Laverton tidy up

Saturday 12 October

The rain held off today so we went off doing more of the vegetation clearance and chamber (confined Space) recording. Not much interesting to report, it's the Autumn Diesel Weekend so there were more trains than usual and they looked to be fairly full.

First stop was Little Buckland to clear the access ramp at Bridge 5 and run along the toe drain to Culvert 4A, Alastair remembered there were a couple of chambers added when it was installed about 3 years ago. Then we worked south to clear Culvert 5D and the service road as far as Culvert 6B, it'll make access a bit easier when the engineers arrive in November to examine the structures.  

Little Buckland Access Ramp 

Flail in action at Little Buckland
(Photo: Alastair) 

Little Buckland, Roger knocking back the brambles
(Photo: Alastair) 

Little Buckland toe drain, Stuart and Roger in the weeds
(Photo: Alastair) 

Little Buckland toe, Roger moving south
(Photo: Alastair) 

Little Buckland access ramp after clearing 

Little Buckland toe drain with chamber 

Then we stopped off round the bend at Culvert 5B to take a dip in the down side chamber 

For the record, it's 1.2m deep 

Then on to Laverton access ramp and Culvert 5D, 

Laverton access ramp before clearing 

Alastair and Roger on the up side at Culvert 5D 

Culvert 5D up side headwall

Culvert 5D was one of the later discoveries when the Broadway extension was being relaid, it had no headwall and the down side was buried. It was reinstated during 2015. 

7 Aug 2015, Alastair and Andy P building the headwall on 5D 

Alastair doing the examination on the downside at 5D 

Last job was cutting back along the access to Culvert 6B 

Service road down to Culvert 6B 

Stuart and Roger cutting back the overgrowth
(Photo: Alastair) 

Laverton service road a bit wider 

With the Autumn Diesel Weekend in full swing, the track was busier than usual... 

50035 Ark Royal heading south 

Class 24 5081 northbound  

Class 47 Freightliner 1995 47376

Peak 45149 with a down stopping service  

Class 26 D5343 

Class 37 D6948 

Class 73 E6036 rare outing on pax working 

Lastly, thanks to everyone who corrected the useless fact of the day about the Isbourne on the previous blog. New useless fact today, Bredon Hill is the biggest single hill (in area) in England (Ken told me so it must be true 😊) 

Bredon Hill in the background