A bag of sand, is that all!

Thursday 8 Aug

First off a bit of scene setting; only 2 of us in today so the plan was to take a load of concreting ballast to Stanton and then pop down to Cleeve to get a dumpy bag of black sand that was probably left over from the Bridge 37 works a couple of years ago.

The ballast loading fell down as there was no tele-handler driver to load the truck. Plan B swung into action and the intrepid duo set off for Bishop's Cleeve. Being well prepared, we took the grass cutting equipment and did we need it - you bet we did.

There's a dumpy bag of sand in there somewhere

The corner next to Bishop's Cleeve foot Crossing

Sand located, next job shovel it on

Cleared around the dumpy bag

After the second down train ran through, we headed along trackside to Manor Lane, the vegetation management along this stretch will be horrific this year 😓

Class 26 D5343 on Train 2

Due to a couple of diversions at Cleeve and a missed morning break, we dropped back to Winchcombe for an early lunch at the Coffee Pot Cafe before heading up to Stanton

Class 26 D5343 seems to be following us today

Taking the scenic route to Stanton, via the trackside to look at a potential next build job for September. The road through Gretton is being closed for 77 days starting shortly, so any work south of there will entail a detour, hence a revised plan to move onto a north end job.

Defford Straight - Vegetation management much more
controlled along this stretch

Up by Culvert 19A we found an abandoned bag of 10mm limestone chippings, these would have been ideal for the concrete repair on Culvert 11A. If there'd been room, they would have been loaded onto the truck.

Culvert 19A (up side) with an abandoned dumpy bag

The cess outfall on the down side of Culvert 17A at Hailes is in need of a headwall and concrete apron. This is a summer job as the ground is always very wet in the winter, a bit of preparatory work may be required though.

Culvert 17A down side - potential building site?

While stopping off at Toddington to check in with the signalman, we noticed that the site of the new extension for the Loco Departments is taking shape

Toddington Yard - Loco Department extension

Then we found another fly in the ointment, the truck sustained a puncture on some metal that was left in the roadway alongside Toddington yard, that necessitated a trip back to Winchcombe to get the tyre changed.

Sidewall puncture, new tyre required

Eventually we did get to Stanton and unloaded the black sand into another dumpy bag. 50% of the day's mission completed

Black sand for the coping stone replacement on the wing wall

Culvert 11A down side, weep hole still running

Culvert 11A down side cess outfall, ground water still seeping out

On the good news front, it looks like the harvest is almost finished, just the straw to remove and then the cultivator and seed drill to come in.

Stanton Bridge 11 down side

The 30N concrete for the brick arch covering will be made using some Forrest Red 10 mm limestone chippings, if we mix it with the black sand and do a polished surface it will look just the business 😉

10 mm Forrest Red limestone chippings

As it had been such an eventful day, we thought we'd break another record and stopped off at the Coffee Pot at Winchcombe Station for another cuppa, we may get a loyalty card at this rate 😃

Haunted by the Class 26 every time we sit down

There's been a couple of hardly used barrows sitting around in Winchcombe yard with punctured tyres, we use solid tyres due to the amount of thorn we push barrows through. It was suggest a week or so ago that we should do a full body transplant from one of these onto our old barrow which has a good chassis but the body has expired from the excesses of concrete carrying. Having a workshop on doorstep in the shape of Carriage & Wagon we decided to try and complete one job today before we abandoned ship.