Dividing into three

Thursday 5^th March

After many weeks of dull and wet weather, we certainly enjoyed the sunshine and warmth today. By mid-afternoon the temperature in nearby Pershore reached 17C, making this the warmest day so far this year. For the first time this year, two of our groups loaded deckchairs for use during the morning coffee break and at lunchtime.

With nine of the team attending, we formed three groups in a 4-3-2 formation.

The Stowe Road Toddington group was the group of four - Peter, John, Polly and Nigel. Their work today was to lay the first couple of brick courses in the new chamber on the cutting crest by the road. Just like last week, the dry weather meant that the field drain that runs through this chamber was not flowing; so there was only a small quantity of water to bail out before bricking commenced. Again they setup the plant on the old garden centre site by Toddington Station; but this time as the quantity of mortar required was relatively small this was delivered to the site in buckets using the Isuzu pickup.

Dee, Phil and Jonathan formed the group of three. They first travelled to Ski Tyres in Tewkesbury to collect a number of old worn car tyres. Ski have donated these to us to experiment with construction of steps on cutting and embankment sides. This may be a cost effective and straightforward method of providing some safe access routes for all the lineside teams. There are a number of videos on YouTube which show the method, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTu8NuF6uJ8. After lunch the group started work on our trial site, the up side above the River Isbourne bridge. Initial results are encouraging, as long as we stick to 14 inch diameter tyres. Removing tree and bush roots proved to be the trickiest part of the operation.

First four tyres inserted at the bottom of the steps - will need a little more infill from the used ballast pile. [Photo by Jonathan]

The remaining tyres stacked at the end of the upside siding. [Photo by Jonathan]

 

The remaining group of two, Martin (J) and Andrew, headed south to undertake a number of odd jobs. First was the regular clearing of the grill on the exit of culvert 24C at Working Lane. This clogs up with twigs and other debris, today’s clearing dropped the pooling water by over 6 inches.

24C exit after cleaning.

Next was a quick survey of the lower portion of the haul road at Working Lane. Following the completion of the up side embankment clearance by our contractor, spotting the areas where water is collecting is a lot easier. They identified potential sites to insert pipes under the haul road. Then on to Two Hedges Road at Bishops Cleeve. First job here was another dye test on syphon cross drain 40A. Since clearing out the inlet a few weeks ago, and with a fair amount of rain over those weeks, the increased flow through the syphon enabled a better test than previously. No dye coloured water was observed entering either the down or up side cess drains; either immediately after adding to the inlet or after a couple of hours. So we can safely conclude that this syphon is not leaking.

Next job was one on behalf of the bridges team, as agreed at our meeting last week. This was to paint the safety rails constructed using old steam locomotive boiler tubes on the filled in accommodation bridge 41. Use of spray smooth Hammerite paint made the job straight forward. However this used up two cans, one for each side. Brush painting may be more cost effective. However, the result does look at lot better than rusty tubes.

Martin (J) painting the up side rails of old bridge 41.

Final job for the pair was to replace some concrete cess chamber lids with blue GRP mesh lids. The chambers on the up side in the shallow cutting just north of Kayte Lane crossing are prone to close encounters with the robot flail or other vehicles. A number of the old concrete lids were scrap, either cracked or having broken corners exposing the reinforcing bar. The blue mesh is much more visible and durable. We have plenty of these in stock, but we have now exhausted our supply of bolted brackets. Hence only three chambers were dealt with today.

Neater and easier to spot, cess chamber with blue mesh lid.

Finally on the way back, the pair checked on the status of the now notorious Bonsai World inlet stream of culvert 40B. The wet spell since the beginning of the year has lead to some seepage from the crest ditch into the French drain; plus the two twinwall pipes running directly to the down side cess chamber were running. We are going to need a few more weeks with little or no rain before we are able to attempt further work here.

Martin (J) testing the depth of the water in the Bonsai World crest ditch - and trying to estimate the angle required for an elbow to extend the pipe.

A tenth member of the team was also working on the Railway. Roger was attending the monthly H&S meeting at Toddington.

