The Extra Half Mile

As noted in the last posting, following the rediscovery of milepost 7¼ the new head intended for this has duly become that for 7¾ with the addition of two pairs of extra quarter marks. Another bonus of the rediscovery is that we now need one less length of bridge rail; we are now only 18 lengths short!

The new 7¾ head ready for installation, complete with cap. Interestingly the old BR yellow 7¾ is also in the workshop; so with the one on the line we currently have three 7¾s. But not for long.

Tuesday 14 December

Another week with two working days for the Drainage team to accommodate member's other commitments.

The Tuesday gang this time numbered just three, but that was the ideal number for clearing drains, clearing access to culverts and undertaking the internal visual inspections. Two on brushcutters, one on a rake or shovel. Each year we inspect all the small cross drains plus all the culverts other than those which the external inspectors cover. Anyway, that is the plan, we are still catching up with the backlog caused by the 2020 and 2021 COVID-19 lockdowns. Today the team progressed from Culvert 20C at Chicken Curve north to Pipe 16A near Didbrook No2 bridge. A total of 8 structures. Helpful that a couple of culverts and cross drains are located close to bridges which were still clear of vegetation following the earlier clearance for the bridge inspections.

Down side inlet of Culvert 20C, cleared of extensive growth of brook lime, but the water here was very murky.

Down side of Cross Pipe 16B, in need of a touch of repointing of the blue brick courses, probably these are original GWR of 1900 vintage

An unusual find located by the up side boundary fence at Didbrook was an old coffee table. As it a very sturdy construction, we though it was too good to go in the skip. It is now drying out at Winchcombe, any offers of a good home are welcome.

The Recovered coffee table.

Thursday 16 December

The other four members of the team were today’s squad. First task was a quick inspection at Dixton Cutting, to see what remedial work is required following the track relaying activities of the Permanent Way department. Then it was up to Laverton to undertake the clearance and internal visual inspections from Cross Drain 6A northwards. The intention was to complete all the way to Broadway – but thick growth on those at Little Buckland thwarted that. Hence the 'score' for today was 6 structures. Thus Culverts 3A and 3B at Peasebrook will be first on the list for next year, and then we have everything south of Gretton to undertake.

Looking through the bore of Culvert 4A from the down side. Picture by Dave.

Head and wing walls of culvert 5B up side outlet. Most, but not all, of the culverts on this section are all blue brick.Picture by Dave.

But not all outlets have headwalls. This is 5C, extended at some point in the past using stone gabions. Picture by Dave.

Until we get some more concrete posts with proper markers on them, we mark the culvert locations with plenty of blue paint. That gap in the undergrowth will have disappeared by next summer! Picture by Dave.

Thursday 23 December

Our final workday for the year! Or rather a half-day as we retired in early afternoon to enjoy a Christmas lunch in the Pheasant at Toddington.

Five of the team spent the morning working in the old C&M workshop at Toddington, at times it was a little like Santa's workshop. Particularly as Winchcombe station had become the North Pole for the Santa trains.

First job was to use some strong sealant to join the twinwall extension pipe and coupler for the 24B Haul Road outlet at Working Lane. Doing this in the dry should make for a watertight joint.

Twinwall pipe and coupler joined, another use for concrete blocks as a weight whilst drying.

All the other tasks (except one) were related to mileposts. The cast lead numbers were drilled and fettled; then primed. Some which had been previously primed as a homework task received the first coat of black paint. Also painted black were the few remaining cast iron original numerals we have. The steel bar strips for the horizontal dividers and quarter marks (and for some of the number '1's) were primed. From a sheet of galvanised steel and a smaller sheet of aluminium five caps for the heads were made. As usual the first one took twice as long as the rest. These are made to fit each head, as we have two type of head which have slightly different dimensions.

Dave in charge of painting.

Polly cutting and bending the first cap from the galvanised sheet.

Jonathan metal bashing another cap.

Martin fettling some of the cast numbers.

Here are today's numbers! The old BR 7¾ head in the background.

