Monday 10 August
Dave and Nigel were on Examination Escort today, they were in charge of some consulting engineers who were doing detailed examinations of Culverts 15A and 16C at Didbrook. While they were at loose end when the engineers poked around the culverts, they nipped down to Hayles Abbey Halt and did some grass cutting to help out the Friends of HAH. After that they threw in the towel, it was far too hot for wielding a brushcutter.
Photos from Dave...
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The engineer's Roadies unload the kit
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CCTV camera into Culvert 15A
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A byproduct of our numbering system is that when we find a new culvert, the signs on the older ones becomes confusing. After Culvert 16A was numbered, we found 2 further culverts nearer to Bridge 16, one became 16X for a while then the system was rationalised and 16A became 16C. We haven't got round to moving the signs or getting new signs made yet.
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| Do I really believe this 😕 |
Down at Hayles Abbey Halt the heat was building up.
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Access ramp after the edge was cut
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Edge of the platform neatly trimmed
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Trains are unlikely to stop at Hayles for a good while, but it's good to keep on top of the vegetation.
Tuesday 11 August
Quick trip in to drop the Engineers at Culvert 30A Middle Stanley to do the last of the Detailed Examinations for this round. After that a run up to Royal Oak to see what needs doing before we can start work up there. Some positive vibes emanating from up on high about funds being available for the higher priority works.
Culvert 30A is fed from a small stream that runs down through Stanley Pontlarge. There's some building works going on there and it seems they have been stirring up the silt.
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Culvert 30A inlet stream
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Culvert 30A up side (outlet) headwall, needs rebuilding again
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Culvert 30 down side headwall, a bit of crack in it
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The vegetation has run wild this year, it's been a terrific growing season, not that we wanted it to be.
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| Working Lane Access Road |
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| Culvert 24A, Royal Oak, all our materials hidden |
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Culvert 24A down side, Martin trimmed it back last week
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We've got a new addition to Culvert 24B on the down side, it's not one we installed. Another issue to sort out 😒😒
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Pipe entering under the fence, Culvert 24B down side
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| Royal Oak, down side cess drain |
Thursday 13 August
Andrew and Martin went back to Royal Oak to start clearing more of the vegetation so we can see where we are. The flail took a bit of a pasting today and one of the control cables gave up the ghost. That's going to slow things down until another can be sourced.
Photos from Andrew...
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Culvert 24B up side headwall
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Culvert 24B up side, ditch
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Martin flailing the access route
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Culvert 24A up side stores exposed
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Friday 14 August
The plan was to carry on at Royal Oak today, but there was another reallocation of resources, a late signal from Star Fleet Command on Thursday with a new tasking for the day. Following some extreme weather events, or thunder storms as used to call them, Spock and Bones were dispatched on an end to end check of all the earthworks. No helicopter, drone or teleportation to make it easier, only the more reliable Transit-portation. The phrase 'I don't like it Jim it's too quiet' was bandied about as we found no visible signs of flooding.
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Broadway north sidings
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Broadway Station
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| Pry Lane to Peasebrook |
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First treasure trove of the day
A loco crew flat cap - it's in the skip now |
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| Peasebrook, cows lying down, a sign of rain 🌧️ |
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Peasebrook Farm
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Laverton, Bridge 6, dry as a stick
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Bridge 6 low mileage abutment, first time it's been dry
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At Laverton we spotted some ears of wheat in ballast, they didn't blow up here from the field, so how did they get here?
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Wheat in the ballast?
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Wheat mystery solved, the crow infestation
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Looking south to Bridges 7 and 8 at Stanton
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The overgrown vegetation is causing the Transit to overheat a bit, the radiator is filling with seeds where we've driven down the access track
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Patent Transit seed catcher
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Bridge 7 towards Laverton
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Bridge 10 to Stanway Viaduct
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Even our hard standing at Stanton has been claimed by weeds...
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| Stanton welfare cabin park |
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Culvert 11A down side
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| Culvert 11A up side |
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Culvert 11B at Stanton, pipes waiting to be installed
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Stanway Viaduct
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Stanway Viaduct down side
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| Toddington Station, carriage maintenance gang at work |
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| Toddington North Cutting slip area safe |
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Toddington Yard new lamp post with Peak 45149
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Didbrook
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Chicken Curve
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River Isbourne - Culvert 21A up side
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Winchcombe Cutting slip site
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Royal Oak to Greet Tunnel
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Gretton Bridge 15
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Gretton - more seed harvesting
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Gretton to Stanley Pontlarge
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Bridge 19, Stanley Pontlarge, Roger's secret code on
flail damaged end coping |
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Prescott Road, Culvert 31B up side
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| Dixton Cutting towards Bridge 33 |
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Tirle Brook, Culvert 32A, Dixton
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On a close inspection of the upstream end of Culvert 32A, Tirle Brook, a bit of rail was spotted, it's sitting vertically under the tree root that extended over the stream (centre of the image below). It's possible that there may have been a bridge here at some time, the amount of timbers in the stream could be too much for just a fence.
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| Tirle Brook, Culvert 32A |
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Culvert 32A downstream, still no signs of flooding
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Gotherington Yard to Bridge 33
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Bridge 34, Gotherington Skew
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| Two Hedges Road Bridge |
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Southam Lane, Bridge 42
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Southam Lane to Cheltenham Racecourse Station
End of the line for Today |
That's it for another week, rather a long report, but we have rather a lot of line. Passenger trains started running again on Saturday 15th after a 5 month gap. Things look to be on the up again.
Instead of numbering culverts can't they be identified by distance (miles, chains and yards)? Then if a ne culvert is found it doesn't affect existing identities.
ReplyDeleteThe signage,where it exists, has the chainage on it but it's simpler for us to refer to the culvert as 33B than it is to use 15m 10ch. The bridge reference is easier to remember and it helps spot if we've missed one.
DeleteWow, quite the photographic tour; a lot of work to post that! Thanks, gives a good sense of the line.
ReplyDeleteYou all should be very happy you didn't see anything! That's a good sign that you all are finally starting to get on top of the drainage, after a very great deal of hard work. Congratulations!
Pity about the failed cable on the flail, but look on the good side - at least you have a flail! Many years without!
Noel
your efforts over the past 4 years are to be commended whilst we are haveing this spell of awful weather . the culverts and banks would have failed somewhere along the line had you guys not worked so hard to improve our drainage .
ReplyDeleteThanks to you for starting to clear Hayles Abbey Halt without a request , the day before 5 of us did our best to make it look respectable again . john M.
As with the comments above, your previous hard work repairing and maintaining the the drainage and culverts has at last started to pay off. So good to see a report again and this one is a real tour de force with great pictures so a big thankyou for all your efforts, well done all.
ReplyDeleteRegards
Paul & Marion