Replanning

Thursday 10^th April

Always have a plan B, and a plan C. A good mantra for any activity; though sometimes the formulation of the alternative plans takes place ‘on the hoof’. Today was a good example.

First of all, a job that we had expected to undertake but we found another team had already completed it. This was the replacement of some fencing alongside the Wychavon footpath near bridge 2, Childswickham Road.

Secondly our plan to use both of the Transit vehicles had to be changed. The white tipper Transit was out of action requiring repairs to the tail lights. Jonathan in his capacity as chief vehicle maintenance person spent the day sorting that out.

Final item of replanning was the rebuild of the down side syphon inlet chamber of cross drain 39B at Two Hedges Road. To obtain level brick courses with even mortar joints, we decided to remove a few more of the existing coping bricks. Hence the plan is now an all brick chamber with concrete lids, instead of GRP catch pit rings and a blue mesh lid.

Whilst the Toddington to Stanton section of the B4632 road was closed for gas main replacement, a lot of traffic diverted along Laverton Meadow Lane. This prevented us from working under bridge 6 to clear the silt traps. Now the main road is open again, we could safely attend to this. Hence, Dave, John and Martin just managed to squeeze two wheelbarrows, traffic cones, road work signs, shovels and rakes into the Ranger for this task. Almost a month of dry weather made this task a bit easier than usual; however the silt in the traps on the low mileage (Broadway) side of the road had the consistency of thick soup. Then back to Winchcombe to clear out the final Drainage items from the office in the old wooden C&M workshop that is soon to be demolished.

Martin and John attending to the low mileage silt traps at Laverton Meadow Lane bridge (6). [Photo by Dave]

Nigel, Stuart and Roger were deployed on the rebuilding of the 39B inlet chamber at Two Hedges Road. Again the effects of the dry spell was obvious, no water was flowing through this. However, a work platform was required in the chamber to keep the bricklayer feet above the sump. The removed coping bricks were taken back to Winchcombe to join our stock of spares.

Roger working on the revised brick building at 39B syphon inlet.

Peter and Andrew also headed for Two Hedges Road, but south of the bridge. They inserted some more sandbags around the end of the length of 600mm diameter twinwall pipe in the down side crest ditch which carries the stream that comes down from Cleeve Hill alongside the former Bonsai World site. Next was some careful measuring of the ditch further south. The plan here is to pipe the stream for around 60m to avoid the sections where water is seeping into the cutting side. We also noticed some damaged lids on cess chambers where a non-railway drain pipe under the line. So these were measured up for replacement lids and additional chamber rings to raise their height.

Sandbag headwall slowing rising around the Bonsai World down side crest ditch pipe.

After lunch all nine of the team attended a presentation from Gareth Mead of Severn Trent Water. Gareth explained the somewhat opaque division of responsibility for drainage between water companies, Environment Agency, high ways authorities and landowners. He also showed us a water testing kit that Severn Trent use to determine levels and type of contamination in water courses. The main item was revising the internal Severn Trent maps of all the pipes and water courses which run alongside or under (or over) our railway. This was very useful, as we now know what some of the pipes are; and know of some more (such as one running under the filled in bridge 41). [This included the pipe we inspected earlier between cross drain 40A and culvert 40B, this is a combined foul water and surface drain pipe, which does belong to Severn Trent.]

Wildlife report: The team at Laverton Meadow Lane spotted Cardamine pratensis, the cuckoo flower, lady's smock, mayflower, or milkmaids; plus the expected primulas in flower. Whilst at Two Hedges Road, the resident flock of gulls was noticeable fewer and quieter. On the ground we spotted a hairy-moth caterpillar taking advantage of a flowering white dead nettle plant. Very early signs of blossom was seen on some apple trees, whilst blackthorn and some other varieties of Prunus (which includes ornamental cherries) are in full bloom. Also noted was the first sighting of a cabbage white butterfly this year.

Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis) also known as: Milkmaids, Lady's smock, Cuckoo bittercress, Whitsuntide gilliflower, or mayflower. [Photo by Dave]