The run up to Easter

Saturday 27th March 

Headline news; all culverts along the running line have been checked this month and there are no major items to deal with before resumption of train services on 13th April. 

Back to the reporting, the first job of the day was to check out a report of a failure on the up side crest drain between Toddington Station and Stanway Viaduct. The hole with the broken pipe was located and broken bits of pipe dug out. It looked like it is the start of the crest drain, running north. All very dry, nothing has flowed here for a long while. Another visit has been planned to fill the hole with free draining stone. 

Photos and report from Andrew. 

Up side crest drain excavated 

Crest drain joins the cess drain and
runs down the up side of the viaduct 

On the down side of Culvert 14B at Didbrook 1 there are 2 large baulks which used to be part of the farmers bridge upstream. these have washed down into the mouth of the culvert. Removal will be another job for when more hands are available to lift them back out of the stream. 

Culvert 14B down side inlet 

A couple of slabs needed to be replaced at Culvert 15A down side channel and Culvert 16C stonework on the inlet from the field (just on the boundary fence) needs some sorting out. 

Culvert 16C down side fence 

Culvert 21A River Isbourne is still a work in progress, works temporarily halted in Jan 2020 so the contractor could deal with the slip at Winchcombe. Since then pandemic funding issues have prevented a restart. It's probably going to be a long wait until this gets funded again. 

 

Michael and Martin survey the abandoned works
 on Culvert 21A up side 

Tuesday 30 March 

Nigel and Dave were in today to do a couple of jobs, firstly, off loading the stone from the Transit at Gotherington Yard. Then filling up the tipper to take stone down to Bishops Cleeve to do the repairs to the disused trackbed that was washed out by flash flooding at Christmas. 

Pictures and report from Dave... 

Loading more stone at Manor Lane 

Filling the washed out section of trackbed 

The stone, like ballast, is seemingly designed to resist shovelling, and to avoid wilting too much in the heat from lengthy shovelling sessions, they made three trips back and forth to fill the holes.  

The size of the washout can be seen by 
the depth of fill required 

Disused trackbed repaired at Bishops Cleeve

That's all for now.