Wildlife report: The warm sunny day certainly resulted in plenty of bird activity. Very noticeable was the increase in bird song – but even using a bird identification app on a phone we did not spot anything new or unusual. The loudest birds were a flock of geese in the small holding on the down side near Two Hedges Road. The best sighting was a pair of Red Kites swooping very low near Kayte Lane. Also looking for rodents we noted two domestic cats heading for the scrub on the down side cutting at Two Hedges Road. Finally, at Working Lane the growth of moss on some of the redundant concrete blocks was very noticeable. This is only a few years growth, so it does show just how clean the air is there.

Moss growth on old concrete blocks.

Definitely it was Spring today – lots of daffodils in full bloom, and a couple of magnolia trees in Gretton and Bishops Cleeve starting to flower.

Here and there

Thursday 26^th February

There were two plus points first thing this morning at Winchcombe Yard. First, it was not raining and most of the puddles in the yard had dried out. Second we welcomed a new recruit, Martin (S). Use of a suffix is because we now have two Martins on the team. However no confusion today as Martin (J) was away.

The increase in team size will enable us to tackle more of the tasks on on ‘to do’ list. Even allowing for planned and unplanned absences, most weeks we will most likely be able to have two groups working at two work sites. So it was today.

Also welcomed was a donated Einhell portable submersible electric pump. Not only was this donated, it was delivered to Winchcombe too. Many thanks to the donator from Powick.  

Polly, Nigel, Dave and Jonathan worked on the Stowe Road down side improvement. The task today was concreting the base of the new chamber on the cutting crest by the road. The dryer weather over the past couple of days helped here, the land drain the passes through the new chamber was no running. So after pumping the bottom of the chamber out; the concrete could go in. A good stiff (almost dry) 4:1 mix using some quick setting cement was the order of the day. Nigel was chief mixer, working on the old garden centre site by Toddington Station. Jonathan then took the mix in the telehandler bucket to the site; where Dave and Polly carefully guided the placement. The base used three mixes; so about a third of a cubic metre of material.

Nigel loads a mix of concrete into the telehandler bucket. [Photo by Dave]

Polly directs Jonathan driving the telehandler to deposit the mix in the chamber. [Photo by Dave]

With the concrete based levelled, Polly takes the final measurements to determine the number of bricks we need for the initial brick courses. [Photo by Dave]

End of day with the site fenced off again, safety marker tape around the excavation and two old barriers placed to stop anything falling down the hole. [Photo by Dave] 

The second group, John, Peter, Ian, Stuart and Martin (S), undertook a variety of jobs at Stanton. First was at syphon cross drain 6C on the low mileage side of Stanton Fields bridge (7). This was to rod out the inlet pipe on the down (Cotswold) side. This was partially successful – a larger diameter and stiffer rod head will be required to finish the task. On the up (Malvern) side, they also rodded the outlet pipe. The exit of this is well outside the railway boundary, and we know that it is partially obstructed. Rodding here confirmed that the obstruction is beyond the boundary. Fortunately 6C normally carries very little water. However, there was evidence that it had been flowing in the recent wet period.

Next was a check at the larger syphon culvert 7A, just on the low mileage side of the B4632 road bridge (8). This is one where the outlet ditch in the adjoining land downstream is in poor condition. So during very wet weather the outlet overflows into the up side cess. Hence the check here to ensure that this had been coping – there was no sign of flooding on the vacant tracked bed on the up side.

Next to be checked was Stanton Aqueduct (bridge 9). The additional French drains added here last year have made an improvement; so too has the piping of the inlet direct into the trough of the aqueduct. Unfortunately there is still some run off from the adjoining fields on the down side that is percolating down the cutting side. Between the aqueduct and Stanton Road bridge, there are three land drains which enter the cutting. As these were probably not flowing, a quick check failed to spot the outlets as the vegetation needs some attention. We plan to pipe or channel these direct into the down side cess – a task that the expanded team will enable an earlier start.

Final task for the Stanton 5 was to check culvert 11A and cross drain 11B to the south of Stanton Yard. Our major diversion of 11B outlet here appears to be 100% successful. Everything was flowing well and there was no evidence of any flooding of the inlet channels and no standing water in the adjoining fields.

