Thursday 19th March
Here are a couple of pictures of (half of) the team with the Heritage Railway Association Infrastructure award plaque taken by Infrastructure Manager Sarah after the end of day cuppa at Winchcombe.
Click here for the full story.
Left to right: Martin (S), Ian, Martin (J), Andrew, Peter, Dave, Jonathan.
Thursday 19th March
A last minute change of plan for us today, as C&W required the tail-lift fitted LWB Transit to collect a piece of machinery from Cheltenham. We also required it to deliver concrete catch pit rings to Stanton Yard. So our plans changed – no work on the steps above the River Isbourne to enable deployment of extra manpower at Stanton to enable offloading of the rings and returning the LWB Transit to Winchcombe for C&W use.
So Jonathan loaded the five concrete rings on the LWB Transit with the telehandler. Then he departed to Stanton with John driving the Transit. Also heading that way in two other vehicles were Martin (S), Martin (J), Peter, Dave and Nigel. [One downside of a larger team size is that we need several vehicles to get us all to site. The work at Stanton was to replace some broken rings on the cess chamber immediately on the high mileage up side of Stanton Bridge. As you can see from the photographs, this is very close to where fresh supplies of ballast are delivered and then collected. Hence this chamber is prone to damage from close encounters from vehicles. First task was to remove some of the ballast hep from around the chamber and then the two damaged rings. We inserted four new rings, thus making the chamber higher and more visible. The telehandler made this job as lot easier and safer – these concrete rings are very heavy. Moving them by hand needs four strong folk. We covered the chamber with a blue mesh lid, bolted down, and placed two blue painted marker posts in front of it. There is now no excuse for failing to spot that chamber now.
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| Martin (S) and Martin (J) removing some of the ballast pile around the chamber. [Photo by Dave] |
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| Unloading the pallet of rings to enable the Transit to return to Winchcombe for use by C&W. [Photo by Dave] |
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| Jonathan carefully reverses down the slope to the trackside with the first replacement ring. [Photo by Dave] |
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| Martin (J) directing the placement of the third ring.[Photo by Dave] |
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| The completed stack of rings with lid and markers. [Photo by Dave] |
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| Martin (S) and Peter inserting the new post for milepost 6¾. [Photo by Dave] |
Final task for the group of five was to complete the checking of the distances between the mileposts up to Broadway. Martin (J) has repair our measuring wheel using plastic welding; whilst Martin (S) demonstrated some skilful balancing by running the wheel along a rail head to avoid irregularities caused by uneven ground.
Meanwhile back at Winchcombe Yard, John had joined Ian and Andrew working on two GRP catch pit rings that are destined for the new chamber on the crest at Stowe Road, Toddington. The task was to cut a 265mm diameter hole in the ends to take the inlet pipe of the new crest drain. Whilst these GRP rings are considerably lighter than the concrete rings, they are extremely hard. Hence the hole cutting took quite some time, using a variety of power and hand tools.
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| Ian preparing to cut the GRP rings. Fist drill a small hole in the middle of the cut out to enable marking a circle leaving equal amounts in each ring. |
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| Completed set of rings and length of pipe test fitted. Excavating the ditch and fitting this at Toddington is next week's task. |
After lunch, Jonathan and John make a quick visit to Pecked Lane at Bishops Cleeve. The job here was to install some additional warning signs by the footpath gates. Unfortunately, the fixings on the back of the signs proved incompatible with the tubular posts already in place. So a return visit will be needed with some different sized fixings.
Wildlife report: Spring had certainly sprung - this was the warmest and sunniest workday for us so far this year. Consequently we observed a noticeable increase in inset activity, spotting solitary and bumble bees and several species of butterfly. At Winchcombe we observed at leat six magpies which appear to be nesting towards the school. They were being mobbed by at leat three crows. The yard’s resident robins were also noted. The change to spring weather has certainly brought out the blossom on the blackthorn trees and bushes, and on a couple of cherry trees. Daffodils and narcissi are now just past their flowering peak, whilst in a sheltered spot near broadway we spotted primroses in full flower.