The first two of the new heads ready for fixing to their posts. 13½ is between Gretton skew bridge and Townsend Farm bridge; 7¾ is very close to the B4632 road bridge at Stanton (bridge 8). Installation of the latter will be after the work at that bridge is completed.

And finally our most unusual task of the year. A lock on one of the toilet doors in the Tim Mitchell Building had become jammed, trapping a female elf inside. So off went our St. George clasping hammer, screwdriver, pilers and assorted other tools. On his return we had the message 'task successfully completed' but not quite the full details of how the broken lock was unlocked from the outside with out damaging the door. Relief all round! No pictures though.

That is it for another year

With the team taking a well earned break next week, it will be 2022 when we resume. So we send all our readers Season Greetings and wish you all peace, prosperity and happiness for the New Year.

Found it!

What did we find and where? Keep reading to the end of this post to find out!

Thursday 2nd December

The main task for today was to have been the start of construction of the culvert 24B up side haul road exit headwall at Working Lane. However, a prerequisite was the fitting of the extension to the 450mm twinwall pipe to enure the new headwall is well away from the haul road. We had a section of pipe of the right length and a joining collar; but we were unable to get this to make a watertight joint with the existing pipe under the haul road. Subsequent research indicates that twinwall pipes and collars from different manufacturers are not guaranteed to fit snugly. Some require sealing rings (like big washers), some don't. We know the make of the collar, but not that of the existing or extension pipes. Hunting around our stock at Winchcombe and Stanton yards did not uncover any other lengths of 450mm diameter pipe or collars. Thus, we will have to spend some budget on a combination of new pipe, collar, and sealing rings. This setback, together with the colder weather, lead to our decision to postpone construction work for a few weeks.

Polly tries to fix the leak from the collar and extension pipe on 24B haul road exit.

Instead we attended to the list of odd jobs. One was to collect the kissing gate metalwork and the cube water container previously recovered at Stanton Yard where they were in the area that will be used as the compound by the contractors working on the B4632 bridge (8). We moved both items to Winchcombe Yard.

Little and large at Stanton Yard. Our Citroen tipper (l) is dwarfed by the bigger vehicle in use by the contractors clearing the area for use during bridge 8 works in the New Year. (Picture by Dave).

Back at Working Lane, the brush cutting team members continued clearing along the fence line on the up side to reach the outlet of culvert 25B. This outlet wanders around the boundary fence, there is a small diameter pipe which leads across the adjoining field as well. The flow on 25B during the winter is quite considerable - usually more than the adjoining 25A. Thus, reinstating the headwall on the 25B exit will have to be a summer job.

Spot the missing headwall! Up side exit of 25B is currently just a pipe emptying into a deep ditch. (Picture by Roger).

 

The telehander was put to good use. First task was a couple of bucket loads of infill taken across the line to backfill the down side crest chamber of culvert 24A, adjacent to the Royal Oak fence. This was a job outstanding from 2019 - it makes the area around the chamber much safer. Whilst the telehander moved the infill to the chamber, final positioning was a manual job (well done Nigel).

Down side crest chamber of 24A, Nigel takes a breather before final shovelling of the backfill. ("Who dumped this here then?" could almost be the caption!)

The other telehandler job was moving seven or so bucket loads of infill via the adjoining field (with permission) to backfill the new headwall on the 25B entry to the junction section with 25A. A couple of hours with the telehandler and a little bit of shovelling and raking completed this. By next summer when the grass and other vegetation has grown there will be no trace of the big hole that was once here. So after a bit of frustrating day, it was good to tick off a couple of completed tasks!

Jonathan carefully positions the telehander to avoid too much manual handling of the backfill on the 25B junction inlet headwall.

25B junction inlet finally complete!

Thursday 9th December

A second week in a row with a full attendance - if this continues the team will be requesting a Christmas Bonus! The main objectives of today were to use the brush cutters to clear vegetation from around manholes and culvert chambers in the sections accessed from Stanton Yard. As the contractors working on the B4632 bridge will be using Stanton Yard for the first couple of months next year, access will be restricted then.

