Monday 13 May
It seems like we've spent the whole year at Stanton, if things go according to the latest version of the plan we will be here until the end of July. Looking on the positive side, there are a lot worse places to work along the line. It was more pre-project site preparation today, finding out more about what needs to be done to the gully drain, looking at the up side cess outfall, and clearing bricks from the brick arch culvert.
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| Before we started, peace reigns |
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| Roger and Alastair digging out the gully drain |
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| Dave assembles 2 sets of rods |
You may think removing the odd brick from a culvert is a simple enough task; it can be if the bore is marginally wider than the largest rod scraper. In this case the bore is way bigger than the scraper, which means that when it hits a brick it jut runs round it. The idea was to use 2 sets of rods tied together and sweep down each side trawling the middle, well it didn't work, the rod tools just bounced over the bricks. The plan was revised to add a length of wood to the rods, but that just bounced over. Next revision was to add a brick for ballast, that failed as it fell off, there is one more brick to extract now.
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| Revision C(ii) brick tied to the rods |
At this point a rethink was called for. So Stuart went to finish cutting the side up to Culvert 11B, (it's being kept clear ready for the next phase of the project) and Dave joined Roger and Alastair extracting the gully drain cover.
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| Pumping out the gully to see what state it's in |
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| Up side towards Culvert 11B |
It wasn't all wasted effort, the gully top came out, replacement now on order.
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110 year old cast iron, made for horse and cart traffic
not large tractors with 20 ton harvest trailers |
The gully chamber will need the top 2 courses of brick replaced. Next the focus moved to the gully pipe, we believe it is completely beyond repair, but a bit more digging was done to prove it.
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| Dave, Roger and Alastair assessing the gully pipe |
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| View from the top |
After lunch, Steve arrived with the JCB to move the sleepers that we stacked so nicely on Saturday. As we had saved him some work, he saved us some by excavating the up side cess headwall. When we could see the state of it, it was decided that it needs to be replaced, it's beyond being repaired.
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| Labour saving device employed |
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| It's worse that that! |
After the excitement of finding out we need to do even more than we thought it was back to grindstone.
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| Alastair and Roger back in the gully |
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| Brick extractor Mk6b |
The Mk6b extractor actually worked, we managed to get 5 bricks out, one haul was even 2 still joined.
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| 2 for the price of 1 or BOGOF |
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| The Mk6b in action |
We should be back on Thursday with the improved Mk7 brick extractor, if we can lift it 😊
Great pictures and report from the hidden branch of the railway. without your efforts we would either be flooded out or flushed away!!!
ReplyDeleteWe did not know quite how much workyou guys do there to keep the line dry. Well done all.
Regards
Paul & Marion
Terrific job you chaps are doing, perhaps shouldn't say but i smiled about the first brick excavation.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main requirements for drains is a sense of humour, otherwise you would despair. Ingenuity is fairly high on the list as well ;-)
DeleteGreat job you chaps are doing to keep the line " dry "
ReplyDelete