Stanton concrete stomp - a new craze

Monday 15 July 

Concreting day, even with 4 of us in it was hectic so the pictures are a bit sporadic. The concrete arrived this morning and we took 6 CuMtr of 30N mix. having the digger to handle it meant that we could work with it fairly dry adding water as it was tamped into place. It was non-stop until 12:00 so we did some easy jobs in the afternoon. 

Both Nigel and Dave managed to get some brick cleaning in before the concrete arrived and again after it was all sorted. 

Dave brick cleaning on the up side 

Nigel on the down side 

Steve at work when we arrived 

The end of the up side cess ditch is going to get a wing wall to sort out the erosion in that corner. First job as always is to get some footing in and having the mix on hand was an opportunity too good to miss.  

The old temporary bridge gets a new life as shuttering 

The down side cess extension is going in today, having no trains on this section of track allows the spoil to be recycled into the ditch as backfill 

First bucket of 6F2 going in as a sub base
(Photo: Alastair) 

Filling the scour at the end of the original cess drain 

Then is wall all hands to the pumps to deal with the EasyMix delivery 

Mix dropped from the bridge 

This is definitely faster than our mixer 

It just keeps shooting out 

The gabion base on the down side was first to get supplied 

Richard and Steve laying the gabion base 

Then attention moved to the up side 

The up side gully pipe backfill 

Steve, Nigel, Stuart and Dave
(Photo: Alastair) 

It wasn't all moved by digger, and this picture wasn't posed by actors 😅
(Photo: Alastair) 

Richard came round to lend a hand 

The vibrating poker was used to get all the air out, the picture below shows how the level drops as concrete compacts... 

Dave on water, Alastair with the poker
and Nigel keeping the wires out of the way 

After compacting, a second layer was added to shape the edge up the side wall and fill some hollow spots in the track 

Moving the second layer into place
(Photo: Alastair) 

This is where we all got a go at the concrete stomp, it's a bit like line dancing without the music 🤣

Nigel fills a hollow while Dave concrete stomps 

This took a lot of stomping 

Down side gabion base finished 

Up side cess outfall footings done 

While we were all up to our necks in concrete, a delivery arrived ready for the next stage - 100 mm Concrete Blocks for the down side wall along the hedge line, plus 2 tonnes of concreting ballast. 

Ready for Roger coming back from his holiday 🤭

There was just enough mix left to concrete the down side cess extension pipe into the old SGW cess drain pipe. 

Long reach bucket to pick up the concrete 

Twinwall and SGW concreted together 

Down side cess backfill started 

The dregs that were left were used for a sub base for the scour protection at the end of the culvert channel 

Stuart doing the concrete stomp while leaning on a shovel
(Photo: Alastair) 

Up side scour protection sub-base 

The concrete may not have fully cured, but it was tested as Steve collected more spoil for the down side cess. There was no sign of movement with 7.5 tonnes of JCB sitting close by. 

Load testing 

The heap of spoil removed for the hard-standing has gone, it's now on top of the down side cess, the site is getting a bit tidier. 

Hardly and spoil left to spoil our views 

The old concrete covering the brick arch got nibbled away this afternoon, it needs to be cut back a bit to get the broken bricks out so that the arch can be reconstructed .  

Brick arch covering nibbled away 

A very tired gang headed home happy that the view from the bridge has significantly improved today. It feels like we are over the hump now on this project.   

Up side view from above