Initially we split into three teams. Dave & Nigel were the A team, they started brush cutting from Stanton Yard northwards. They earned the A team name because they completed all manholes up to culvert 6B at Laverton Fields, plus the stream across the aqueduct. This did then mean over a mile of reversing the Transit van to get back to the yard for lunch. The turning point at Laverton Fields has disappeared.

Aqueduct (bridge 9) down side inlet. After removal of the dead leaves from this autumn. (Picture by Dave).

Martin and Andrew were the B team - they commenced by clearing culvert 11B at Stanton and then undertook the internal visual inspection of it. Interestingly very little water is flowing in from the down side; but quite a bit flows out on the up side. This then is constrained by a small diameter and partially blocked pipe under the adjoining field - evidenced from the puddles by the fence. Near the top of our 'to do' list is the construction of a new ditch and pipe to take the 11B outlet inside of the railway fence down to the 11A exit at bridge 11.

Up side exit ditch of culvert 11B. Entry to pipe across the field is just by the fence line. Note the standing water by the fence in the field. The new pipe/ditch will run to the right here, inside the boundary fence.

Roger, Jonathan and Polly were the C team; they had all the odd jobs. First was shifting some very large diameter twinwall pipes from the down side to the up side at Winchcombe yard. These pipes are for the unfinished work on the River Isbourne. They next took another load of concrete rubble infill to Working Lane. Then it was on to Steam Loco at Toddington to collect four lengths of bridge rail that have been drilled for the new milepost head fixing. Finally they arrived at Stanton to join up with team B.

The combined B & C teams then cleared the manholes and chambers on the cutting crest from bridge 11 back to Stanton Yard. Two more internal visual inspections of culverts were completed, these being 7A (a syphon on the low mileage side of bridge 8) and 6B (the stream by the foot crossing at Laverton Meadows).

General view of syphon culvert 7A. The inlet which comes under the B4632 on the Broadway side of bridge 8 flows into the chamber protected by the yellow gratings. The outlet on the up side of the railway is behind the headwall by the far fence. In between is a manhole for the up side cess drain - this is not connected to the syphon.

Up side headwall and high mileage wing wall of culvert 6B near the foot crossing at Laverton Meadows. Stream too deep to enter even with wellies today, so clearing this vegetation is another job for the spring or summer.

After lunch and a team change around, one group completed manhole clearing all the way up to bridge 6 at Laverton Meadows. Also cleared was the access up to the inlet and outlet of syphon culvert 6C; so another internal visual survey was completed.

Syphon culvert 6C. Well strictly the circular metal plate is the 'plug' in the centre of the syphon, as this is view into the chamber that was in the six foot at bridge 7. The pipe and water in the bottom is a cess drain - again no connection to the syphon.

The second group took the lengths of bridge rail back to Winchcombe, carefully unloading (they are very heavy) and adding to the stock for the milepost project. There are around two dozen mileposts currently that do not have the correct bridge rail posts. So we are still on the scrounge for suitable lengths of bridge rail that are easy to recover.

The stock of bridge rail lengths which will become milepost uprights. The two at the front have the new holes drilled by the Steam Loco department (thanks!) at the bottom.

Whilst on the subject of mileposts, you might have guessed the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this post. As as we were packing up, we spotted the infamous lost milepost 7 & quarter in the dense jungle just north of the foot crossing at Laverton Meadows. This post had evaded being found by clearance, drainage and milepost teams on at least four earlier occasions. The dying vegetation finally allowed its location to be spotted. So the team cleared around this to make it a bit more visible. Fortunately Permanent Way had been very accurate in guessing its location, track panel 1 for that quarter mile starts one sleeper on the low mileage side! What is more, the post is complete with correct numerals, bridge rail upright, and metal cap. It just needs painting. The new 7 & quarter head we made a few weeks ago will not be wasted. With the addition of two pairs of quarter marks it becomes the new head for 7 & three quarters - that is one of the posts currently with the inauthentic plastic house numerals.

MP 7 & quarter visible again. In reasonable condition, it was last refurbished in 2016.