Spring again!

Thursday 20^th March

Today was the 2025 Spring or Vernal equinox, so the start of the astronomical spring season. Also with plenty of sunshine, and afternoon temperatures way above average, it felt like spring had returned. Certainly we packed the deckchairs for use in our coffee and lunch breaks.

First we were please to welcome our new Infrastructure Manger, Sarah Clayton, to our morning briefing. To keep the briefing short, no buns or doughnuts today, but we did use the mess room inside Churchward House.

Two groups at work today. The first task for the smaller group of three, Jonathan, John and Martin, was to fit a mounting for a fire extinguisher by the row of containers in Churchward House Yard. Initially the plan was to install a post; but the ground proved to be very hard. So with valuable assistance from Operations Manager, Neil Carr, the mounting was attached to a corner post of the container nearest the S&T building. Next was to load some spent ballast in to the tipper Transit and deliver to Working Lane. This was to fill some more ruts and potholes in the haul road leading up to opposite the Royal Oak pub. For various reasons, the delivery of the spoil from the Broadway platform 2 excavations to Royal Oak will now use lorries, with the wagons unloaded at Toddington. Hence, the requirement to improve the haul road. Final task for the gang of three was back in the yard at Winchcombe, relocating our stock of former GWR broad gauge bridge rail. This is part of the preparatory work for the demolition of the old wooden workshop building in the yard.

A telehandler with forks does make moving bridge rail easier - Jonathan carefully manoeuvrers into position whilst Johan and Martin wait to unload.

Sarah accompanied the other four attendees, Roger, Nigel, Peter and Andrew, to Bishops Cleeve. Here Roger, Nigel, and Peter commenced the rebuilding of the syphon inlet chamber of cross drain 39B. This is going to use more bricks than we first thought – mainly because we have decided not to replace the fake concrete coping stones and we don’t have any of the required 14” copings in our stock. However, once raised with GRP catch-pit rings and a blue mesh cover; the mix of bricks and copings will not be visible.

The partially rebuilt 39B inlet - move bricks needed to raise three sides to the level of the copings on the left. [Photo by Roger]

Meanwhile Andrew and Sarah inspected the northern inlet of culvert 40B, just before milepost 17½. This is the stream which enters a crest ditch at the top of the cutting. After a week of no rain, there was no water emerging from the cutting side; but still quite a flow through the joints in the concrete rings of the cess chamber. They discussed several possible methods for tacking this, and the leaks in the crest ditch further south. Exactly which method we choose will depend on some further investigations to be made after we have cleared the ditch of vegetation and removed the partly fitted 600mm diameter twinwall pipes. Andrew took some measurements – the full length of the crest ditch is around 125m (or 410feet in old units). The cost of pipes or other ditch lining materials is also an important consideration.

All dry on the surface today at the 40B inlet stream location - but water oozing still into the cess chamber in the foreground.

The after lunch task for the team of four was at cross drain 40A. We first removed some of the concrete footing that two weeks ago we added around the metal syphon wash out cover on the up side. This was to enable access to the nuts on the bottom of the flange with a spanner. Unfortunately our toolbox did not contain a spanner of the correct size for the nuts. Also to check the bolts are not seized, we will need a very sturdy wrench. After a liberal spay of WD40 on all the bolts, we called it a day. It is going to take a few more weeks to become acclimatised with warm weather again!

40A syphon washout lid with WD40 on the bolts and a spanner width gap around the flange.

Arrival back at Winchcombe was just in time to help the other three team members move the final lengths of bridge rail. Also to witness the unusual sight of a steam locomotive propelling a full length train of coaches through the station and away towards Greet Tunnel. This was a photographic charter event using 6880 Betton Grange. With the glorious sunshine the participants will have taken some stunning photographs – we look forward to seeing some published soon.

Wildlife report: The highlight of the day was the large number of butterflies observed; we identified tortoiseshell and the pale yellow brimstones. Other insects noted were solitary bees and wasps – probably queens looking for a nest site. As ever at Bishops Cleeve, the resident flock of gulls were observed circling above the school playing field. But once again, no sign of any hedgehogs.