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| Primroses. [Photo by Dave] |
Thursday 12th March
Once again the increased numbers in the team allowed simultaneous work on multiple sites. Three of these were lineside, with one extending over nearly two miles of track. The other two ‘sites’ were Churchward House and Winchcombe Yard. OK, that is rather extending the definition of work site – but at least those two were out of the strong winds and squally showers.
First group departing from Winchcombe Yard were John , Martin (S) and Martin (J). They headed north to the two mile work site. Their task was to recover mileposts 6 and 6¾. Like many on the Laverton to Broadway section, when replaced for the reopening a few years ago, wooden posts were used. Rot has now set in – so we are replacing these with lengths of former broad gauge bridge rail. Also we shall replace the heads and fit correct pattern GW numerals – not ‘house numbers’. The reason why the work was spread over two miles rather than three-quarters was to check the spacing, using milepost 7¼ as a datum. Unfortunately the handle of our measuring wheel suffered plastic fatigue before completing all the measurements.
Next group to depart the yard were Dave, Polly, Peter, and Nigel. They were the today’s team at Stowe Road, Toddington. The task was to lay the final courses of brick in the new chamber on the cutting crest, and then to insert the first GRP catch pit ring. Once again this task was made a lot easier as the field drain that runs through the new chamber was not flowing; so the chamber pit did not need pumping out first. Work at Toddington was timed careful to avoid the peak of arriving passengers for the race day trains.
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| Polly makes quick work of the final brick courses in the new crest chamber. [Photo by Dave] |
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| The first GRP catch pit ring goes in , much easier to work from the inside. [Photo by Peter] |
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| Two Swindon thoroughbreds ready for the off at the Toddington starting line. [Photo by Dave] |
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| No doubt the PWay report in a future Heritage Herald blog will fill us in with the use of these old sleeper sections . [Photo by Dave] |
Ian, Stuart, Jonathan and Andrew headed to the third lineside site, the up side on the River Isbourne bridge. Here the task was to progress the construction of the steps down from the vacant trackbed to the bridge headwall using the old tyres. Fortunately the strong wind was vaguely westerly, so the embankment provided a bit of shelter. The up side sidings at Winchcombe looked oddly empty with all serviceable coaches formed into the race day operational rakes.
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| Jonathan and Ian preparing the ground for the next tyre step. Removing roots is the trickiest part of the operation. |
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| 2807 hauls the first race train over the Isbourne bridge. |
All the groups met back at Churchward House for lunch – which fortunately coincided with a very heavy rain shower. After lunch, the team formations swapped a bit. Stuart, Martin (J), Dave, Nigel, and Peter progressed the Isbourne steps, until the weather made working their unpleasant and unsafe. Ian and Martin (S) under took some maintenance of some of our power tools. John, Polly and Andrew fitted up the new head for milepost 6¾. They also attempted removing the old heads from the two recovered posts; however the rusty bolts failed to budge.
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| Some of the afternoon team on the Isbourne steps - the steepness of the embankment is apparent. [Photo by Dave] |
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| End of day situation on the tyre steps. [Photo by Stuart] |
Wildlife report: The milepost team reported some rabbits at Laverton. The morning Isbournce steps team watched the different ariel antics of gulls, crows, buzzards and red kites from the top of the embankment. Also heard were blue tits, great tits and black birds. Otherwise it was a bleak day for wildlife spotting – just like the weather.
Not Stockton & Darlington. Or even Somerset & Dorset! But Surprise and Delight.
The Heritage Railway Association Annual Award winners were announced at a gala evening in Llandudno on Saturday.
Surprise: The winning entry in the Infrastructure category was our "Predict & Prevent: A Whole-Railway Asset Management Approach to Water and Infrastructure Resilience on the GWSR”. We beat some very stiff competition from some other outstanding projects. Highly commended were, 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.
Delight: The Drainage team, along with our Infrastructure Manager and Chief Civil Engineer are delighted with the win. Especially as it concerns an unglamorous, repetitive, maintenance process dealing with infrastructure assets that many take for granted.
The HRA website has a full list of the 2026 HRA Award Winners.