Andrew was the tenth member of the team attending today. Most of his day was taken up with a meeting with the Chief Civil Engineer, the Infrastructure Manager, and the bridges and structures teams. An objective was to ensure no conflicts in the planned work of the teams. As we now have more man (and woman) power, the drainage team will be undertaking a few jobs on non-drainage structures. One could be as early as next week.

Wildlife report: One member reported spotting a stoat on the journey into Winchcombe. As we have remarked before, distinguishing a stoat from a weasel when only glimpsed is extremely difficult. Apart from that we had nothing unusual or rare to report. A couple of members remarked that a sign of the increasing hours of daylight is that the dawn chorus now occurs before getting up on working days. Next week we are into metrological spring – so we are all hoping for drier and warmer and importantly sunnier weather. Not a lot to ask, really.

Hole again

Thursday 19^th February

Another day when our turnout was ten team members. However, the working pattern was a a little different; with a 6-4 split and the two groups heading in different directions.

The group of four, Peter, Dee, Ian, and Martin were soon away as they required only a few tools. Their first site was at Southam Lane bridge (42). Our lineside clearance contractor had reported some cess chamber lids displaced and fallen into the chambers. These were soon located and reset. Next port of call was the section between Greet Road bridge, Winchcombe (23) and the south portal of Greet Tunnel. Here the task was to survey all the cess chambers, 15 on each side of the line. Some of these received some remediable work around 35 years ago as the Railway reopened south of Winchcombe. They now require some further attention. Surprisingly one or two will just require new lids and a few no work at all. With the Heritage Group rebuilding the platelayers hut on the down (Cotswold) side of the line here, we can not let tatty cess chambers from spoiling the view!

Final task for the southern group of four was back in the yard at Winchcombe. This was to sort out our stock of plastic pipe and fittings. Importantly this involved fastening the coils of flexible small diameter pipe. With perforated and non-perforated pipes of at least seven different diameters, we have at least 14 different types of metric GRP pipes. Plus odd lengths of imperial and SGP. It will be a lot easier to find the correct size for a job now.

A tidy stock of different pipe sizes and types.

The group of six (Jonathan, John, Polly, Dave, Nigel, Andrew) headed to Toddington for another day working on the drainage improvements at Stow Road Bridge. First task was to connect the existing land drain outlet to the to the new long length of flexible pipe running to the down side cess chamber. With the correct sized adapter this was a doddle – well the connection was. Standing on a wet slippery cutting side was not quite so easy!

From Stowe Road bridge, the new flexible pipe and raised cess chamber show how neater and (eventually) drier the down side cess is now. Those S&T cables will not be under water!

The main task was to complete the excavation of the hole for the new chamber at the top of the cutting. We had left this for a week to see how stable the sides of the hole are. As the soil is clay, there had been no collapsing. Even so, we will install some shuttering when we are working in the hole laying the courses of bricks.

Jonathan concentrates on the excavation, whilst Polly, Nigel and John wait for the next deployment of the pump.

The pump in action - this 110v unit makes swift work of emptying a couple of inches of water. 

 

The depth and length of the hole did not require any increase, just the width by a few inches. This was fortunate, this hole is about the largest we can dig using our small mini-excavator. Even so, we needed to hand dig out two of the corners where the excavator arm could not reach, As the field drain that will run through this chamber was flowing steadily, every now and then we had to pump the water out.

Final task of the day is to reinstate the temporary heras fence at the site (complete with Danger Deep Excavation notice) and to place safety marker tape around the excavation.

Once again the weather was not a welcome aspect of today. Even though the light drizzle stopped by mid morning; there was no warmth in the air. The top of the cutting by Stowe Road is a very bleak and exposed spot. However, a welcome aspect was a working day with passenger trains running- our first since the end of October last year. The weather did make for a very atmospheric departure of the first up train from Toddington behind 3850. A big bonus was the ability to obtain hot bacon rolls mid-morning, sourced from the buffet car of the first down train. Conveniently this was routed through platform 2, so almost a direct delivery to our work site. Also, with trains running again, we all were able to enjoy our end of day cup of tea in the Coffee Pot cafe at Winchcombe. Here we were delighted to have a visit from Ian Scholey, the former Infrastructure Manager, visiting the railway with his grand children.

