Wet and dreary June

Most of the team were in attendance, with Roger on H&S duties - just a few away on holidays. The forecast was poor, with storms forecast and as most of our work is outside, this affects what we can do safely.

 

A certain faction within the team wanted to take advantage of the Boss (Team Leader) being away and some dodgy Engineer was standing in.  However, the latter managed for a short while to keep order and arrange for several strong Drainage Workers to manhandle bridge rail, which had been cleaned, painted and prepared to become mileposts.  These just needed four 10mm holes drilling and then the milepost heads can be fixed thereon.

 

A great piece of inter-Departmental assistance was demonstrated, with Stuart in Carriage and Wagon allowing the team to use his excellent facilities (a mag drill and steel support trestles) to make these holes.  Thanks, Sir.  The posts are now available for siting - the wooden post and yellow BR metal plate at 17 miles in Bishop's Cleeve will be one to be replaced, as it is ugly and broken.

The team then turned their attention to sorting through the donated scaffolding pipes and creating "goal-post" barriers for our headwall and chambers.  The idea is that these mark where headwall or chambers are located, so that when the robo-flail is being controlled by the remote operator, the latter can see where a structure is located and avoid it.  They also help hapless Drainage Workers (like this writer) and provide support when walking down steep embankments and prevent falls.  The donation of these almost-new lengths of steel handrail and connectors was through the good offices of David and we may be looking for more donations like this.  Some more lengths of tube were extracted from the yard and will be measured, cut and assembled into goal-posts.

A large part of the team then descended on the 11:27 to Broadway and planned to walk the trackbed north and inspect the chambers beyond the station, as these take the flow away from the station towards the bypass. They were thwarted by the security fencing (which is good) and were only able to peer through and see a couple of chambers.

Lunch was had as split teams and then two intrepid members mounted the head on MP 15/III, just south of Gotherington loop.

 

They then revisited the culvert at 37D, on the edge of the latest slip at Gotherington, to finish the wing wall by back-filling, removing the protective slop-board and trimming the land drain pipe. 

Barrier team

Stuart and Martin finishing the head for mp 15/III

Stuart checking the backfill at 37D.

 

All in all, an odd day dodging the rain, but many tasks ticked off, with proper teamwork.

Wildlife report An odd sighting was a goose, standing on the crown of the road in Gotherington as we tried to drive slowly by.  Many red kites were spotted, wheeling around in the sky and trying to avoid being mobbed by crows.  The rain had driven many creatures under cover.

 

[Guest blog writer Chief Engineer Ian] 

Many hands

Thursday 4th June

Fortunately today saw the largest attendance of a Drainage team working day for some while. Also fortunately, the weather was cooler and ground conditions softer. This enabled a planned task for the mini digger to be accomplished by hand.

Jonathan, Dee and Phil were first to depart from Winchcombe, heading to Pecked Lane at Bishops Cleeve. Their task was to clear accumulated debris from the trash screen on the inlet of culvert 39A. 

Also heading to Pecked Lane (eventually) were Roger and Martin (J). They were planning on painting milepost uprights and bridge parapet rails. However the ongoing showers prevented that; black MIO paint must not be applied when rain is likely. Hence they concentrated on de rusting the items that will be painted another day; and measured out the correct location for mile post 17. Currently this is a loose wooden post with a yellow BR style head leaning up against the boundary fence. To ensure that the replacement post is 440 yards from 16¾ and 440 yards from 17¼; they had to walk past the crossing to 17¼. On the way back they collected the wildlife monitoring cameras which had been placed to determined the amount of badger activity near milepost 16½.

The remaining members attending (John, Ian, Dave, Polly, Nigel, Andrew, Peter) travelled to the foot crossing between Gotherington and Bishops Cleeve. The prime task was to construct an extension to the low mileage wing wall of the outlet of cross drain 37D; incorporating the outlet of the new embankment drainage pipe in the slip repair. Also undertaken was the back filling of the raised exit chamber of 37D; usefully disposing of the old thick concrete lids and some other rubble.

37D final exit chamber completed with backfill.

Wingwall extension with outlet of the slip drainage pie. Sloop board temporary covering to prevent any rain washing out the mortar of the pointing.

With Jonathan, Dee and Phil joining the group, some final fencing work around the footpath was doen. This included treating the cut ends of the fence posts and rails. 

Cross drains 37C, and 37E were subjected to some preventative maintenance. The bores were rodded through, and inlets and outlet cleared of weeds. For the intermediate chamber of 37C we used grabs and a small shovel to remove the gravel and silt that has built up there. Whilst the amount of material removed was not huge, this regular cleaning such as this help prevent problems occurring.

37C intermediate chamber (up side), all clean.

37E inlet cleared of silt and growth on the concrete apron.

After lunch all twelve of the team set to work digging a ditch to insert the final length of perforated twinwall pipe that drains the repaired slip. This was the task that originally we had planned for the mini digger. As that was still in use on the platform extensions at Toddington; we decided to dig this by hand. With a large team; soft ground conditions and cool conditions, this did not take that long. Probably it took less time that it would have taken to get the mini digger on and off site!

Orange army at work! Ditch digging to bury the last length of the slip drainage pipe to run towards the boundary hedge.

Now you don't see it - apart from the very end at the boundary. We certainly proved the "Many Hands Make Light Work" idiom.

Wildlife report: The first arrivals at Manor Lane, Gotherington reported a roe deer. On the old lids of 37D we discovered a small mammal skull; maybe a rabbit. This might have been a victim of the raptors; we spotted both buzzards and red kites. Other bids noted today were black birds, song thrushes, robins, skylarks, chiffchaffs., long tailed tits and great tits. Lot of spiders in the chambers and bores of the cross drains. Ox eye daisies are plentiful on the up (Malvern) side of the embankment - that was the side which was cut last autumn with the robot flail.