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| HRA and GeoInspection present the award to John Dora, GWSR Chairman. Unfortunately due to prior personal commitments, neither our Drainage Team Leader or our Infrastructure Manger were able to attend. |
Thursday 5th March
After many weeks of dull and wet weather, we certainly enjoyed the sunshine and warmth today. By mid-afternoon the temperature in nearby Pershore reached 17C, making this the warmest day so far this year. For the first time this year, two of our groups loaded deckchairs for use during the morning coffee break and at lunchtime.
With nine of the team attending, we formed three groups in a 4-3-2 formation.
The Stowe Road Toddington group was the group of four - Peter, John, Polly and Nigel. Their work today was to lay the first couple of brick courses in the new chamber on the cutting crest by the road. Just like last week, the dry weather meant that the field drain that runs through this chamber was not flowing; so there was only a small quantity of water to bail out before bricking commenced. Again they setup the plant on the old garden centre site by Toddington Station; but this time as the quantity of mortar required was relatively small this was delivered to the site in buckets using the Isuzu pickup.
Dee, Phil and Jonathan formed the group of three. They first travelled to Ski Tyres in Tewkesbury to collect a number of old worn car tyres. Ski have donated these to us to experiment with construction of steps on cutting and embankment sides. This may be a cost effective and straightforward method of providing some safe access routes for all the lineside teams. There are a number of videos on YouTube which show the method, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTu8NuF6uJ8. After lunch the group started work on our trial site, the up side above the River Isbourne bridge. Initial results are encouraging, as long as we stick to 14 inch diameter tyres. Removing tree and bush roots proved to be the trickiest part of the operation.
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| First four tyres inserted at the bottom of the steps - will need a little more infill from the used ballast pile. [Photo by Jonathan] |
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| The remaining tyres stacked at the end of the upside siding. [Photo by Jonathan] |
The remaining group of two, Martin (J) and Andrew, headed south to undertake a number of odd jobs. First was the regular clearing of the grill on the exit of culvert 24C at Working Lane. This clogs up with twigs and other debris, today’s clearing dropped the pooling water by over 6 inches.
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| 24C exit after cleaning. |
Next job was one on behalf of the bridges team, as agreed at our meeting last week. This was to paint the safety rails constructed using old steam locomotive boiler tubes on the filled in accommodation bridge 41. Use of spray smooth Hammerite paint made the job straight forward. However this used up two cans, one for each side. Brush painting may be more cost effective. However, the result does look at lot better than rusty tubes.
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| Martin (J) painting the up side rails of old bridge 41. |
Final job for the pair was to replace some concrete cess chamber lids with blue GRP mesh lids. The chambers on the up side in the shallow cutting just north of Kayte Lane crossing are prone to close encounters with the robot flail or other vehicles. A number of the old concrete lids were scrap, either cracked or having broken corners exposing the reinforcing bar. The blue mesh is much more visible and durable. We have plenty of these in stock, but we have now exhausted our supply of bolted brackets. Hence only three chambers were dealt with today.
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| Neater and easier to spot, cess chamber with blue mesh lid. |
Finally on the way back, the pair checked on the status of the now notorious Bonsai World inlet stream of culvert 40B. The wet spell since the beginning of the year has lead to some seepage from the crest ditch into the French drain; plus the two twinwall pipes running directly to the down side cess chamber were running. We are going to need a few more weeks with little or no rain before we are able to attempt further work here.
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| Martin (J) testing the depth of the water in the Bonsai World crest ditch - and trying to estimate the angle required for an elbow to extend the pipe. |
A tenth member of the team was also working on the Railway. Roger was attending the monthly H&S meeting at Toddington.
Wildlife report: The warm sunny day certainly resulted in plenty of bird activity. Very noticeable was the increase in bird song – but even using a bird identification app on a phone we did not spot anything new or unusual. The loudest birds were a flock of geese in the small holding on the down side near Two Hedges Road. The best sighting was a pair of Red Kites swooping very low near Kayte Lane. Also looking for rodents we noted two domestic cats heading for the scrub on the down side cutting at Two Hedges Road. Finally, at Working Lane the growth of moss on some of the redundant concrete blocks was very noticeable. This is only a few years growth, so it does show just how clean the air is there.