Wildlife report: Essentially a repeat of last week’s report – the damp, dull, grey day again not conducive to wild life observations. The resident robin at Winchcombe Yard kept a close eye on the work with the pipes there. Other than that, the main observation was that more spring flowers are slowing appearing, particularly in the station gardens and other planted areas. We noted crocuses and grape hyacinths in full bloom, and a few daffodils just opening out.

Frustrations

Thursday 12^th February

The team of ten managed some progress the drainage improvements at Stow Road Bridge, Toddington, despite a couple of set backs. The weather was our first frustration. The day started off dry, but soon turned damp, then wet. The local weather forecast was for showers, with brighter periods in the afternoon. The showers materialised as one long and heavy one, whilst the brighter spells never arrived. So another day where ground conditions on the cutting side were not ideal. The second frustration was down to human error. Despite our multiple and careful measurements of pipe diameters, an ordering glitch lead to us receiving an adaptor that was too small to connect the exiting clay field drain to the new long length of flexible pipe running to the down side cess chamber.

However, Jonathan started digging the new crest chamber with the mini-digger after having tracked it from the station car park entrance with John acting as traffic control.

Jonathan starting the excavations for the new crest chamber on the line of the field drain. Weather conditions making the Cotswolds appear to be wild windy moors.

At the trackside, Stuart, Dee, Phil and Andrew installed the new flexible pipe, after marking and cutting a section out of the GRP chamber ring. Nigel mixed up some mortar for Polly to cement this ring into place, with a few more bricks underneath it to ensure stability. Roger used the brick saw to cut a length of concrete ducting to cover the short section of S&T cables that were left exposed. Martin and John delivered an extra section of heras fence to the top of the cutting.

After coffee break, Jonathan continued digging the new chamber. He successfully found the existing land drain horizontally where we expected it to be, 4 feet below the surface. The rest of the team were occupied on the main task, placing spent ballast in the down side cess from the end of the platform, under the bridge back to the raised chamber. This involved a long manual barrow from the car park, across the barrow crossing and along the length of platform 2. As usual, access to this work site is not that easy!

Roger and Stuart placing a barrow load of old ballast in the downs side cess under the bridge. Completed raised chamber with flexible pipe from the field drain in the foreground - under the plastic bags to keep the rain off the curing mortar.

Dee arrives with another barrow load of ballast. Under the bridge was one of the few dry spots.

Nigel makes final adjustments to the concrete ducts covering the S&T cables. Note installation of the blue clips holding the blue mesh chamber cover in place.

The new flexible pipe running from the field drain outlet to the cess chamber - but missing the vital adaptor! Note the old ballast now extending almost to the S&T box.

For the second week in a row, we used the MPD mess room for lunch. Hot running water, soap and very efficient hand dryers were much in demand! With the heavier rain after lunch, activities were restricted to some site tidying up, recovering the digger and making the top of the cutting side secure with the heras fence and marking the excavation site. Then an early retreat back to Winchcombe. Final frustration was that the rain stopped just as we began to make our way home.

Stuart secures the heras fencing at the top of the cutting.

Wildlife report: Once again the weather conditions prevented significant wildlife observations. Besides the flock of crows in the field adjacent to Stow Road bridge (who obliviously like the sheep nuts the farmer puts out), the main observations were from the road vehicles on our way to and from Toddington. Two raptors, kestrel and buzzard, a few starlings and gulls. We could here at blackbird at Toddington but he (or she) kept hidden. We had no additional sightings of spring flowers.

Another mucky day

Thursday 5^th February

Another Mucky Day for the team, mainly working on the down side under Stowe Road Bridge at Toddington. Although the temperature was marginally up on last week, and the wind was not quite so keen and not funnelling under the bridge; this was a typical February day. Grey, cool and damp – verging on wet! Ideal for getting boots and gloves covered in mud.

Three of the team, Dave, Peter and Ian formed our regular winter road clearance team. The roads which pass under some of of underbridges are prone to flooding in very wet weather. In most cases the flood water recedes after a few hours; but occasionally a grill blocked by leaves or other debris or a pipe blocked with silt retains the deep water. Over the previous weekend we had heard that the water under Didbrook No2 bridge (16) was deep enough to prevent cars from driving through. One of our local members investigated; he determined that the grills were clear so the blockage must be in the drains which lead away. These are the responsibility of GCC Highways – so an incident was logged with them. Our Thursday three started at Little Buckland Bridge (5). Here there were puddles under the bridge because of the uneven road surface, and a pothole or two, but the drains were not blocked and were doing their job.

