With 3 new volunteers starting with the team since January, the drainage transport fleet has had to be expanded. Our latest additions come with puncture proof (foam filled) tyres and a sleek streamlined shape...
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| Drain Gang Mobile 3, 4 and 5 ready for the start |
Today was not the day for April Fool pranks as we had a site visit by the Health and Safety team who are helping to develop our RAMS (Risk Assessments and Method Statements) so that our future projects fully meet the requirements of CDM2015 (Construction (Design & Management) Regulations 2015). If you are new to all this, you are not alone, for us as volunteers every day is a learning exercise, especially when you are working with 115 years old infrastructure.
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| Excavation 1 brickwork taking shape |
While Stuart was off showing the consultants the site for the next project Roger, Dave and Andrew started the build on the chamber for excavation 1 on the Stanton crest drain and the concrete pour for the base on excavation 2.
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| Excavation 2, dry mix in the base |
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| Excavation 2, concrete base levelled |
After lunch, Dave and Stuart went to find a missing up side cess chamber, this one is buried somewhere under the ballast loading area. The next chamber south had suffered a digger strike and the lids were swapped last week so our hopes for this one were not high.
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| Dave starts the search for the top of the buried chamber |
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| Outside corner of the chamber lid found |
After an hour searching we found the corner of the lids 300mm down under the ballast, they look to be intact as the ballast covering has protected them from the traffic. We will need to dig them out to make sure they are robust enough for the traffic passing over, but we need the breaker to cut through the compressed ballast
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| Down side crest, twinwall pipe with hole to let the stream into the crest drain |
Next in line for attention, investigate the site on the down side crest where a small stream from the adjacent field comes into the crest drain. This is 75m south of the current excavations and will become excavation 4 when we start on the reconfiguration.
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| Chamber on the Crest/Cess drain junction |
3m north is a chamber (more a stack of bricks at present) at the head of the pipe to the cess drain.
Meanwhile Andrew and Roger had made good progress on the bricks laying, despite the very restricted space to work.
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| Excavation 1, end of day |
Dave gave the site the once over before we left to make sure we have taken all the tools, then it's off back to Winchcombe to unload.
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| Last check round |
We'll be back on Thursday if it isn't too wet.
This may not appear to be very interesting to most blog readers but this used to be on a flicker site. The job these guys do is not very atractive but it is to do about water drainage to keep our line dry and stable. This is probably the least public side of many of the activities that go on in the background to keep the line running. Well done to this team for the work they do.
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Paul & Marion.
Fascinating stuff for those interested in groundworks and the challenges of dealing with cutting and earthworks. Did the GWR build these in a more consolidated way in the C20 compared with earlier C19 practice? E.g. loose fill and allow consolidation of embankments over time and if there was collapse then build a temporary trestle bridge over the gap?
ReplyDeleteSome of the earthworks have been repaired over the years and the history has been lost. Some of the BR repairs may have been done on a cost basis rather than a material suitability. Some drainage is original and some has been added to solve flooding issues when they occurred. In a lot of cases the varied construction methods are evident, but who did what is not clear
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