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| Moss growth on old concrete blocks. |
Thursday 26th February
There were two plus points first thing this morning at Winchcombe Yard. First, it was not raining and most of the puddles in the yard had dried out. Second we welcomed a new recruit, Martin (S). Use of a suffix is because we now have two Martins on the team. However no confusion today as Martin (J) was away.
The increase in team size will enable us to tackle more of the tasks on on ‘to do’ list. Even allowing for planned and unplanned absences, most weeks we will most likely be able to have two groups working at two work sites. So it was today.
Also welcomed was a donated Einhell portable submersible electric pump. Not only was this donated, it was delivered to Winchcombe too. Many thanks to the donator from Powick.
Polly, Nigel, Dave and Jonathan worked on the Stowe Road down side improvement. The task today was concreting the base of the new chamber on the cutting crest by the road. The dryer weather over the past couple of days helped here, the land drain the passes through the new chamber was no running. So after pumping the bottom of the chamber out; the concrete could go in. A good stiff (almost dry) 4:1 mix using some quick setting cement was the order of the day. Nigel was chief mixer, working on the old garden centre site by Toddington Station. Jonathan then took the mix in the telehandler bucket to the site; where Dave and Polly carefully guided the placement. The base used three mixes; so about a third of a cubic metre of material.
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| Nigel loads a mix of concrete into the telehandler bucket. [Photo by Dave] |
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| Polly directs Jonathan driving the telehandler to deposit the mix in the chamber. [Photo by Dave] |
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| With the concrete based levelled, Polly takes the final measurements to determine the number of bricks we need for the initial brick courses. [Photo by Dave] |
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| End of day with the site fenced off again, safety marker tape around the excavation and two old barriers placed to stop anything falling down the hole. [Photo by Dave] |
The second group, John, Peter, Ian, Stuart and Martin (S), undertook a variety of jobs at Stanton. First was at syphon cross drain 6C on the low mileage side of Stanton Fields bridge (7). This was to rod out the inlet pipe on the down (Cotswold) side. This was partially successful – a larger diameter and stiffer rod head will be required to finish the task. On the up (Malvern) side, they also rodded the outlet pipe. The exit of this is well outside the railway boundary, and we know that it is partially obstructed. Rodding here confirmed that the obstruction is beyond the boundary. Fortunately 6C normally carries very little water. However, there was evidence that it had been flowing in the recent wet period.
Next was a check at the larger syphon culvert 7A, just on the low mileage side of the B4632 road bridge (8). This is one where the outlet ditch in the adjoining land downstream is in poor condition. So during very wet weather the outlet overflows into the up side cess. Hence the check here to ensure that this had been coping – there was no sign of flooding on the vacant tracked bed on the up side.
Next to be checked was Stanton Aqueduct (bridge 9). The additional French drains added here last year have made an improvement; so too has the piping of the inlet direct into the trough of the aqueduct. Unfortunately there is still some run off from the adjoining fields on the down side that is percolating down the cutting side. Between the aqueduct and Stanton Road bridge, there are three land drains which enter the cutting. As these were probably not flowing, a quick check failed to spot the outlets as the vegetation needs some attention. We plan to pipe or channel these direct into the down side cess – a task that the expanded team will enable an earlier start.
Final task for the Stanton 5 was to check culvert 11A and cross drain 11B to the south of Stanton Yard. Our major diversion of 11B outlet here appears to be 100% successful. Everything was flowing well and there was no evidence of any flooding of the inlet channels and no standing water in the adjoining fields.
Andrew was the tenth member of the team attending today. Most of his day was taken up with a meeting with the Chief Civil Engineer, the Infrastructure Manager, and the bridges and structures teams. An objective was to ensure no conflicts in the planned work of the teams. As we now have more man (and woman) power, the drainage team will be undertaking a few jobs on non-drainage structures. One could be as early as next week.
Wildlife report: One member reported spotting a stoat on the journey into Winchcombe. As we have remarked before, distinguishing a stoat from a weasel when only glimpsed is extremely difficult. Apart from that we had nothing unusual or rare to report. A couple of members remarked that a sign of the increasing hours of daylight is that the dawn chorus now occurs before getting up on working days. Next week we are into metrological spring – so we are all hoping for drier and warmer and importantly sunnier weather. Not a lot to ask, really.
