Chambers as far as the eye can see

This and the next couple of blog posts may get a little repetitive! Our current reconstruction project is the cess drain chambers in Dixton cutting – and there is a lot of them! However, in practice each one is a little different. Plus there are always a few odd jobs to do.

Looking in the up direction from under Dixton Road bridge; the cess manholes that require replacing stretch right away into the distance!

Thursday 26^th May

Six of the team in (one on holiday) - so for the first time in a while we did not split into groups.

Our telehandler operator loaded around a dozen concrete rings at Winchcombe onto one of the long wheel base transit trucks. We off loaded one each to up and down side chambers from culvert 33A back to Dixton road bridge and just beyond. During the loading, we did C&W a favour by loading scrap heavy metal sinks from the RBR into the metal skip. We needed to do that to get at the stacks of rings. We managed to reconstruction four chambers (three down side and one up side) and prepare a fifth by removing the decomposed top brick course.

This manhole requires some replacement bricks in the second and third course as well as the replacement of the top course by a concrete ring.

A down side chamber rebuilt with a single concrete ring as the top course.

 

Also we repointed the head and wing walls of the up side outlet of culvert 33B.

Outlet of culvert 33B undergoing repointing. One completed job to tick off on our master list!

One other odd job was cutting down ash tree saplings on the down side between Dixton Road bridge and culvert 33B.

Thursday 2^nd June

As this was a bank holiday, the first of the Platinum Jubilee four day weekend, attendance was a down a little. So only five of us working at Bank Holiday rates!

As this was the Queen's official birthday; the morning passenger trains were carrying the Royal Train lamp code, all 4 lamps. Just in case a Royal was on board we stood to attention as the trains passed! Gala visitor 92203 Black Prince with a down Cheltenham bound train.

Three more of the Dixton cutting cess chambers were completed today with concrete rings; another rebuilt with two courses of blue bricks; one had original brick repaired and repointed; and one had the top course of bricks removed. So a bit of variety. Two were temporarily covered with blue mesh panels as the mortar was not sufficiently set to put the heavy concrete lids back on.

The up side chamber on the high mileage side of Dixton Road bridge had damage to two course of bricks, so we are rebuilding this with two new courses of engineering blues and no concrete ring. Chief bricklayer and chief mortar mixer in action.

Temporary cover of blue mesh on the chamber that we only were able to deconstruct today. Note the wire of the Gotherington down distant signal - it runs right over a lot of manholes!

We also started the demolition of the small headwall behind the down side chamber immediately on the low mileage side of Dixton Road bridge. This requires rebuilding, it is where a pipe from a road drain enters the cess.

The top loose courses of the headwall on the down side by Dixton Road bridge were easily removed. Still a lot of pea gravel here from the washout a couple of winters ago.

 

The odd job list for today included rodding the cess drain for one chamber length on low mileage side of culvert 33A. There is standing water in the first chamber; the rods went right trough from the high mileage side; water level dropped a bit but not completely. Will need to return with CCTV to see if there is a dipped joint.

The standard Dixton chamber rebuild - one concrete ring replacing the old top course of decayed dricks.

Another task undertaken was the trimming of the vegetation on the roadside at Gotherington Yard exit, this improves visibility when exiting the yard.

Finally back at Winchcombe some rust patches on the new (to us) excavator were brushed down and painted with black hammerite. We are eagerly awaiting a trailer so we can get this, and the small dumper, out to sites and put them to use.

With the black paint looking smart, the mini excavator heads back to Churchward House yard at it's top speed - 2mph!