Good progress

Thursday 26^th March

All twelve team members working today were glad that the weather did not repeat the previous days temporary reversion to winter. Although rather chilly first thing, the strong sunshine made it look a lot more like spring. Most importantly, no rain or other forms of precipitation!

Dee, Phil, Martin (J), Peter and Stuart worked on the tyre-steps at the River Isbourne bridge. They used up all the stock of tyres we collected a few weeks ago, plus two telehandler bucket loads of spent ballast and spoil. This almost completed the steps, we are two tyres short. The resulting steps are a lot easier and safer to use than the wooden peg ones. Cost of materials is a lot less than building wooden steps. However, the installation effort is not insignificant – certainly not as easy as the YouTube videos imply!

Stuart checking the levels from the bottom of the steps. [Photo by Martin(J)]

The almost complete set of steps. [Photo by Peter]

Polly, Dave, Nigel, John, Jonathan and Andrew progressed the new crest ditch at Stowe Road, Toddington. They installed the GRP rings which form the new chamber; and excavated the crest ditch which runs almost to the roadside boundary. Most of the excavated material from the ditch was used as backfill around the chamber. A bonus was the removal of part of the old bridge rail fence support. This has a sufficient non-corroded length to become a milepost upright.

Trial fitting of the GRP chamber rings. After measuring we moved one of the thinner rings from the top to the bottom, as this then made the ditch less deep and thus reduced the amount of excavation. [Photo by Dave]

Jonathan excavating the ditch whilst Nigel, John and Dave backfill around the chamber rings. The ladder and spirt level were used to check the depth of the ditch excavation.

Site secured at end of day with the necessary warning signs. Removed length of bridge rail just visible - we were not able to take this back to Winchcombe as the tail-lift fitted Transit was out of action.

Roger was our twelfth man. He spent the day in the workshop at Winchcombe cutting numerals for mileposts from acrylic sheet. This does produce some neater looking numbers that casting in our concrete moulds. Additionally by using black coloured sheet, it will avoid the need for painting.

Wildlife report: Pheasants seem to be out in force today – there was even one in Winchcombe Yard. We spotted a large flock of crows in a field near Toddington – probably eating freshly sown seed. Lambs in one of the fields adjacent to Stowe Road confirmed that this is spring.