Rock hard!

The changeable late Winter and early Spring weather is still affecting our plans; and not just because of too much rain. Certainly there is a lot of truth in the saying ‘Other countries have climate, the UK has weather!’

Thursday 17^th March

The day before (Wednesday of the Cheltenham Race meeting) had seen heavy rain almost all day; but St. Patrick’s day was dry and warm. However, there was a lot of water coming down off the Cotswolds and most of our culverts were flowing well. This included 25A at Working Lane, Gretton which we wished to survey the upstream bore with our CCTV equipment. This is an open channel in a brick invert underneath the bridge, but is culverted upstream. Old maps of the 1920s show it as an open ditch all the way back to Winchcombe Road. We wished to see the state of the bore whilst under railway land, and whether there are any connections from road or house drains. One of the home owners has reported occasional flooding of a land drain which probably connects into the main culvert. Unfortunately the depth of water was over the top of the camera trolley, so we could not see anything. Hence a task postponed for later.

Looking upstream in the bore of culvert 25A at Gretton. CCTV trolley was underwater. There must be a manhole up there somewhere!

The construction team of three completed the concreting for the apron of the new culvert 24C exit headwall by the haul road on the up side at Working Lane. This involved almost a tonne of aggregate and a lot of bags of cement. So both the long wheel based Transits trucks were used - one for plant and one for materials. There also had to be a return trip to Winchcombe to swap cement mixers as the drive belt on one broke. (Unlike C&M, we do not have names for our mixers, they are just the older one and the newer one).

Concrete apron for culvert 24C haul road exit headwall poured. Note the temporary barrow run on the planks to the right. (The smaller diameter extension pipe is only temporary; to get the water away from the setting concrete and in the coming weeks to keep the bricklayer's feet dry.)

Meanwhile an odd job team of two first attended to a request to install slip marker posts. This is just north of Stanway viaduct on the down side by the Toddington distant signal. PWay have had to regularly top up the ballast for a short length here, hence the request to monitor for slips. A visual check of the embankment side revealed no tell tale signs; but plenty of animal holes. This is an area where badgers were active until a few years ago; the up side embankment was meshed to stop any more digging. Additionally the area of concern is right on top of culvert 11C; which many years ago was extended with a pipe on the down side, that involved digging into the embankment.

Slip monitoring posts in place on down side north of Stanway Viaduct. Marker post for culvert 11C visible lineside and beyond the area with plenty of ballast topped up.

The odd job team then moved up to the B4632 bridge (No 8) at Stanton. Now the bridge works are complete we had access to install the new head for milepost 7¾. This is the first of the ‘house number’ style posts to be replaced with the more authentic new head with numerals in the correct GW typeface. Then it was on to Broadway for a similar exercise for milepost 5. Another ‘house number’ head but this time on a non authentic wooden post. The bolts fixing the head to the post refused to move thus preventing a simple swap of heads. The complete post and head were removed back to the workshop, but still the bolts would not budge! Partial dismantling of the head revealed extensive damp and a lot of woodlice inside; a consequence of not fitting rainproof flashing on the head. Renovating this head with correct numerals for reuse elsewhere will be a bigger task than anticipated. The new milepost 5 head will now be mounted on a length of bridge rail in the coming weeks. This will be much more in keeping with the heritage look at Broadway; milepost 4¾ just north of the up platform will be replaced in a similar way.

Out with the house numbers, in with the authentic looking GW style numerals. Mp 7¾ is just on the Toddington side of the B4632 bridge at Stanton if you want to look out for it.

A train picture for a change. This was our first working day of the year with real trains to watch out for - here 47105 brings the ECS for the Friday Broadway race train past the site of milepost 5.

Thursday 24^th March

A complex plan involving three sub teams with four vehicles working at four sites was the order of the day.

Another request to install a set of slip monitoring posts was attended to. This time it was on the up side in Toddington north cutting, so just south of the viaduct. When the vegetation was cut on the cutting side it revealed the tell tail signs of a slip; cracks in the ground near the top and a snout of material near the bottom. From our investigations it looks like this is not a very recent slip; with the marker posts in place we can monitor it to determine if it is still moving. The down side cutting behind the retaining wall by the north siding has a similar ‘dormant’ slip discovered a few years ago.

More slip monitoring posts; up side Toddington North.

The construction team today was only two in number; but they made excellent progress on the new headwall for culvert 24C haul road exit at Working Lane. No problems with out mixers today (I think it was the older one in use). Seven courses of concrete blocks (new small ones, not the heavy recovered BR era big hollow ones) and one course of bricks went in. The wall here will be 14 courses of block high; so we are halfway there already.

Halfway there - well on the block courses. 24C haul road exit headwall takes shape. When complete it will be one of our higher headwalls.

Earlier in the day, chief brickie Polly does not pause for the photographer. Note how the temporary extension pipe is keeping the work area dry.

We are extending the hard standing area at the bottom of the haul road. The Saturday clearance team have removed the vegetation in the foreground and some of the willow tree. The rest is due to be felled on Saturday 27th. The area will be levelled using infill from the old garden centre at Toddington.

 

 

The main job of the day was at Stanley Pontlarge, repairing the driveway through the small holding adjacent to the railway on the up side. Unfortunately the warm, dry, sunny weather over the previous week had made the ground rock hard, too hard for the telehandler to level out. So, unusually, we have had to postpone a task until we get some wet weather to soften the ground. We did however place some of the one tonne of No1 stone we collected from Bishops Cleeve in the worst of the ruts in the driveway. The rest of the stone is on site for when we can resume the job.

