Facing serious competition

Thursday 4^th December

Some of your may have noticed an item on the news page of the Heritage Railway Association (HRA) or have read an item regarding the shortlists for the HRA’s 2026 Awards. If you have, you will have seen that the GWSR’s submission in the Infrastructure category achieved a placing on the short list. What you probably don’t recognise is the name of the project – ‘Predict and Prevent’ Asset Management. The full title is more descriptive - “Predict & Prevent: A Whole-Railway Asset Management Approach to Water and Infrastructure Resilience on the GWSR”. Below are a couple of extracts from the description of the project, as in the HRA Award submission.

The Predict and Prevent project … recognises that water is not a discrete maintenance issue, but the most pervasive long-term risk to track stability, earthworks, and structural integrity.

Historically, drainage works were carried out reactively - culverts and ditches cleared when blocked, blockages addressed when flooding occurred. The GWSR is transforming this into a systematic, risk-based asset-management project rooted in the principles of predict and prevent.

This philosophy is all about ensuring that water management activity directly supports the preservation of track quality, maintaining dry and well-compacted formations that reduce geometry defects and maintenance effort. It protects earthworks, preventing slips, slumps and loss of bearing capacity, and safeguards bridges and culverts through recognising scour and undermining risk. In short, good drainage serves as the foundation for every other engineering discipline on the line.

The HRA Annual Awards are the biggest and most prestigious in the heritage rail world. The winners will be revealed at a high-quality event in the Welsh coastal resort of Llandudno during March 2026. However, we are up against some serious competition. The other shortlisted projects are: The National Railway Museum’s refurbishment and reinterpretation of Station Hall in York, The Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway’s ‘Independent Line’ project and Peak Rail’s traditional locomotive watering facility.

Thanks to John Dora and Ian Crowder for compiling the submission.

Seven of the team were at the forefront of implementing ‘Predict and Prevent’ today, with the continuation of our annual programme of culvert and cross drain clearance and inspection. Nigel, Peter and Martin started with the clearance around the large culvert 39A at Pecked Lane, Bishops Cleeve. As most of this structure is pipes under the tack, the vegetation clearance here is minimal. They then moved on to syphon cross drain 39B on the low mileage side of Two Hedges Road; then the second syphon cross drain 40A on the other side of the bridge. Finally they started the clearance of the crest ditch that carries the ‘Bonsai World’ stream on the down (Cotswold) side of the line towards cross drain 40B. The vegetation clearance here is far from minimal!

Clearing the access up the cutting side to the inlet of 40A was helped by the recent work of the Wednesday Lineside Clearance team who have cut back the dense scrub well clear of the running line.

The other group, Jonathan, Stuart, John and Andrew, headed to the playing field off Millham Road in Bishops Cleeve. This was to access the outlet (on the up or Cotswold side of the line) of culvert 38A, which is now outside of Railway land.

Jonathan (in the stream), Stuart and John work on the outlet of 38A in the playing field. A fence post of the old boundary fence is just visible on the right.

After removal of vegetation around the exit and in the stream; they then checked on the inlet on the down side of the line. The wet days in the past week had made their mark, as the water level was up and the speed of flow greater than last week. All the water courses inspected today were flowing at something like normal rates – this year’s hot dry summer is fast becoming a memory! Next to 39A at Pecked Lane to open the lid of the manhole above the railway boundary exit to remove debris which collects where the bore splits into two pipes.

Only a small amount of debris to remove through the manhole of 39A outlet. 

No obstructions in the main bore of 39A under the railway. [Photo by Jonathan]

Also they undertook clearance of the trash screen on the inlet.

The inlet channel of 39A is shallow enough to clear without wearing Wellingtons; as demonstrated by John (left) and Stuart.

Another manhole lid to open was a 39B on the inlet side; where we noted most of the flow was heading for the down side cess rather than taking the pipe to the syphon. We rebuilt or repaired the two syphon chambers of 39B earlier this year, so, not surprisingly these were noted as in fine condition. Finally for the today’s inspections was syphon cross drain 40A. Rebuilding the down side inlet is on our ‘to do’ list; but probably not on next year’s schedule.

The two teams met up for lunch – fortunately by then the rain had stopped. However it was not a deckchair lunch. After lunch all seven attended to removal of some debris from the up side cutting side south of Two Hedges Road. Work by our clearance contractor with a robot flail, and by our colleagues in the Wednesday Lineside Clearance team had unearthed various items that need removing. We loaded some onto the Transit truck we had, but the rest will need to wait until we take an empty vehicle there.

A discovery by the fence line at the top of the up side embankment near Pecked Lane crossing was this manhole with a displaced collar and lid. Although inside the fence line, this is not railway drainage, but a residential sewer. So one for Severn Trent Water to deal with. [Photo by Jonathan]

Wildlife report: Unsurprisingly with a dull, grey wet morning our wildlife spotting was minimal. A large black domestic cat at Millham Road probably does not count as wildlife! On the journey back to Winchcombe when the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared a bit, we did spot a pair of buzzards, the usual gulls of Cleeve, several magpies and flocks of LBJs (little brown jobs!)