Yet more concrete

Saturday 17th August 

We were off to a flying start this morning, all the pieces fell into place due to some great interdepartmental co-operation. Thanks go to C&M for loaning us the blue Transit to take some concreting ballast to site (more just in time delivering 😊) and thanks to Nigel from PWay who came round with the tele-handler to load the ballast - thanks both.  

We were on the road Stanton before 9:00 am, fully loaded and full of enthusiasm 😉 

Nigel loads concreting ballast onto the truck 

A stop off at Toddington to inform the signalman that we were going trackside coincided with the King (6023 King Edward II) leaving the yard to pick up Train 2. 

The blue king leaving the yard 

The slight down side of getting a load of ballast is that it needs to be unloaded, with all 4 of us getting stuck in it was soon off into the recently emptied dumpy bags. 

Synchronised shovelling practice 

There was more heavy rain yesterday, this meant that the flow in the culvert and the cess had picked up again. We need a dry spell to get the levels down so that we can get the channel concreted. 

Down side cess bypass pipe and the culvert inlet flowing well 

Dave was in charge of the mixer today, with Roger and Michael working on the down side cess north (inner) wall. 

Roger building round the gabions, Michael adding headers 

The small triangle at the end of the cess outfall was due to get the top layer of concrete added.

The last triangle on the cess outfall 

Michael adding the headers 

Roger levelling the fresh concrete 

The last building job on the project will be the headwall on the new extended down side cess drain. Stuart got the job of clearing and enlarging the excavation for the footings. 

Extended down side cess pipe 

Bypass pipe in the down side cess pipe, ready for concrete 

Base layer of concrete poured in 

There's an slight issue with the down side cess, in that there's some ground water leeching in and running under the pipe. Trying to block the flow only diverted it to another area, hopefully it won't cause a problem with the concrete setting. 

Having finished the the headers, Michael got on with moulding and levelling the final triangle, this will support the wall around the gabions and over the inlet pipe. 

Not just a flat triangle, a triangle with the hump 😏

Down side cess outfall taking shape 

End of day view of progress... 

Culvert 11A down side from the bridge 

Cloudy with bright spells today, good for working 

Travellers along the line may have noticed that the vegetation management by Lineside Clearance has allowed the grass and wildflowers to reclaim large areas that were once thorn, bramble and ash. This has had a noticeable effect in increasing the diversity of the wildlife found along the line. Some that you can't see from the train are the insects and butterflies. 

Common Blue butterfly at Stanton