Monday 3 June
Busy day to start the week, back to Stanton to do more of preparatory work for the Culvert 11A channel rebuild. Steve and the digger were already on site when the gang arrived and the first delivery of hardcore for the welfare cabin and turnaround/parking area had already been dropped off. The main chore for today was cleaning bricks to reuse on the side wall for the culvert channel. The original AR1.1 taper bricks are in short supply so recovering every one will be important.
It was also the first day for Nigel, so we needed to create a good impression in case he decided not to come back 😊
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| Site meeting with Steve to run through the plan |
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| Second load of recycled 6F2 for the hard-standing base |
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| The base taking shape |
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| Hard-standing down |
As the grass never stops growing, the pathway and an area to store the bricks had to be cut again. We evidently don't trample it down enough.
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| Taper brick store |
Dave had another go at removing the obstruction in the culvert, once you start on these jobs you can't let a few stones defeat you
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Dave with the rods again
(Photo: Alastair) |
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| The water level is about 4" higher behind the stones |
At this point another cunning plan was devised, this involved pumping the water into the brick arch to see if concentrating the flow in a smaller area would dislodge anything. First off the culvert needed to be dammed to get enough water to pump.
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| Pump deployed on the down side |
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| Stuart feeds the outlet hose into the culvert |
Just as it looked like the pumping might be working, Steve arrived to level the roadway under the bridge. Deep ruts caused by tractors going through the bridge in wet weather has meant that rainwater pools under the bridge. The buried gully drain didn't help the situation either.
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This might be a bit of a squeeze
(Photo: Alastair) |
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| No problem for a professional |
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| The first scrape found the original surface |
While the roadway work was going on it was all hands to the brick cleaning
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| Brick recycling |
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| The roadway sees daylight again |
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| The spoil dragged out |
The spoil from the roadway will go to backfill the down side cess extension pipe when it's installed.
Stuart and Nigel had a quick visit to Hunting Butts in the afternoon to take some levels across the north abutment, all part of the security fencing enhancement project.
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| Nigel with the level staff |
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| A bit of offensive graffiti covered up while in the area |
Last but not least, Dave's find of the day, a milepost Zero numeral, this one has been added to our stockpile for the replacement programme.
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| Dave's found nothing 😂 |
Not that I’m advocating returning to sending children up chimneys, but could one of the smaller members of the team crawl through the arch to remove the offending brickwork?
ReplyDeleteWe'd have to draw lots for that job, trouble is I might win :-)
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