Frustrations

Thursday 12^th February

The team of ten managed some progress the drainage improvements at Stow Road Bridge, Toddington, despite a couple of set backs. The weather was our first frustration. The day started off dry, but soon turned damp, then wet. The local weather forecast was for showers, with brighter periods in the afternoon. The showers materialised as one long and heavy one, whilst the brighter spells never arrived. So another day where ground conditions on the cutting side were not ideal. The second frustration was down to human error. Despite our multiple and careful measurements of pipe diameters, an ordering glitch lead to us receiving an adaptor that was too small to connect the exiting clay field drain to the new long length of flexible pipe running to the down side cess chamber.

However, Jonathan started digging the new crest chamber with the mini-digger after having tracked it from the station car park entrance with John acting as traffic control.

Jonathan starting the excavations for the new crest chamber on the line of the field drain. Weather conditions making the Cotswolds appear to be wild windy moors.

At the trackside, Stuart, Dee, Phil and Andrew installed the new flexible pipe, after marking and cutting a section out of the GRP chamber ring. Nigel mixed up some mortar for Polly to cement this ring into place, with a few more bricks underneath it to ensure stability. Roger used the brick saw to cut a length of concrete ducting to cover the short section of S&T cables that were left exposed. Martin and John delivered an extra section of heras fence to the top of the cutting.

After coffee break, Jonathan continued digging the new chamber. He successfully found the existing land drain horizontally where we expected it to be, 4 feet below the surface. The rest of the team were occupied on the main task, placing spent ballast in the down side cess from the end of the platform, under the bridge back to the raised chamber. This involved a long manual barrow from the car park, across the barrow crossing and along the length of platform 2. As usual, access to this work site is not that easy!

Roger and Stuart placing a barrow load of old ballast in the downs side cess under the bridge. Completed raised chamber with flexible pipe from the field drain in the foreground - under the plastic bags to keep the rain off the curing mortar.

Dee arrives with another barrow load of ballast. Under the bridge was one of the few dry spots.

Nigel makes final adjustments to the concrete ducts covering the S&T cables. Note installation of the blue clips holding the blue mesh chamber cover in place.

The new flexible pipe running from the field drain outlet to the cess chamber - but missing the vital adaptor! Note the old ballast now extending almost to the S&T box.

For the second week in a row, we used the MPD mess room for lunch. Hot running water, soap and very efficient hand dryers were much in demand! With the heavier rain after lunch, activities were restricted to some site tidying up, recovering the digger and making the top of the cutting side secure with the heras fence and marking the excavation site. Then an early retreat back to Winchcombe. Final frustration was that the rain stopped just as we began to make our way home.

Stuart secures the heras fencing at the top of the cutting.

Wildlife report: Once again the weather conditions prevented significant wildlife observations. Besides the flock of crows in the field adjacent to Stow Road bridge (who obliviously like the sheep nuts the farmer puts out), the main observations were from the road vehicles on our way to and from Toddington. Two raptors, kestrel and buzzard, a few starlings and gulls. We could here at blackbird at Toddington but he (or she) kept hidden. We had no additional sightings of spring flowers.