The end of the pallet

Week Ending 10 Oct 

One of the features of gaining senior status (in age terms) is that you can't remember what you did last week, did anything happen? It's easy to recall 1963 when Elvis was having fun in Acapulco, not that easy to remember what happened in Winchcombe last Friday 😖 

Dave and Nigel were in on Monday, first job was to nip down to Gotherington to have look at the slip repair at Bridge 37. Somebody had reported signs of sinkage in the unused trackbed behind the steel piling. The intrepid inspectors found a hole had appeared, but a closer look showed a proliferation of what looked like raisins in the fist part of the depression. They didn't need to take a sample of the said pellets for forensic laboratory analysis as there was other evidence in the vicinity that pointed to long eared furry mammal activity. It's unlikely this will cause the piling to fail, unless the rabbits are equipped with angle grinders or a supply of dynamite. 

Report and photos from Dave. 

Bridge 37 up side slip site 
Major Leporidae earthworks 

Not a hospitable place to dig a warren 

As they were down in the area, the culverts along the 37 series got a trim. These are on the list for the consultant engineers to inspect in November. 

Culvert 37F down side redoubt  

Culvert 37F up side headwall 

Culvert 37E down side inlet 

Culvert 37E outlet channel 

Culvert 37E is an 18" pipe, it runs into a ditch that disappears under our hedge in 6" pipe. The logic of this escapes most people 😕

37E fence line exit 

The culverts along this stretch are notoriously difficult to spot when the vegetation has grown up, the marker posts were all toppled a couple of years ago. They may have been mistaken for an arcade game of sorts 😉 The nearest unmovable object that doesn't get overgrown is the track, so the sleepers became the new markers 

37E this way, Sleeper Culvert Markers 

Gotherington Fields Foot Crossing
Culvert 37C up side 

Culvert 37C down side headwall 

Culvert 36B down side channel 

Another Roger Holloway headstone 

Thursday 8 October 

The Thursday team were back on pallet collection, picking up another load from Bishops Cleeve for the Steam Loco department. It's becoming a bit of a regular jaunt, there must be a limit to how many pallets you need to light a steam engine fire. Anyway, after that exercise they headed north from Toddington to check what jobs need adding to the 'ToDo' list. As is always the case they spotted a few. 

Broken chamber lid at Toddington 

Milepost at Toddington in need of some paint 

Toddington cutting, down side retaining wall stones missing 

Toddington cutting, down side retaining wall
signs of water seepage 

Culvert 5B down side water ponding 

Peasebrook Farm, nettles growing back 

GWR livery mushrooms growing in the embankment 

All the mileposts on the extension to Broadway need to have the numerals changed, they were fitted with house numbers, the font and the size are not in keeping with traditional GWR practice. I'm surprised nobody has yet written a strongly worded letter to the chairman of the HRA 😠

Milepost 5½ wrong font 

The siphon culvert at Stanton Fields, Culvert 6C, has a blanking plate in the cess drain so that the siphon can be flushed out. The nuts are rusted on so it will take some brute force to get them off. It's not in the work programme at the moment. 

Culvert 6C washout blanking plate 

Although bridges aren't part of the drainage remit as such, anything that gets spotted will be noted. 

Bridge 7 downside high mileage wing wall end is stepping out 

Friday 9 October 

The cement factory pair were back in action, but with rain forecast the moulds were taken undercover so the mix wouldn't get washed out. Luckily this was the last of the pallet of 40N, next week there will be something more exciting to look forward to. 

Lid moulds squeezing into the lean to 

Roger debating if he needed his
confined space kit on 

Last batch 3 x 1.8m and 2 x 1.2m 

So the pallet that stood outside for 10 months has been used, only 1 x 1.2m lid short of the planned production run, that was mainly due making them in four batches. 

6 x 1.2m lids completed 

9 x 1,8m lids done 

Wastage pile, the concrete that had gone off in the bags 

The wastage was better than expected, no full bags were lost which is a miracle considering the pallet was stood in the yard from December to September. The remnants from each batch were used to fill the puddle in our authorised walking route from the shed to the Transit for loading kit. 

It may not be elegant but it'll 
keep out feet dry 😉

Just as we had finished, Roger managed to get himself a job fitting some glass into a window frame for Winchcombe Station team. He's a dab hand with putty! 

Not much call for glazing in drains 

While the window fitter was away, a search was started to see if there was any sign of a 16" x 16" end coping stone for the parapet on Bridge 29, it's to replace another flail casualty. 

A bit of veg needed to be trimmed back to expose all the stock 

Several 14" x 18" were found, but no sign of a 16" x 16", that is typical, a yard full of the wrong kind of stores. 

A damaged 14" x 18" 

Deep thought goes into how to effect a repair 

After a bit of head scratching a plan was formulated that involves chopping the chipped 14 x 18 into 5 bits, the 2 good corners will sandwich the hatched slice and the remaining 2 bits will be discarded. A middle coper will be slotted in to fill the gap on the parapet, Simples!  

It looks a good idea on paper (or stone) 

The railway has been very lucky to get a grant of £318,000 from the  #HereForCulture awards administered by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Historic England. The grant is intended to help the railway continue vital maintenance, run the business and pay the bills including the salaries of the staff, at a time when the railway has suffered the huge financial impact of cancelling services and special events for five months, during what would have been the peak season. 

It'll be interesting to see of any filters down to drainage after all the other bills and salaries have been paid 😏

Culture in the drainage may be debatable 😉

That's all for another week folks.