Some wins at Stanton

Monday 15 April 

All geared up for the new week and it's back to sunny Stanton. With undue haste Michael (who is working Monday this week to confuse everyone) get started on Chamber 2 on the down side crest. His job is to modify the design to incorporate the second land drain.  

Chamber 2 

Then Roger and Dave set off south to chamber 3 and excavation 4. 

Stanton Satellite View 

Excavation 4 had filled with water since Saturday which meant a bale out before we could remove the rest of the spoil. 

Excavation 4 

Roger removes the plastic pipe 

Chamber 3 - water flowing from excavation 4 

With the pipe removed, some water drained into the cess via Chamber 3, the rest was baled out with a bucket. The stream was dammed with spoil and a diversion pipe run round into chamber 3 so that a concrete base could be poured. 

Diversion pipe 

Meanwhile the search for the missing cess chamber entered phase 2, the CCTV was set up to locate it from the inside 

CCTV set up 

Alastair called in today (he's still recuperating after a nasty bout of lurgy) to see who was using the mixer. Hopefully he will back in action soon. 

Roger mixing the concrete (Photo: Alastair) 

Base into excavation 4 

Now for one of the success stories. We may have solved the problem with the water pooling in the down cess from the spring in the cutting side. Dave dug down to the sub-base and we tested that water soaked away before filling the space with gabion stone. This should let the water drain into the cess and keep the trackbed dry.   

Spring water in the cess 

The bucket test - water flowed straight through the sub-base 

Gabion stone going into the hole 

Job done 

Over on the up side, the missing cess chamber was located using the CCTV. 

Laying the rods out on the surface shows that the chamber was where we had dug the trial hole last week. More digging required now to unearth the top. 

Camera rods reach the spot that was excavated last week! 

Michael spent the day in chamber 2 and managed to get the second drain diverted and all the walls up above the pipework. This should see the chamber topped off this week. 

Chamber 2, end of day 

Second success, the water has stopped flowing into the cess below chamber 2.  

Another dryer cutting slope 

While we had the camera out we nipped down to Bridge 11 to CCTV the suspect gully drain that runs parallel to Culvert 11A. 

Partial success here, we have found that there's a hole in the top of the pipe and it looks like a root growing through. So it's either another dig out or possibly a root removal with the rod saw. Watch this space...