Two day week

For some members of the team there were two consecutive work days this week.

Wednesday 8^th April

Five of the team (John, Phil, Ian, Peter, Andrew) attended the Safety in the Use of Abrasive Wheels training course at Toddington. Run by Toddington workshop manager, Geoff Goring, this course covered all the essential points when using both portable and fixed wheel tools. Plus some practical experience both in a workshop environment and outside.

In the afternoon, John and Andrew assisted Infrastructure Manager (Sarah Clayton) and Chief Civil Engineer (Peter Brown) with some surveying at the slip site between Gotherington and Bishops Cleeve. Part of the remediation work is the provision of a new toe ditch on the up (Malvern) side at the foot of the embankment inside the boundary fence. The objectives of the survey were to determine the length of the this new ditch (it will extend beyond the actual slip site); and to decide which existing cross drain outlet it should empty into. Additionally we also looked at potential access routes for the contractors plant. As ever with lineside work, embankments (and cuttings) make access from both above and below tricky.

The low spring sunshine and cut vegetation reveal the old medieval ridge and furrow farming patterns at the foot of the up side embankment south of Gotherington. 

Sarah and Peter setting off the explore the area just outside of the railway boundary.

Thursday 9^th April

Today we had a variety of odd jobs to keep the attending eleven team members busy.

Polly, Martin (J) and Peter headed to Stanley Pontlarge where the main task was to remove the build up of sandy silt from the outlet of cross drain 28A. A surprising amount had built up since we last performed this operation back in the autumn. Whilst there, the group checked the roadside gullies underneath bridge 28. This is one of several underbridges which can get flooded if the gullies are obstructed. Then back to Working Lane for another of the regular tasks, cleaning the exit grill of culvert 24C. With over a week of almost dry weather, the level of water in the outlet ditch was low enough to undertake some debris removal. We are always surprised at the amount of debris that accumulates here. One of the bars on the exit grill had broken since the previous visit. This will require fixing, or maybe if the drier weather continues we might be able to rebuilt the exit here.

Pete (l) and Polly on the exit of 24C. [Photo by Martin(J)]

Back at Winchcombe, Jonathan and Ian were under taking vehicle maintenance. Some of this was routine, and some more of a repair. Special attention was given to the white Ranger, thoroughly cleaning the inside and outside as the First Response team will be using this as their control vehicle during the Vintage Weekend event.

Dave, Dee and Nigel spent some time painting some of the new milepost heads we have in stock. Particular attention was given to the insides of ‘hollow’ heads; as we have noticed that these tend to weather faster than the solid ones.

Dave and Dee painting milepost heads.

Phil, Andrew and Martin (S) made a start on materials reorganisation around the wooden shed. This was in order to extract some concrete kerb stones required for the Stowe Road improvements at Toddington and some concrete chamber lids needed in the afternoon; and also to measure up the lengths of flexible twinwall pipe we have for use in the new toe drain at Gotherington. The other objectives of this ‘spring clean’ were to consolidate all our materials near the wooden shed, and to re-stack other building materials on stronger pallets. This required Jonathan with the telehandler, and the three painters to help with stacking bricks and blocks. For a couple of hours it was like a giant Chinese puzzle, moving pallets around. All the major moves were completed by lunchtime, in order for the telehandler to go to Halls for its annual safety checks. Some of the unusable materials went on the scrap heap, whilst most of the rotten wood and damaged skips made a one way journey to the bonfire.

Jonathan concentrating on getting positioning of the telehandler spot on.

A lot neater and tidier, we can now see what we have got! The area behind the wooden shed on the left will be next.

Most of the team congregated in the mess at Churchward House for lunch. However a couple braved the breezy cool weather on the platform to watch the trains.

After lunch; five of the team, Dave, Nigel, Pete, Martin (J) and Martin (S), took the extracted concrete chamber lids down to the cutting leading to Greet Tunnel. They replaced the broken lids on five of the cess chambers leading up to the tunnel mouth. With the unavailability of the telehandler; recovery of the broken lids was not possible. They are the very old thick lids which are too heavy to move manually. The option of a rail mounted trolley was out of the question as well, since passenger trains were running.

