Eleven divided into three

Thursday 29th October

Three work sites today, with eleven of the team attending. Hence two groups of three and one of five. (Three groups of 3.66666 recurring does not work well!)

Peter, Martin (S), Dee, Ian and Laurence formed the large group. Their task was more clearance on the former garden centre site at Toddington. The main object was to clear the vegetation from both sides of the fence which formerly separated the garden centre from the area behind the toilet block. They also recovered a large rectangular concrete chamber ring, probably left behind on our site by the house builders next door. This group had the use of the LWB Transit pickup fitted with a tail lift. So they journeyed to and from Toddington along the track bed, enabling delivery and collection of tools and materials for the second group.

Roger, Phil and Nigel formed the second group. Their task was the repointing of cracked brickwork at the entrance and exit of culvert 17B. Roger started with the repointing at the inlet end (down or Cotswold side of the line). Nigel and Phil began removing the accumulated silt at the outlet end (up or Malvern side of the line). This was causing the water in the bore to pond near the exit; initially this was over a foot deep. This was extremely heavy work, shovelling the silt into buckets; then hauling the buckets up and emptying the contents as infill behind the headwall. They probably removed over a ton of material – for which they both deserve hero’s medals. The result was impressive, the water level dropped by about 9 inches. This allowed Roger to work on the cracks at the exit end. As with quite a few of our culverts (and cross drains), there will always be some pooling water in the bore as the exit ditches beyond our boundary are obstructed.

Low mileage down side (inlet) of 17B after repointing. [Photo by Roger]

Nigel fills another bucket of wet heavy silt at the exit of 17B. [Photo by Roger]

Finally, Andrew, John and Stuart were the third group. They continued with our annual programme of culvert & cross drain clearance and visual inspects. Today it was was just two structures, cross drains 20B and 20C at Chicken Curve. Whilst neither of these are large; they involve a lot of clearance work. 20B has two long inlet ditches running from both low mileage cess drains. Whilst 20C has a large apron on the inlet side – this was full of grass growing on a bed of silt. Interestingly the stream which feeds 20C, alongside the orchard, was bone dry. However, the cess drains and ditches that feed 20B showed signs of very recent flow. No doubt this was the run off from the three storms in the last week (Austen, Boelo and one unnamed). This just shows how important cess drains are to ensure the trackbed stays dry and stable.

Stuart removing moss from the mortar joins in the outlet headwall of 20B.

John and Stuart take a break from clearing the inlet of 20B.

2807 heads a down train at Chicken Curve.

We could not resist another photo of black five 45110, especially when hauling the blood & custard set of carriages.

 

Wildlife report: At Chicken Curve we heard a woodpecker – but with out a visual sighting could not confirm the exact species. The swarms of flies are still about – attracted to the white vehicles and other reflecting surfaces. We also noted a ladybird. Along the top of the embankment at Chicken Curve there is plenty of yellow toadflax (linaria vulgaris), also variously known as butter-and-eggs, wild snapdragon, or flaxweed. The north west corner of the orchard has a very good reed bed – but we did not have the time to wait to see if there are reed buntings or bearded tits nesting there.

Yellow toadflax (linaria vulgaris)