Cool and dark

A catch-up-post covering three weeks (but only two work days) due to the Team Leader taking another holiday.

Thursday 6^th August

Eight of the team were in attendance.

Nigel, Polly, Dee and Jonathan headed to Pecked Lane Crossing, Bishop's Cleeve. Jonathan continued clearing sift from culvert 39A and its approach on the down side, as well as removing some accumulated debris on the up side, accessed through the manhole in the footpath to the crossing. The silt accumulation continues all the way through the culvert and, short of using a water jet, it will be very difficult to remove it all.

Because of this remaining silt, all the water flowing into culvert 39A on the down side continues to find its way into our down side cess through an overflow pipe. This appears to be about 6in diameter in the high mileage sidewall of the culvert approach. The consensus is that this overflow pipe should be blocked up so that the water flows through the culvert, and the use of a bung, which could easily be removed again should the need arise, was discussed by the team.

Some repointing of the down side culvert sidewalls was also carried out.

Nigel, Polly and Dee continued clearing round and removing silt from the cess chambers south of Pecked Lane Crossing on the up (Malvern) side. A broken cess chamber lid was replaced, and a metal grid lid installed further south, at 17¾ miles on the down (Cotswold) side, where a missing lid had been reported. As we had discovered a few weeks ago with a missing lid at milepost 17, the errant lid was in the chamber, so can hopefully be retrieved using straps at some point. There are still further chambers on the up side to investigate - we got as far as the chamber at rail length 20.

Removing silt from a cess chamber. [Photo by Dave]

Phil, Martin [J], Peter and Dave started the day with a trip to a landowner site by Southam Lane Bridge at the top of Kayte Lane. Here, a length of Palisade fencing had been installed by Tom Clarke at the top of the slope down to the track, but a further length of the boundary of the site, where it starts to slope down to our track, needed to be fenced off. We installed about 15 lengths of Heras fencing to complete the barrier between the landowner's site and our land.

Installing the Heras fence panels. [Photo by Dave]

Following this, the group ventured further south, to beyond the running line, to culvert 45A, where Wyman Brook runs under the embankment. The task here was to measure up for a key clamp style barrier across the top of the headwall to help prevent falls from the narrow (unofficial) path across the headwall into the brook, some 2m below.

Culvert 45A outlet headwall which is to be fenced off. [Photo by Dave]

The group then joined the other group at Pecked Lane to assist in the work there.

Wednesday 12^th August

The destination of the team leader's holiday was Iceland, primarily to view the total solar eclipse. Certainly the weather was cooler, damper and during the total phase of the eclipse darker than that in Winchcombe. Some of the other team members requested snow and ice to be brought back.

Despite some high cloud, the sun's corona and a prominence (the red dot on the left) were visible during totality.

Iceberg - too large to bring back!

Iceland currently has no railways. However, between 1913 and 1928 the 900mm gauge Reykjavik Harbour Railway carried rock used in the construction of the harbour and breakwaters. The railway was operated by two steam locomotive built by the Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik of Germany. This is Minør, now an open-air static exhibit on the quay side in Reykjavíkn. 

Wildlife report: Common dolphins, minke whales, humpback whales, orcas and puffins were amongst the wildlife spotted which are very unlikely to visit Gloucestershire. Also unlikely to be found beside our railway are most of the plants in the Akureyri Botanical Garden, as they are mostly arctic and high altitude species.

Icelandic or Arctic poppy [Papaver nudicaule]

Thursday 13^th August

The weather forecast correctly predicted a hot day; it turned out to be the hottest day of the year (so far) in many parts of the Midlands. Consequently, in line with the railway cancelling all passenger trains, the deputy team organiser cancelled the planned drainage work.

Thursday 20^th August

For Phil, Dee, Martin [S] and John the first item for the day was attending the education class on the Confined Spaces working methods. Once completed they, together with Jonathan, proceeded to Pecked Lane at Bishops Cleeve. Here they were able to apply their training to facilitate on work inside culvert 39A. This included fitting bungs into the overflow pipe into the down side cess. Observation at the first down stream cess chamber showed that the flow was considerably reduced, but not entirely stopped. So a further visit will be required to apply some sealant.

Inside 39A, the blue mark shows the location of the now partially plugged 'overflow' to the down side cess. [Photo by Jonathan]

The 39A exit outside of railway property - most of the flow will now come here. [Photo by Jonathan]

Roger, Nigel and Dave headed to Dixton Cutting. Starting at Prescott Road Bridge (32) they cut the vegetation around all the cess chambers and mileposts through the cutting to Gotherington Yard. They also cleared the sections of the up side cess drain which uses concrete troughs and lids, this is to make them more visible to trackside workers – the lids break if driven over. The group also cleared silt, debris and vegetation from the inlet and outlet ditches of cross drain 33A.

Nigel clearing around an up side cess chamber by Dixton Road Bridge (33). [Photo by Dave]

Cracked and dry silt in the 33A inlet. [Photo by Dave]

Roger clearing out the 33A inlet. [Photo by Dave]

Stuart, Peter, Martin [J] and Andrew’s destination was cross drain 31A, between JJ Farms bridge (31) and Prescott Road Bridge (32). The task was to start clearance work on the inlet pit on the down side in preparation for the rebuild later this year. The main objectives were to facilitate an access down the embankment, to check whether the existing sandbag pit has a concrete base (it doesn’t) and to explore potential access routes for our mini-digger. On the outlet (up or Malvern side) the exit ditch was cleared to the boundary fence.

Stuart finishes the brush cutting around the 31A inlet pit.

31A inlet, showing deteriorating sand bags and collapsing shoring of the adjoining land. 

31A outlet with the ditch cleared and the remains of the headwall revealed.

Wildlife report: We found plenty of wild hops growing on the top of the down side embankment at cross drain 31A. These were not quite ripe, unlike some of the blackberries on nearby brambles. Whilst in the sky we spotted red kites, buzzards, black birds and starlings; we heard a woodpecker, but with out a sighting could not confirm the exact species.

Hops - probably a wild version of the Fuggles cultivar.

Blackberries. [Photo by Dave]

And finally…

I thought there was only one Father Christmas. But it looks like a second Santa exists, as he will have his own container in Winchcombe Yard!