Is this the New Normal

Week Ending Saturday 22 August 

Another belated report, but time flies when you are having fun and we've been having fun, at least that's what management tell us 😀   

Monday 17 August 

Dave and Nigel tootled off to Royal Oak to continue the battle against nature. The weeds have taken hold in a serious way (as we may have mentioned before). They kicked off on Culvert 24C clearing the outlet ditch. 

Photos from Dave 

Culvert 24C Up Side outlet ditch before 

24C outlet after clearing 

Toe drain into 24C cleared 

Culvert 24C runs under the adjoining land and reappears as a stream in the next field. There's a makeshift grille on the end of the pipe that needs to be renewed at some stage. The cancelled work plan for this year included building a silt trap and proper headwall and wing walls here that would allow regular maintenance. Currently the silt is so soft you can sink to the knees if you step in the wrong place.  

Culvert 24C down side outlet 

Next sto was up to look at the down side cess, starting at the high mileage portal of Greet Tunnel, or Bridge 24 as it's better known 😆

Dave flagged up a potential job for the Heritage Group, the sign is getting a bit moth eaten, should it be replaced with a cast iron one? 

Greet Tunnel sign 

Down side corner cleared 

Down side cess cleared 

The cess is being cleared as the drain isn't working to maximum efficiency, regular readers may be aware that we were working on this back in March. The upgrade in 1949 had the effect of stopping water getting in to the drain. Some new ideas for fixing the issue are being investigated. 

Looking along the down side cess 

Thursday 20 August  

Andrew and Martin got to do something completely different today, a change is as good as day off so they say 😕 Responding to a request from our friends in the Steam Loco Department they shot off with the USS Enterprise and the tipper to collect pallets for the lighter uperers. They headed off to Royal Oak after unloading to do a bit more clearance along the down side cess. 

A few photos from Andrew. 

Raiding the building site to collect pallets 

Culvert 24A down side, dry 

Royal Oak down side cess 

Looking over the line to Dixton Hill 

Friday 21 August 

The Friday gang were a no show today, domestic commitments getting in the way again as well as the forecast Storm Ellen roaring through. That said it did give time to sort out the report from the work up at Peasebrook Farm. 

Over the last few weeks there's been several trips up to Peasebrook to clear big chunks of embankment and measure it for signs of movement. After all the hard work, the measures get plotted and a report is submitted to the Civil Engineer for assessment. 

The team did a marvellous job getting the embankment exposed in the hottest part of the year in full PPE doing the brushcutting. They deserve a well done. 

The output charts showing the slope profile look like this... 

These are combined with images taken and map data from the internet to provide the picture of the area that underpins the decision making 

Peasebrook Farm - Bridge 4 looking north 

1m LIDAR DTM Imagery* 

* Extracted from the Environment Agency LIDAR (Laser imaging, detection, and ranging) Digital Terrain Model (DTM) 

That's it for this week, the length of the report belies the amount of effort expended 😞