Off with their heads!

Thursday 30^th April

Another working day when we had multiple groups working at multiple locations.

First group out of Winchcombe yard were Dave, Phil, Peter, Polly and Jonathan. Their destination was Stow Road Bridge at Toddington. Today’s task was to complete the backfilling of the entry gully chamber; and then to add two rows blue engineering bricks as copings. With the backfilling complete, Jonathan returned to Winchcombe Yard to locate the materials for the replacement boundary fence, and to check out that the powered auger was working.

Polly laying the coping bricks on the gulley inlet. [Photo by Dave]

The completed gully inlet - but with temporary covers. [Photo by Dave]

Bretton Grange pulling away from Toddington with an up train. [Photo by Dave]

Found at Stowe Road, a tall narrow Bovril bottle with a long neck. This is likely to date from around 1900 to 1913, so may have been dropped by one of the navvies building the railway. [Photo by Dave]

 

Next to depart were Dee, Martin (J), Stuart and John Their first task was replacing a broken cess chamber lid at Didbrook. An easy task – once the offending chamber was located. Next they proceeded to Stanton Fields to undertake rodding out of the down side inlet bore of syphon cross drain 6C. This proved to be a tricky operation; the bore was almost bone dry and the obstruction was mainly soil. So each push of the drain rods only brought out a small quantity of material.

Final departure from the yard consisted of Ian, Roger, Martin (S) and Andrew. They headed to Manor Lane, Gotherington. Andrew went down to the slip site to inspect progress. The contractors have installed some additional perforated twinwall pipes in the reconstructed embankment. So the position of these were noted. Once the embankment reinstatement is complete, we are going to install new toe drains alongside the boundary hedge. These are going to run to the outlet of cross drain 37D. As the new twinwall pipe also drain into this, we will improve the exit chamber of this at our boundary. The outlet of 37C would be more suitable, however to use that we would need to make water run up hill.

The new embankment drain pipe entering the outlet ditch of cross drain 37D.

 

The other end of the new pipe at the boundary of the new infill.

Unloading of the infill delivered in Dogfish wagons from Cheltenham requires a shute and two excavators. When the material is slightly damp, it requires more encouragement to exit the Dogfish hoppers.

From the inlet of 37D, an unusual picture of an 03 shunter against a deep blue sky.

Meanwhile, the other three of this group attended to mileposts 16 and 15 & three quarters; either side of Manor Lane Bridge. Whilst both of these have bridge rail posts, their heads were the yellow BR style – made from fibre glass. These heads were removed (executed?); the bridge rail wire brushed down and then painted with black MIO.

Milepost 16 decapitated.

Same treatment for 15 & three quarters.

Next site for this group was Working Lane. Ian and Martin (S) performed some clearance around milepost 13 – mainly sycamore and willow saplings. Andrew and Roger met with Peter Brown, the Chief Civil Engineer, to discuss work to improve the drainage between the up side embankment toe and the Working Lane to Royal Oak haul road. This is the site of a historic slip, probably back in BR days. There is a french drain which terminates in a head wall that is now leaning at an angle. Also, the construction of the haul road after the Greet tunnel slip around 10 years ago has lead to some spots where water pools during wet weather. Our plan is to add some more pipes under the haul road and to dig out some ditches between the embankment and the haul road. Potentially we will tackle this in two stages, starting with a rebuild of the leaning headwall.

All three groups met up back at Winchcombe for lunch. After lunch some of the team sorted out and measured the fencing material for Stowe Road. The rest of the team continued with milepost construction. One length of bridge rail was wire brushed down, the new head for 16 was completed and one of the recovered hollow heads from Laverton was taken apart. This has not weathered at all well, the only reuseable component being the architrave at the bottom.

New head for milepost 16 - using acrylic numbers.

Wildlife report: Suddenly chestnut trees, both horse and sweet, are in full boom. Also in full bloom are the blue flowers of borage, lots of this at the foot of the Working Lane haul road. The cuttings and embankments which were cut back last autumn and winter are rapidly regrowing. And on those cut two years ago a lot of sycamore and ash saplings are pushing up. No unusual bird or mammal sightings today, apart from a skull found at Stanton Fields. This looks to us like it was once a fox.

Fox skull. [Photo by Martin (J)]

Not a cloud in the sky, and plenty of hawthorn blossom. The stunning view north west from Gotherington.