Inspections complete

Thursday 11^th December

The main task that the team undertook today was the clearance and internal visual inspection of cross drains 40B, 41A, 41B and 41C. This completes this year’s programme of cross drain and culvert clearance and visual inspections, part of the ‘Predict and Prevent Asset Management’ programme. Completing these inspections a week before Christmas is a first for the team. The main contributory factors being an increase in team size and some of the larger culverts not requiring internal inspections as they were covered in detail by external examiners. We have almost managed to stick to the schedule planned back in August when we commenced at Little Buckland. Strictly we have all of January as contingency, as the 'year' aspect coincides with both the Railway’s financial year which ends on 31^st January and the accepted bird nesting season which starts on 1^st February.

Ten of the team enjoyed an almost pleasant winter’s day, without rain and with some sunshine. However, a stiff wind kept the temperature down, so lunch was taken inside the vehicles.

Dave, Nigel and John left Winchcombe Yard first, destination Bishops Cleeve. Then they reversed down the vacant track bed to start clearing at cross drain 41B. This is one of the smaller structures, also one which only seems to flow during very wet periods. It certainly had been dry for most of this summer and autumn, as the outlet chamber required animal (most likely badger) bedding removed. Then on to syphon cross drain 41C at Kayte Lane foot crossing. This is a much larger structure, with two syphon pipes cages over the outlets. This was flowing quite steadily – we have only once seen this stream run dry.

41B outlet, removing the badger bedding. Yes it does take three of the team to do that, while three more supervise from above!

Jonathan, Polly, Dee and Andrew formed group two – again heading to Bishops Cleeve. First task for them was checking up on a few items around Pecked Lane crossing and Two Hedges Road bridge. Then a tidy up of the up (Malvern) side embankment south of Two Hedges Road. This involved clearing some debris from the clearance operations of the past month from the above the up side cess drain, and extracting some larger items which had prevented our clearance contractors robot flail from fully cutting the scrub on the embankment back to the fence line. It was obvious that some of these items originated with some of our less considerate neighbours.

Our contractors large robot flail can not cope with this size of tree branch - up side cutting south of Two Hedges Road.

Group three, Roger, Peter and Martin, first had a small task near the low mileage portal of Greet Tunnel. One of the PWay track inspectors had reported broken lids on one cess chamber. These we replaced with a blue mesh cover; and the old thick concrete lids used to weigh it down. Most of the cess chambers between the tunnel and Winchcombe station received some minimal attention over 30 years ago as part of the reopening through the tunnel. The intervening years have left their mark, so we plan to address these in a similar manner to the cess chambers in Dixton cutting that we rebuilt a couple of years ago.

Cess chamber near Greet Tunnel with cracked lid and deteriorating brickwork. Those lids are very heavy, and identical replacements are not available. We think they may date from GWR days in the 1930s or BR Western Region times in the 1950s. [Photo by Peter]

Group three then also headed to Two Hedges Road, and formed the clearance team for cross drain 40B (apart from the Bonsai World stream entry and down side crest ditch – cleared last week) and cross drain 41A.

Martin climbs back up the embankment from the up side outlet of 41A, whilst Peter finishes off the racking out. This cross drain rarely flows; which is a good job as you can see there is no outlet ditch into the playing field.

Once again the size of the team enabled the clearance and inspecting to proceed at a good pace. So the ‘inspections completed’ state was reached at lunchtime.

Job done - loading up after finishing the final clearance and inspection at 41C, Kayte Lane.

After lunch group three took all the collected debris to add to the piles at the bottom of the haul road at Working Lane. Whilst groups one and two spent some time investigating the Bonsai World inlet stream. We found that there is some water seeping from the crest ditch through the French drains in the cutting side down into the cess. Following the burst water main on New Road a month of so ago, and some work undertaken upstream, it appears that this Bonsai World stream is carrying more water; with a less flowing in the streams further south. The landowner of the small holding adjacent to the main inlet of 40B is also of this opinion. Hence we are now thinking of extending the piped section of the crest ditch. This will require some realignment of the ditch; so we undertook some exploratory excavations. Our main conclusion was that any work will probably be lot easier in late spring when the clay has dried out a bit but not become rock hard. Looks like we will have a busy 2026!

The current outlet of the Bonsai World stream in the crest ditch. To get another section of pipe to join will required digging out roughly where the photographer was standing.

Wildlife report: As usual at Bishops Cleeve, the resident gulls announced their presence mid morning. It was certainly noticeable that this urban stretch of line has a different bird life profile that the rural stretches. No sign of any raptors today; but several robins, thrushes, and black birds. Whilst in Winchcombe Yard there was evidence of visitations by pheasants.