Little Buckland Bridge - no flood, just puddles. [Photo by Dave]

Then on to the next bridge down, Laverton Meadow Lane (6). Again the road was not flooded and the drains coping with the amount of rain falling. Surprisingly, there was very little material in the silt traps on either side of the road. These were cleared. One of the team drove home that way later in the day, reporting a substantial flow from the adjacent field on the down side high mileage of the bridge. However, this was all getting away.

Peter and Ian clearing the silt traps under Laverton Meadow Lane Bridge. [Photo by Dave]

Didbrook No1 Bridge (15) was all fine, just a very muddy road surface underneath. So the group of three proceeded to Didbrook No2 bridge.

After the flood, lots of mud under Didbrook No2 Bridge. [Photo by Dave]

The flood from the weekend had receded, leaving a tide mark on the depth gauge. The group swept the road and cleaned the grills. Whilst there, GCC Highways turned up with a gully suction vehicle. They sucked out the exit pipes on the up (Malvern) side; one of which was well blocked with silt. The group then headed to Toddington to join the Stowe Road group for lunch.

GCC Highways sucking out the drain under Didbrook No2 Bridge. [Photo by Jonathan] 

To assist finding the grills when under water, we have renewed the blue marks on the bridge wing walls. [Photo by Dave]

The group progressing the improvements to the drainage of the down side cutting on the low mileage side of Stowe Road bridge were Polly, Nigel, Jonathan, John and Andrew. We had planned on starting the excavation of the new crest chamber and ditch. However, a repair to the mini-digger was not complete, so we have delayed this. (Also with the wetting rain it would have not been a very comfortable day for the digger driver – our little machine does not have a cab). Polly and Nigel mixed some concrete to back fill the small training wall we built last week. Then after John and Andrew had cleaned around the existing cess chamber; a barrow load of mortar was mixed and a row of solid bricks added. This has some gaps in it, to allow the S&T cables to pass through and to allow the new pipe from the cutting side land drain to pass into the chamber.

Polly (l) and John determining where the field drain extension pipe will run.

The brick course raising the chamber to be clear of the S&T cables.

Andrew and Jonathan marked up the location for the excavations for the new chamber and ditch at the top of the cutting side. They also measured up for the replacement fence. One part will be removable to allow our clearance contractor access with the robot flail. A phone call with the contractor confirmed the minimum width this needs to be.

The two groups met up for lunch in the Toddington MPD mess room. A comfortable seat at a table with plenty of space in the warm and dry – luxury! [And of course hot running water in the wash room.] After lunch, both groups, tidied up the Stow Road bridge site, including temporarily placing the GRP catch pit ring on the new course of bricks. Finally, with some effort, we extracted the redundant fence post on the up side of the line. This was slightly easier than that on the down side (which we removed on 1^st January). It was rotten just below ground level, so we did not need to use a saw. However, it took quite bit pushing and shoving and levering with a jemmy bar. These two fence posts date back to the very early ‘preservation’ days. A fence across the (then) trackbed on the Broadway side of Stowe Road bridge helped secure the Toddington Station site.

Peter (l) and John take a breather during the post removal.

End of day - GRP ring and blue mesh cover temporarily in place on the down side cess chamber. Next time we will level the whole area using some spent ballast.

Up side with the redundant fence post removed. Now are we destroying heritage of the 1970s or are we restoring back to the 1950s?

Wildlife report: Not surprisingly for a dull, wet winter’s day we did not spot a great deal. A Red Kite was circling over the yard at Winchcombe, no doubt like the cat last week on the lookout for rodents. Also in the yard, we found a hibernating queen wasp in one of the holes of a perforated brick in our brick pile. Encouragingly the signs of spring are increasing. Snowdrops are probably at there best now (even better if we had sunshine) – the road clearing gang spotted a fine drift at Didbrook. Plus we noted the first daffodil in bloom, admittedly in the shelter by the front door of Churchward House.

