Autumn Sandwich

Thursday 13th November

Weather wise this was not an unlucky day; unlike the day before and the day after. The team enjoyed a very pleasant autumn day; plenty of warm sunshine, no rain at all, and just a gentle breeze. Warm enough to deploy the deck chairs at lunchtime, and to dispense with jackets whilst working.

Lunch at Middle Stanley. Left to right: Martin, Nigel, Polly, Ian, Dave, Phil, John.

The main team of eight (Dave, Nigel, Martin, Polly, Phil, John, Ian and Andrew) made their way to Townsend Farm at Gretton. Beside clearing and inspecting cross drains 27A and culvert 27B, their task was to commence clearance along the fence line adjoining the farm. A particular request was to clear on the farm side of the fence from the high mileage of bridge 27 to the end of the farm’s parking area; this to enable tarmac contractors to attend to the drive next week. Clearing by the horse gin training circle was not possible; as this was in use. Noisy brush cutters and horses are a combination to be avoided.

Cleared fence line on the drive way to Townsend Farm.

On the up (Malvern) side we paid special attention to the foot of the embankment on the high mileage of 27B; in the past this area has been very damp. However, all good this time; the two toe ditch pipes which flow into 27B outlet were dry.

Low water level on 27B outlet and nothing flowing out of the high mileage toe drain pipes.

Then it was further down the line to Middle Stanley; initially for a lunch break with a splendid view towards the Malvern Hills. After lunch, the tasks were clearing and inspecting Culvert 30A and Cross Drain 30B. These are definitely little and large – or rather respectively large and little. The first job at 30A was to cut a safe access path down the high embankment on the down (Cotswold) side on the high mileage of Tunnel Bridge 30. Fortunately very little of the vegetation was bramble here, most of it was Old Man’s Beard. Even after the proceeding wet day, 30A was only just flowing, with small trickles coming from the toe ditches either side of the bridge. 30B has a bit more of flow coming from stream across the adjacent down side field. The embankment at 30B is considerably lower than at 30A; plus the vegetation growth was very minimal. Like at its neighbour 31A which we tackled two weeks ago, areas free from brambles have not grown quite as much during the past dry summer.

30A outlet ditch and headwall. Rebuilding this headwall is on our 'to do' list - hopefully we can tackle it next year.

Once again two other team members were active else where on the railway. Jonathan was undertaking a telehandler operators refresher course; whilst Roger was attending a Health & Safety meeting. He also undertook a quick stock take of our supplies of building materials. Once the round of culvert and cross drain inspections is completed (hopefully by Christmas); we can make a start on some of the repair and rebuild project.

Overtime: There were a couple of other odd jobs undertaken by the teams. Firstly, Dave, checked on the tracked at Bishops Cleeve between Pecked Lane and Two Hedges Road. Following the heavy rain on Wednesday; we had received a report that several streams were flowing strongly and some ditches were over topping. Fortunately all back to normal by Thursday morning; but very noticeable that the ‘Bonsai World’ stream had washed a lot of fallen leaves onto the trash screen upstream of our crest ditch. It looked like that ditch had overflowed a bit; but no silt and spoil was deposited in the cess.

'Bonsai World' stream, upstream from the embankment. Grills and trash screens do stop the large items entering the pipe; but at this time of year got blocked with fallen leaves. (Note the ditch here is not inside railway land). [Photo by Dave]

 

Good news for our PW colleagues! No water or silt or debris in the cess by the recently repacked rail joint at the foot of the cutting where the 'Bonsai World' stream enters. [Photo by Dave]

The other odd job was fitting durable easily cleaned floor mats to the new (to us) white Ford Ranger personnel carrier. Andrew and Ian collected the mats from JT Autos in Bishops Cleeve, and then Ian fitted them whilst the kettle was boiling for our end of day tea break back at Churchward House in Winchcombe.

Wildlife report: Firstly an omission from last weeks report. At Gotherington the team spotted a sizeable dragonfly. This week we also spotted a late in the season insect; a butterfly (probably a red admiral) at Middle Stanley. During the lunch break we were able to closely observe the differences in hunting strategies between a pair of buzzards on the down side and a single red kite on the up side.