One of the broken lids was both large and thick, it required a four-man lift (Pete, Nigel, Martin(J) and Martin(S). [Photo by Dave]

The down side cess chamber near the sleeper built hut that the Heritage team are reconstructing just required one lid replacing. [Photo by Dave]

An interesting comparison between the old thick lids and the 'newer' thin one. [Photo by Dave]

Phil and Polly helped make more space in the yard by removing one of the redundant IBU plastic tanks. Jonathan, Ian and Andrew worked on milepost upright preparation. This included cutting the good sections out of the bridge rail lengths recovered from the old fence at Stowe Road. This was hard work, even using the powerful rail saw borrowed (with permission) from PWay. We just wonder how the Victorian GWR engineers cut this stuff.

Jonathan in flame retardant PPE takes the rail saw to a length of bridge rail.

Wildlife report: A few years ago, sighting a Red Kite was a rarity. Now we take them for granted as we regularly see pairs all along the line. The interesting observations are to note whether it is crows, gulls or buzzards mobbing them. One pair of kites are nesting just north of Winchcombe yard, one of these was making regular low passes over the yard. No doubt checking to see if our clearance work had uncovered any rodents. We saw no rodents, just lots of spiders and woodlice, especially underneath old pallets that had rotted. Those that took lunch on the platform at Winchcombe observed a couple of grey squirrels bounding in the pine trees on the up side. At Stanley Pontlarge, a wren was observed. Finally, after a few sunny and warm (well hot really) days; there was a very noticeable increase in butterfly activity.

Red admiral. [Photo by Dave]

And finally..... 

Every GWSR blog has to have a picture of GWR Railcar No 22. This was early on Wednesday morning, before it was moved from the Toddington unloading road after it's arrival the previous evening.

Filling in

Thursday 2^nd April

A day when the feeling of the weather changed from winter to spring as the day progressed. Again a dozen of the team in attendance, working at two sites. Both sites involved filling in work.

On the up side River Isbourne steps, John and Martin (J) installed the last two old car tyres. They filled these in with spoil and stone that was left in a dumpy bag in the yard. Ian was also working at Winchcombe, he assembled the two new brushcutters obtained with the Farming in Protected Landscapes grant. Later in the day he assisted the electricians undertaking PAT testing of our newly acquired mains electrical items. Meanwhile, after completing the Isbourne steps, John and Martin sorted out some of the lengths of old scaffolding that we are going to use a headwall safety markers.

The other nine team members were engaged on the Stowe Road drainage improvement at Toddington. Peter and Dave took the tipper Transit to collect a tonne of No1 stone from our supplier in Bishops Cleeve. Jonathan drove the telehandler up to Toddington; using this to tip into the ditch is more controlled than from the tipper Transit. Dee, Phil, Martin (S), Polly, Nigel and Andrew were the rest of the crew.

First job was to fit the blue mesh GRP chamber lid, which is bolted down. Then some left over stone from a pervious job went into the ditch. Next the we cut the length of half perforated pipe to fit the ditch and installed it. This did involve a slight enlargement of the hole in the chamber rings, as the pipe has a slight rise away from the chamber to ensure water flows. Then a final check of the pipe gradient and in went the stone collected from Bishops Cleeve. The one tonne we obtained was the perfect amount. 

Peter and Dave bolt down the blue mesh chamber lid.

Martin (S) fettles the hole for the pipe guided by Dee from above. We do not often have tasks best undertaken by lying down. [Photo by Dave]

The half perforated pipe in the ditch.

Using the telehandler ensures a more controlled deposit of No1 stone. [Photo by Dave] 

After lunch the ditch was in-filled to ground level. The telehandler proving useful here as the now dried clay is not easy to shovel by hand. Also we use the telehandler to extract the remaining length of bridge rail from the old fence. It, and the length removed last week, were loaded onto the LWB Transit and taken back to Winchcombe for use a milepost uprights. 

Extracting the upright length of bridge rail. 

Finally we cleared the site of all the metal, wood, concrete and vegetation debris, removing them to appropriate disposal sites at Toddington and Winchcombe. At the road end of the ditch we inserted a vertical length of large twin wall pipe. This is temporary shuttering, it will be removed when we install a concrete catchment area with a gutter gully. 

Securing the site with the temporary heras fence panels after clearing all the debris. Note the temporary vertical pipe as a placeholder for the run-off and gutter gulley.

Wildlife report: Certainly it is now spring – several lineside fields are bright yellow with oil seed rape; blackthorn is in full blossom, with pear trees and hawthorn starting to bloom. On the ground we spotted plenty of primroses and a few bluebell buds beginning to open. Also a lot of dandelions, probably the most overlooked spring flower. At Toddington we added Goldfinch to the list of observed bird species.