Here and there

 

This time last year we were in the middle of our major project at Stanton, the up side diversion of the outlet of cross drain 11B. And the weather was hot and sunny! Finally in the past month we have commenced the work to improve the entry to 11B on the down side; plus alternating visits to Gotherington.

Thursday 23^rd May

Another day with a magnificent seven in attendance! The very heavy rain of Wednesday daytime and evening fortunately had stopped - but its legacy was a lot of water flowing in all the watercourses, so we had to abandon all the planned jobs that required dry conditions.

Dave, Nigel and Polly completed the additional brickwork on the inlet of cross drain 33A at Gotherington. This is where the pipe from the re-excavated boundary ditch on the high mileage end enters. What a neat job from out professional brickie!

Master bricklayer at work. [Photo by Dave]

The finished job - very neat. [Photo by Dave]

Martin, Jonathan, Roger and Andrew went to Bishops Cleeve to collect a part used dumpy bag of red building sand which had been donated. This was probably over two thirds full - so financially around £50 at least. Then on to the Rugby Club at Southam Lane to view the proposals for the cycle way which will cross the line at Cheltenham Racecourse on Evesham Road bridge 43. This is now going to be a shared cycle way and footpath on the east (low mileage) side; at normal kerb height (125mm). The road carriage way will be narrowed to accommodate it. As far as we are concerned the plans look good - there will be only one drain off the cycleway leading down to our down side cess. All the run off from the road will go into the existing road gullies.

All of the team then met up at Manor Lane. Here the most obvious sign of the previous days heavy and prolonged rain was the backing up in the entry of cross drain 36A. Water was flowing out from the exit at a similar rate to that we noted last week - but obviously the obstruction in the bore reduces the flow so hence the build up during wet spells. We were able to rod from the outlet side a greater distance than last week. The sticking point is approximately under the down side running rail - which was where the rodding from the inlet side stuck last week. We were not able to rod from the inlet side this week as the camber was full of water. However, it was very slowing going down. We also dis some investigation of the road side and field drains further up the hill to Manor Farm. Most of these seem to feed into the roadside drain which runs under bridge 36 on the high mileage end.

Inlet of 36A with water overflowing the chamber.

 

One task we did manage to complete was to repair the fencing on the up side of the foot crossing by cross drain 37C at 16m 28c. Finally back at Winchcombe we unloaded the acquired sand - now in two strong dumpy bags that have proper telelhandler loops. We also moved a recent delivery of GRP chamber rings from Aqua Fabrications, so all the drainage items are neat and tidy for when the gala visitors are in the yard.

Fencing repairs at the foot crossing at 16m 28c.

And on gala visitors - we we very pleased to see 6880 Betton Grange on a test run from Toddington.

Every blog has to have a picture of 6880!

Thursday 30^th May

A smaller team of six attending due to holidays and post gala recovery for our multi-department members.

Polly, Nigel and Dave rebuilt the very end of the up side high mileage wing wall of Stanton Road Bridge.

Bridge 10, Stanton, repaired end of up side high mileage wing wall. [Photo by Dave]

 

Jonathan, Stuart and Ian inserted clamps on the blue mesh lids on the chambers of the 11B to 11A up side diversion at Stanton. So that part of the 11B project is finally complete. They then made a start on the down side by rodding the bore of 11B. This removed a lot of mud and other debris, but the rods stuck somewhere in the bore. Then they used the CCTV to examine the bore, this showed quite a few broken pipe joins near the inlet end.

Blue mesh lid clamped down. [Photo by Dave]

 Wildlife report: a very colourful scarlet tiger moth.

Tiger moth. [Photo by Dave]

Thursday 6^th June

An even smaller team of four today, maybe those absent were attending D-Day 80^th commemorations.

The work site was Manor Lane, Gotherington.

Jonathan used the mini-digger to reinstate the ditch in Manor Lane above the top gulley on the down (Cotswold) side. This will prevent some of the water running down the road to the lower bridge gulleys.
 

Cleared roadside ditch in Manor Lane.

 

Roger, Martin and Polly worked on clearing the bore of cross drain 36A from the down side chamber after pumping out the standing water. They removed around 150mm of silt from the bottom of the chamber. Unfortunately, all attempts with our two sets of drainage rods did not shift the obstruction. An attempt to use the CCTV was also abandoned; the CCTV cable is too short to use from the up (Malvern) side; and there is too much standing water upstream of the obstruction on the inlet (down or Cotswold) side. The obstruction is in the most inconvenient place, under the running line. We are now considering some options to ensure the bore is cleared and water flowing freely before yet more wet weather arrives.

Inlet of 36A, now no water overflowing the chamber.

Thursday 13^th June

Seven team members in attendance. Jonathan and Polly went to Tewkesbury to collect sand bags which the borough council has supplied. They then joined the rest of the team (Nigel, Stuart, Ian, Martin and Andrew) at Stanton. Here we took advantage of a non-running day to have possession of the Broadway-Toddington section to enable excavation on the down side at Stanton. This is the rebuilding of the entry of cross drain 11B.

First task was to rod through from the up side using our heavy duty (red) rods to check for any obstructions in the bore. We temporarily removed the blue mesh cover and the top two concrete rings on the first chamber on the up side diversion constructed last year to enable a shallower angle for the rods.

Rods entering from the outlet (up or Malvern side).

42m (or 137 feet 9 inches for the heritage folk) of rods later the plunger emerges from the inlet (down or Cotswold side) - so the bore is clear.

Looking into the bore, before we removed the first length of SGP pipe.

Then some serious digging - by hand to minimise any damage to the 100+ year old SGP pipes and to ensure no collapse of the embankment. Actually the latter item was not applicable, the embankment at this point is mainly clay apart from an inch or so of spent ballast on the top, so it is stable. We removed the first length of broken SGP pipe, the old supermarket basket which had been the grill and the short length of big diameter SGP pipe which was the entry from the low mileage ditch. Probably this had been installed about 20 years ago as part of the build back to Broadway work. We discovered that alignment of 11B does follow an old field drain - the clays pipes for that are still there, slightly below and on the high mileage side of the bore.

High mileage inlet excavated - the supermarket basket was the inlet grill for this. Low mileage inlet in bigger SGP pipe was probably added during the Broadway extension work.

Nigel on archaeological digging revealing the old clay pipes of a land drain.

End of day - with the old supermarket basket as temporary grill. Our plan is to build an L shaped headwall here.

View from above - with safety marker tape in place.

Additionally we started clearing along the down side boundary hedge/fence back to bridge 11 to allow access by the minidigger and the dumper. We did not quite get back to bridge 11 - as the vegetation was quite extensive. The dumper will be used to bring in all the materials as the embankment is too steep; plus other work days will have trains running. (One team member did remark the team's productivity is higher on non-running days as we don't have to stop working when trains pass!)

Partially cleared route alongside the down side boundary hedge/ditch to enable access with the mini digger to excavate the ditches and with the dumper to bring in sand, cement and bricks.

 

Wildlife report: a surprisingly high number of worms and various insects in the clay; plus spiders in the bore. Skylarks singing overhead and rabbits encountered before work started.