum. Unfortunately the handle of our measuring wheel suffered plastic fatigue before completing all the measurements.

Next group to depart the yard were Dave, Polly, Peter, and Nigel. They were the today’s team at Stowe Road, Toddington. The task was to lay the final courses of brick in the new chamber on the cutting crest, and then to insert the first GRP catch pit ring. Once again this task was made a lot easier as the field drain that runs through the new chamber was not flowing; so the chamber pit did not need pumping out first. Work at Toddington was timed careful to avoid the peak of arriving passengers for the race day trains. 

Polly makes quick work of the final brick courses in the new crest chamber. [Photo by Dave]

The first GRP catch pit ring goes in , much easier to work from the inside. [Photo by Peter]

Two Swindon thoroughbreds ready for the off at the Toddington starting line. [Photo by Dave]

On the return from Toddington, the group used the empty space on the LWB Transit to move some sections of old sleepers for PWay. These are obviously to be used very soon, as the instruction was to leave them on the truck at Winchcombe.

No doubt the PWay report in a future Heritage Herald blog will fill us in with the use of these old sleeper sections . [Photo by Dave]

Ian, Stuart, Jonathan and Andrew headed to the third lineside site, the up side on the River Isbourne bridge. Here the task was to progress the construction of the steps down from the vacant trackbed to the bridge headwall using the old tyres. Fortunately the strong wind was vaguely westerly, so the embankment provided a bit of shelter. The up side sidings at Winchcombe looked oddly empty with all serviceable coaches formed into the race day operational rakes.

Jonathan and Ian preparing the ground for the next tyre step. Removing roots is the trickiest part of the operation.

2807 hauls the first race train over the Isbourne bridge.

All the groups met back at Churchward House for lunch – which fortunately coincided with a very heavy rain shower. After lunch, the team formations swapped a bit. Stuart, Martin (J), Dave, Nigel, and Peter progressed the Isbourne steps, until the weather made working their unpleasant and unsafe. Ian and Martin (S) under took some maintenance of some of our power tools. John, Polly and Andrew fitted up the new head for milepost 6¾. They also attempted removing the old heads from the two recovered posts; however the rusty bolts failed to budge.

Some of the afternoon team on the Isbourne steps - the steepness of the embankment is apparent. [Photo by Dave]

End of day situation on the tyre steps. [Photo by Stuart]

To complete the list of five sites - Churchward House. Here the work was administration (also known as meetings!). These involved Roger in the morning and Jonathan in the afternoon. Out of the wind and rain this was the most pleasant work site of the day!

Wildlife report: The milepost team reported some rabbits at Laverton. The morning Isbournce steps team watched the different ariel antics of gulls, crows, buzzards and red kites from the top of the embankment. Also heard were blue tits, great tits and black birds. Otherwise it was a bleak day for wildlife spotting – just like the weather.

S&D

Not Stockton & Darlington. Or even Somerset & Dorset! But Surprise and Delight.

The Heritage Railway Association Annual Award winners were announced at a gala evening in Llandudno on Saturday. 

Surprise:  The winning entry in the Infrastructure category was our "Predict & Prevent: A Whole-Railway Asset Management Approach to Water and Infrastructure Resilience on the GWSR”. We beat some very stiff competition from some other outstanding projects. Highly commended were, the National Railway Museum’s refurbishment and reinterpretation of Station Hall in York, the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway’s ‘Independent Line’ project and Peak Rail’s traditional locomotive watering facility.

Delight: The Drainage team, along with our Infrastructure Manager and Chief Civil Engineer are delighted with the win. Especially as it concerns an unglamorous, repetitive, maintenance process dealing with infrastructure assets that many take for granted.

The HRA website has a full list of the 2026 HRA Award Winners.

HRA and GeoInspection present the award to John Dora, GWSR Chairman. Unfortunately due to prior personal commitments, neither our Drainage Team Leader or our Infrastructure Manger were able to attend.