Thursday 23 May
The north in the title isn't the true North of flat caps an whippets, we don't need to go that far to see a proper engine as we have LNER B1 1264 visiting for the Cotswold Festival of Steam. Our idea of the far north is Springfield Lane at Broadway. That's the land time forgot beyond the palisade gate to the north of Broadway station. Why trek all the way up there you may ask; well the station storm drains run to a stream to the north of the by-pass so we like to keep an eye on them to make sure water is still running away.
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| Looking back over the fence to Broadway Station |
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| Trackbed used by dog walkers and runners among others |
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| Chamber hiding in the brambles with its lids displaced |
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Andrew and Stuart replace the lids
(Photo: Alastair) |
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| Andrew and Alastair replace the next lot |
Some chambers were too deeply covered for us to access without disturbing any birds (It's bird nesting season until the end of August) so we will need to return in the winter to cut our way in.
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| There should be a chamber in there somewhere |
From the way the lids have been displaced it looks like someone has run along the trackbed with a flail at some time since our last visit, that would explain why the overgrowth isn't more established. We did discover a manhole that we weren't expecting to find, it appears to be a siphon taking a stream from the down side to a point unknown. Looking at satellite imagery, it would appear that the stream is next visible over the north side of the by-pass.
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| Mystery chamber contains a large bore iron pipe |
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| Milepost 4/11 - in need of a coat of paint 🙃 |
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| Another displaced lid |
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| Dr Livingstone I presume 😃 |
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No pot of gold at the end of the expedition,
just a GWR through bloter chair rescued from the stream |
Nobody volunteered to carry the chair back the 1/2 mile to the truck!
Next stop, Stanton, this remnant of the down side aqueduct abutment needs to be broken up to add to the recycling pile. Andrew and Alastair had a go with the SDS drill, but in the end the block beat them. We will have another try with the large SDS next week.
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| Aqueduct abutment remains |
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| It was built to last 😊 |
After lunch we moved down to Bridge 11 to take levels along the gully drain
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| Andrew with the staff, Stuart with the pencil |
The results have been plotted, the first plot explains why we haven't piped the gully into the culvert; the grey line is the culvert floor, the blue line below is the gully pipe, the orange line at the bottom is the bottom of the gully chamber to the base of the scour hole at the end of the culvert channel.
A close up on the gully excavation shows why the drain never worked well, it runs up hill in 2 places which isn't ideal for getting water flowing. It only had a 40 mm fall over the 10 m run.
For a bit of light relief we then attempted to extract the remaining loose bricks from the culvert, this time using the Mk 7 rod attached brick remover.
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| Mk 7 Brick Remover |
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| Stuck - teething troubles |
Like all good inventions, brick removal tools go through a development life-cycle. The Mk 7b(2) faired better
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Stuart modifies the Mk 7 design into the Mk 7b(2) -
Or just saws the top corners off 😏 |
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| Alastair scoops out the disturbed ballast |
The modified version worked, in that one brick came out, it's still bouncing over the the last couple of bricks.
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| Outlet end |
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| Andrew pulls the return rope |
After another varied and partly successful day, it was time to pack up and return to Winchcombe to unload.
I am interested and intrigued. Where does the water run off into
ReplyDeleteMike, We don't know yet, I'll put a map on today's blog to show what we think is happening. Stuart
DeleteQuite Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteAre you intending eventually to re-construct the damaged parts of the brick culvert
That's the plan, we are going to rebuild the end of the brick arch and the roadway side of the brick channel, it's going to be a big job for us
Delete