 

A raw day

Thursday 29^th January

The only plus point for today’s weather report was that it did not rain. However, for most of the day it was misty, grey and with a keen wind blowing. Even the canopy on platform 1 at Toddington provided no shelter. It is certainly still winter. The warmest spot was inside the toilet block!

Eight of the team endured the cold at Toddington. A ninth member, Jonathan, attended dumper and mini-digger re-certification at Winchcombe.

The work at Toddington was to progress the improvements to the drainage of the down side cutting on the low mileage side of Stowe Road bridge. Polly constructed a low training wall by the adjacent cess chamber, Ian and Nigel acted as hod carriers and mortar mixers keeping him supplied with bricks and mortar. The first task for the others in the team (Dave, Roger, John, Andrew, Peter) was to remove some cut vegetation from the cutting side. This was medium size branches, which required a chain gang to carry them up the steep slope to the growing pile on the top. With that cleared, Dave and Roger brush cut the cutting side, as far as the course of the existing field drain. Meanwhile, the other three began removing the vegetation around the fencing at the top of the cutting. The fence here is in very poor condition, so we will replace it as the last item on this job. The small section of roadside fence was removed (mainly the very rusty remains of a gate) and replaced with temporary heras fence panels.

Nigel and Polly building the training wall.

Cleared fence line by the roadside with temporary heras panels in place.

Roger and Dave finish off brush cutting the cutting side.

After lunch the main tasks included the removal of a tree stump a third of the way up the cutting side, and excavation around the end of the existing land drain. Unfortunately a rummage through our stock of pipes and connectors at Winchcombe first thing in the morning did not reveal any of the correct size. So working on the ‘measure twice, cut once’ principle we took some more measurements on site. Particularity for the extension of the field drain, as this involves an imperial SGP to metric plastic twinwall convertor. Last task of the afternoon was to point up the new brickwork and to cover with some plastic sheeting to keep the rain off whilst the mortar dries.

Stumped! Peter and Ian wrestle with the tree stump, whilst Nigel is ready to prevent any collisions with the new new wall. Polly in the background carries on with pointing up.

Ian digs around the exit of the existing land drain. The temporary pipe we inserted last week is not quite the correct diameter to avoid all leakage.

End of day with the new training wall covered. Height and position of the blue mesh chamber cover is only temporary.

Whilst at Toddington, Ian knocked off one outstanding small task by removing the stump of a telegraph pole stay in the hedge just on the high mileage side of the Platform 2 entrance gate. We know of only one other remaining pole stay stump on the line, but that has small tree growing around it.

Wildlife report: Another species of bird to add to our list of observations was a wren. The hedges of the station and nearby cottages at Toddington providing a suitable habitat. In the adjoining fields north of the station we observed a large flock of crows, a few gulls and a red kite. On the way back to Winchcombe we noted a kestrel, so getting the raptor count to two. The mammal count was zero, unless we count a black and white domestic cat who passed by the entrance to Churchward House to the gaps between the containers in the yard. No doubt performing a useful service to the railway by keeping the rodent population in check.

Signs of Spring

After our very wet, but short day, last week we did not have high expectations for this week. However, the weather was slightly better than forecast, just damp rather than wet, not too cold and even a few patches of blue sky and some brief sunny periods. Plus, we noted the first signs of spring.

Thursday 22^nd January

Eleven of the team reported for work today. The large number enabled a split into two teams heading for two completely separate work sites.

Jonathan, Dave, Roger, John and Martin headed south to Bishops Cleeve. The first task quickly undertaken was to check for any build-up of silt at the down side entry of culvert 39A. This is the one close to Pecked Lane foot crossing. It was flowing well, so no work was necessary here. When the flow eases off, we sometimes get a build up of silt in the entrance.

Next task for the team was to use the heavy duty brushcutters to shred the remaining cut vegetation on the up (Malvern) side cutting. There were three spots, one just before Two Hedges Road and two after. We are looking forward to seeing grass, rather than bramble or scrub, growing on this cutting.

Up side cutting south of Two Hedges Road looking towards Cheltenham. Much neater with the removal of cut vegetation. [Photo by Dave]

Further along, where the cutting transitions into an embankment, the group removed some damaged and redundant post and wire fencing. This is where the houses on Paget Road back onto the line, they now have their own fences. The wire became scrap; but some of the posts were recovered back to Winchcombe Yard as we can reuse them elsewhere.

