The drains work, the road signs don't

Saturday 16 November 

We loaded up this morning with pumps, hoses, brushcutters, tools etc. ready to tackle the flooded bridges. What a disappointment 😞, the drains had worked and the bridges were dry, just a bit of sweeping up and leaf removal. That put us ahead of schedule for looking at the 6ft drain at Toddington Station. This situation didn't last long; as we left Laverton Bridge a local resident told us about a surface cover that had lifted out with the floodwater pressure. We stopped off to replace the lid and ended up clearing the end of the drain. Next a quick stop at the Aqueduct on the way back down and then to Toddington to check for a blockage in the drain through the station. 

First stop Bridge 16, Didbrook No 2, we swept up the leaves as that was all that was left of the 7' of water that was here on Thursday. 

Bridge 16, Didbrook 2, no flood! 

Culvert 16A overflow still running 

The top 2" of this marker board was all that was visible on Thursday  

Stopped at Bridge 8 on the Broadway road to check the cess, needless to say the flood water had soaked away.  

Stanton - Bridge 8 northwards 

Stanton - Bridge 8 Southwards 

Down side fields below Bridge 8 the source of the most of the flood 

Next stop Laverton, Bridge 6, this was over 5' deep on Thursday, but we had cleared the gullies the week before.

  

Bridge 6 Laverton, no flooding, gullies working  

Bridge 6 down side, high mileage end, silt trap 

Bridge 6 low mileage silt trap 

Roger and Dave clearing up the remnants of the flood 

The signage on these bridges is quite explicit, it says 'ROAD CLOSED FLOOD' and the depth marker shows the level.  

Flood sign Bridge 6, up side 

Evidently it's not quite enough information for some drivers, this tanker was spotted on Friday afternoon under the bridge and it left on Saturday when it was pulled out, just before we arrived.  

What bit of CLOSED is ambiguous then!
(Photo: John Balderstone) 

Image: Peter Darley 

The only evidence we found of the tanker
was the wheel marks 

3" pump deployed to clear the north silt trap 

Dave and Michael sweeping the road 

How deep was it? 

As we were packing our kit a gentleman stopped to talk to us about the tanker incident, he had photographed it for the local paper, one of his images is above. He told us that a surface cover had been lifted off by the flood water further up the lane towards Wormington. We said we'd pop round and replace it. 

Surface cover lifted out by flood water 

Surface cover back in it's correct place, eventually 

We noticed water bubbling up in the verge just beyond the cover, sure sign of a burst pipe and possible blockage. This pipe take the gully drain flow from Bridge 6, we piled out to investigate. 

Water bubbling up in the verge 

Michael rods in from the outfall 

Dave clearing rubbish to establish a flow along the ditch  

Drain flowing again 

Burst subsiding 

It's well off our area, so we will try to find out who is responsible for fixing it. 

On the way back to Toddington we stopped at the Aqueduct (Bridge 9) as we'd had a report from a hiker that the inlet was over topping and the path was disintegrating. 

Arrival at Bridge 9 

Leaves in the grille, the level has dropped a bit 

a deep hole in the path, but hardly disintegrating! 

Roger rakes the leaves away 

Dave tackles the inlet end 

Now flowing from the outlet 

There's evidence of washout in the cess at the toe, nothing too drastic but something to watch. 

Washout around the down side pier 

Channel drain needs clearing 

Back to normal level 

Some flow on the low mileage side form the crest 

Vegetation cut back so we can see what's going on 

We have known about the problems with the grille since early this year, other jobs have always taken a higher priority. We may just remove it until we can get a better grille fabricated.  

The cess at Toddington Station was full at the south end and lower at the north end on Thursday indicating that there may be a blockage just up from the footbridge. Firstly we had a look at Stow Road Bridge to see what the run off from the road had done.  

Cess water drained away leaving some silt 

Check in the cess in the 6' revealed a strange looking pipe 

the chamber under the troughing needs to be cleared 

Layers of clay exposed by the run off 

In the up side there's an extra pipe running in on the corner of the catchpit, we found it was from the water crane on Platform 1.  

The eagle eyed team investigating 

Test of the crane catcher 

Back in the cess we dropped some dye into a chamber to see which way the flow goes, it's not obvious from the surface. 

Strange working near civilisation 

Start point int he 6' 

Dye added (pictured from the other side 😉)

Watching for chambers turning green 

It flows southbound 

Right down to the barrow crossing and beyond 

Starting to rod the section suspected to be blocked 

There's definitely a blockage, we rodded from both ends and the rods overlapped, the obstrucion seems to be soft clay but it's not clear where it came from.  

Rods laid on the surface, 6m overlap 

Soft grey clay! 

When we set out each morning, we guess what kit we will need for the day. Most days we have an idea what we are going to do, some, like today, it's more hit and hope for what we load on. One thing is for certain, we always leave out something we need later in the day 😟

Prepared for the unexpected