The only soft ground at Stanley Pontlarge was this puddle under the railway gate. One month ago all the drive way was mud - deep in places.

Awaiting a damp day - the rest of the stone for the driveway repair at Stanley Pontlarge.

Whilst we had the telehandler and the Citroen tipper truck in the area we proceeded to Gotherington yard to load one of the dumpy bags of pea gravel we recovered from Dixton Bridge last year. This was used to make good the damage to the U shaped concrete drain channels in Dixton Cutting, between the Tirle Brook flume culvert (32A) and Prestcott Road Bridge. Hopefully with the PWay work now complete in Dixton cutting there will be no more damage to these concrete channel; they are impossible to repair and exact replacements of these BR era relics do not exist.

Pea gravel used to level out tops of the BR style U shape concrete drainage channel. When new this would have had concrete lids on it for the entire length (nearly ¾ mile here at Dixton Cutting).

Whilst all the weather related disruptions to our plans are annoying; working out side in warm, spring sunshine was a joy. It was almost like summer!

First too dry, then too wet!

Not that we wish to sound like some farmers for whom the weather is never perfect, we certainly noticed the change to wet conditions at the end of Winter. After writing in many culvert inspection reports that the flow was minimal and the cess drains were just damp we had the opposite for the final few. After a few wet days, a lot of our culverts were flowing well. Whilst checking in wet conditions is a benefit, it does preclude taking photographs looking into the culvert bore. The water is just too deep to stand in and the banks too slippery as well. However, we now have finally caught up with the COVID-19 induced backlog of internal visual inspections of culverts and cross drains. This season’s round will commence towards the end of summer.

Thursday 3^rd March

First job for whole team of five today was replacing two damaged manhole lids near Southam Lane bridge, including that shown in the previous blog post. This required all five as we had to use barrows to transport the lids from the nearest level road access point, the RDA crossing at Cheltenham. Whilst there we also inspected the metal covers on the driveway which runs between the RDA crossing and Cheltenham signal box - this drive is used for race vehicle traffic during race week. Glad to say we found no issues.

Following the lid replacement, we split into two teams. First sub-team one then proceeded to south of Hunting Butts tunnel to undertake visual examination of culverts 44A and 45A; the last two of the 2021 inspection programme. 44A carries a small stream between Hunting Butts tunnel and Swindon Lane; however it is of great importance as all the drainage from Cheltenham Racecourse station flows to it through Hunting Butts tunnel and the down side cess.

Looking down the bore of culvert 44A, water not too deep but flowing fast.

45A is a much larger structure; it is right on the boundary of our land by the Prince of Wales Stadium. It carries the Wymans Brook, which is piped from the lakes in Pitville Park. Hence on the down side there is just a very deep manhole; whilst on the upside there is a large headwall and the stream flows by the side of a public footpath. Being near to the Midland Mainline we could here lots of trains whilst we were working – of course not on the GWSR as there is no track south of Hunting Butts.

Up side outlet headwall of culvert 45A, Wymans Brook. Not taken by standing in the water!

The second sub-team headed to Working Lane where they completed the backfill of the new haul road exit headwall on culvert 24B. This almost completed the work on 24B, one of the components of the Royal Oak/Working Lane improvement programme. The wet and muddy conditions meant no progress on the excavations for the concrete apron on culvert 24C.

The whole team met for lunch, in the luxurious (for us) C&W mess at Winchcombe (thanks guys and girls). After lunch with rain threatening, we continued with milepost construction in the workshop. This included priming two lengths of bridge rail; preparing steel bar for dividers and quarter marks; painting numbers and making galvanised caps. We now have three new heads complete and ready for installation.

The milepost production bench in the workshop. No we don't have a mile 91; it is 16¼ up side down. Its location is between Gotherington and Bishops Cleeve.

Thursday 10^th March

An even smaller team of four today, the others had a variety of excuses (funeral, work, partners illness). However, they managed to complete several diverse tasks.

First was a request from the Bridge Engineer to recover some surplus sheets of galvanised mesh from Stanton Yard. This is the bird nesting prevention material, it was the surplus from the contract job for the B4632 Bridge (8) and Stanton Road Bridge (10). Whilst at Stanton, the team took a note of the amount of building stone available. This should be enough for the work on culvert 24C at Working Lane, thus avoid purchasing a new load.

Next job was to move a pallet of solid concrete blocks from Winchcombe to Working Lane. These will be used in the construction of the exit headwall on culvert 24C. They are a lot lighter and thus easier to handle than the large hollow blocks of 1950s vintage we used on 24B and 24A.

The weather and ground conditions were dry enough for the completion of the excavation at 24C for the concrete apron for the new headwall. The shuttering was installed as well; so next week concreting should commence.

Culvert 24C exit by the haul road at Working Lane. Excavation complete and shuttering in place ready for pouring the concrete apron. (Photo by Martin)

Just up the haul road, the team installed safety fences on the haul road headwalls of culvert 24B. Not quite motorway standard crash barriers, but then the speed limit on the haul road is well under 70mph! So that really is the completion of the work on the up side of 24B, very satisfying to mark an item on our task list as ‘Complete’.

The final touch to the up side of 24B, safety rails by the haul road. (Photo by Martin)

The final job of the day was to produce four new milepost head caps. This used some pieces of lead flashing left over from the Broadway station canopy extension project. Thanks to the C&M team for putting it by. Also thanks to a Trust member (Keith in Gloucester) for donating a roll of lead flashing he had surplus. That too will be made into milepost head caps, there are many between Winchcombe and Toddington that need a cap added. We plan to accomplish that in situ, as bending lead to fit does not require workshop facilities.