A very wet (half) day

Thursday 15^th January

We were not so lucky with the weather today. The Met Office forecast predicted rain from 10am, becoming heavy around lunchtime. Almost spot on. Rain at Bishops Cleeve started at 10.30, and by noon was heavy enough to penetrate ‘waterproof’ PPE and make working on embankment and cutting slopes unsafe. So we called it a short day, retreating to the Churchward House mess at Winchcombe for lunch. A very brief period of less heavy rain allowed us to unload the vehicles with out getting drenched.

However, we did manage to achieve some of the planned tasks during the morning. John and Jonathan took a trip to Tewkesbury to collect the Isuzu truck from the main dealer, complete now with two sets of fully working keys. Unfortunately on the way back the Engine Management warning light came on; so Jonathan spent the afternoon diagnosing that problem.

Dave, Roger, Martin and Peter managed to finish the clearance of the low mileage down side toe ditch that runs to cross drain 40B south of Two Hedges Road. So now we have the complete length of the this ditch cleared from the entry by ‘Bonsai World’ along the cutting crest and then by the embankment toe. This has revealed several spots where undercutting is occurring. Bringing in infill is not going to be an easy job.

Peter (l) and Roger under take some final pruning at the 40B inlet. [Photo by Dave]

Dee, Polly and Andrew’s first task was to check on the slip monitoring equipment on the up (Malvern) side at Far Stanley. Most likely the low temperatures, ice and snow has played up with the remote sending of data. Without the special star allen key to open up the transmitter, the group decided the best plan was to bring the unit back to Winchcombe for attention. However, a visual check of the slip and the marker posts did not show any recent movement.

All slip marker posts still upright at Far Stanley.

Next stop was just down the line at cross drain 31A. The new owner of the adjacent property on the down (Cotswold) side of the line is very pro-Railway. He has cleared along his boundary line at the toe of the embankment, including the removal of a tree over the inlet of 31A. He has offered us access to enable the rebuilt of the inlet chamber; which will stabilise the bank on his side of the boundary.

Cleared boundary, so the silhouette racehorse and cross drain 31A inlet are easy to spot from the line.

So today’s task was to measure up the existing chamber; and to formulate the rebuild plans. One decision we made today was to wait until some drier weather before starting work here. Primarily this is to avoid churning up the landowners grassed area.

Dee and Polly consider options for the 31A inlet chamber rebuild.

We also measured up the outlet on the up side. Whilst we are there we might as well tend to that. This will be a simpler job, the existing headwall is in reasonable condition. So the plan is to add some solid wing walls to prevent the pressure of the embankment causing the headwall to lean.

31A outlet - the small headwall needs to be shored up with some sturdy wingwalls.

On the way to exiting the lineside at Gotherington Yard, they stopped for a chat with the operator of our clearance contractor’s robot flail. He had cleared all the up side cutting between Dixton Road bridge and The Tirle Brook flume (culvert 32A). Like us, he was anxious to get some more work completed before the heavy rain.

After a quick coffee break, the whole team were able to progress the clearance of the up side cess and cutting side at Two Hedges Road. This included removal of the discarded downpipes (see last weeks report); the large tree branches after chain sawing into manageable lengths; and various items of garden debris. Plus, as usual for Bishops Cleeve, lots of balls – golf, football, rugby, tennis, table tennis. A pleasant surprise was the pile of debris on the low mileage side of Two Hedges Road did not contain any nasty big items; just branches tangled up with brambles. We removed the bigger branches – but, like with the sites on the other side of the bridge, decided to postpone the shredding of the smaller vegetation with our larger brush cutters until a drier day.

Roger prunes the brambles away with a hedge trimmer.

Then Dave follows up with a brush cutter fitted with a shredder blade.

So the team departed Winchcombe at the very early hour of 2pm – in torrential rain. It would not have been pleasant, productive or safe to have continued working in such conditions.

Wildlife report: Not surprisingly for a cool, dull, grey and wet day our list of sighting was short. A muntjac deer at Far Stanley, several pheasants at Gotherington were the highlights. On the way back one vehicle nearly had a strike with a low flying wood pigeon; and we noted a very bedraggled kestrel perched on a telegraph post. Like us, most wildlife had decided to stay our of the rain.

Another GWSR blog: At long last our colleagues in the Lineside Clearance teams are documenting the important work they undertake on a blog. The URL is https://linesidegang.blogspot.com/