The big task for the team was to full clear the silt from the down (Cotswold) side inlet of syphon cross drain 40A. This was an interesting task. After moving aside one of the concrete sleepers which covers the inlet channel, they removed some rather smelly silt. This revealed quite a good flow coming from under the adjacent farm track and footpath. In the base of the chamber is a circular hole full of silt and debris. The water flows over this, then into a pipe which heads down cutting side. As we have never found the outlet of the syphon, the exact arrangement here is a bit of a mystery. Now with the silt cleared from the inlet, we will return to undertake a further flow test with dye. That will have to wait for a few week though, as the vacant up side track bed is not accessible until the completion of the laying of a replacement S&T cable from Gotherington to Cheltenham.

40A inlet with one covering sleeper removed. [Photo by Dave]

40A pipe coming from under the farm track & footpath. [Photo by Dave]

40A exit to the syphon. [Photo by Dave]

The other group, Dee, Andrew, Ian, Nigel, Peter and Stuart, headed north to Toddington. Their task was to commence the construction work to alleviate the field and road run off which has afflicted the down side low mileage of Stowe Road Bridge (13) for many years. The first task was to complete the excavation between the bridge and the existing cess chamber. Then Nigel and Peter mixed three barrow loads of concrete; for careful insertion. Stuart and Andrew inserted steel reinforcing bars, and then carefully levelled out the concrete. This will form the base for a small retaining wall to keep silt away from the cess; and for the extra course of bricks to raise the chamber.

Stuart tamping and levelling the concrete for the wall base.

Close up showing some shuttering to avoid cementing in the S&T point cable which runs below the cable trough.

Peter and Stuart start clearing up after finishing the concrete laying. Having no rakes of stabled carriages in the platforms at Toddington makes working here a lot easier.

Meanwhile, Dee and Ian surveyed the cutting side. We suspected there was an existing land drain – this was easy to find today as it was running well. Unfortunately it emerges some way up the cutting side; water then running down the cutting side into the cess almost underneath the S&T cabinet. Not an ideal situation. This field drain probably extends beyond the railway boundary. The probable line of this drain was marked with blue marker paint. We then decided to modify our plan for the improvements here. We marked out the line of a new crest drain from the boundary corner by the road to site of a new chamber above the existing field drain. This will save the effort of constructing a new French drain or pipe run down the side of the cutting. We measured up and test fitted a length of flexible pipe to extend the field drain to the cess chamber. The diameter of the flexible pipe was perfect – but it was not long enough. So something for the shopping list this week.

Ian removes a tree stump just below where the field drain exits.

The crest of the cutting - just visible marking for the suspected run of the field drain and the location of the new chamber (to left of help of vegetation).

Test fitting of flexible pipe to extend the field drain to the cess chamber.

After lunch, Stuart and Ian undertook some flow tests with the marker dye. This showed that both the up and down side cess drains flow north from Stowe Road towards Stanway viaduct. The connection under the tracks to the cess drain in the six foot between the platforms at Toddington was not flowing. The other four used the laser level to take readings of the levels of the land on the crest of the cutting. The important item to determine from that data is the depth of the new junction chamber; and consequently the number of chamber rings we will need.

Ian and Stuart returning from the dye testing. Note the sunshine!

End of day - ply covering the curing concrete and blue mesh lids to cover the holes.

Wildlife report: We spotted some welcome signs of spring approaching. By the fence line alongside Stowe Road bridge was a patch of snowdrops. At Bishops Cleeve, the group there noted increased activity by long tailed tits – the down side cutting by Two Hedges Road has some ideal nest sites. Whilst at Toddington, two robins serenaded us whilst taking lunch on the platform. They certainly were having a singing competition; maybe two males at the edges of their territories, or a maybe a courting couple. Not quite wildlife, but the team members driving home towards Broadway reported a spectacular rainbow, a full 180 degrees arc across the sky.

Sign of spring 1 - snowdrops at Toddington. [Photo by Dee]

Sign of spring 2 - bulbs at Bishops Cleeve. [Photo by Dave]