BRIDGE 12 - STANWAY VIADUCT – KING-POST GROUND
STABILISATION PROJECT
As with a few of our bridges the viaduct has a problem
with ground erosion where the brick wing walls end and the embankments start. This
slowly causes the track bed to become undermined.
All 4 corners of the viaduct
are affected to some extent, those at the north end being the worst.
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| Current ballast restraint, north end of Stanway viaduct. |
Some years
ago a retention scheme using redundant concrete sleepers was installed, but the
ground movement has slowly continued, allowing the sleepers to start leaning.
At the north end on the upside the ground of the sloping embankment
is now almost 1M below the track bed level.
Following a massive vegetation clearance by our
clearance team, a detailed topographical survey was carried out by Surveyors,
Horner’s from Evesham, to establish the existing ground profile.
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| Tripod drilling rig |
Then, to
identify what the soil was like, a ground investigation was carried out by
G.I.P. of Wolverhampton using a tripod drilling rig, and soil tests
were done on the samples taken.
With this information available, a scheme has been
designed by consultant J. Symonds to provide a more permanent
solution. The contractors - Walsh’s of Worcester - started work on Wed. 13th
Feb.
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| Trench |
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| Drilling with auger. |
The first task was to excavate a trench deep enough for the new “walls”
and to make room for drilling holes for the king-posts to be installed. Next a 360 excavator with an augering tool attached drilled holes app
450mm diam. down app. 3M into the ground.
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| Channel section attached to brickwork. |
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| Galvanised steel columns and brackets. |
Then 152 x 152 steel column
sections, with a galvanised finish, were lowered into each hole and were
concreted into place.
Because the ground is clay dumped from the cutting
excavations it is not very well consolidated and so the tops of the king-posts
will be tied together with steel bars below the track bed, using the brackets
which are just visible. Where the viaduct walls end a 150 x 90 R.S. channel
section is bolted to the brickwork.
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| Lowering SH concrete sleepers into the sections |
Once the concrete has hardened sufficiently concrete
sleepers, which are no longer suitable for track laying, are lowered into the steel
sections.
The next task will be to excavate a narrow trench
beneath the track bed to take the 25mm diam tie bars.
Once the tie bars are in place the space between the
new sleeper wall and the edge of the track bed will be filled with ballast to
stabilise the edges, which were starting to be undermined.
BR’s 24 (GREET TUNNEL), 43 (A435 – EVESHAM ROAD
BRIDGE) & BR. 44 (HUNTING BUTTS TUNNEL) – DETAILED EXAMINATIONS. Mon. 18th
to Thursday 21st Feb. incl.
As part of our continuing bridge examination
programme, these 3 structures were due for their Detailed Examination, which we
aim to do at no more than 6 year intervals. This matches the time scale used
by Network Rail. These are fitted around the Annual Visual Inspections
currently being done by our engineer – Alastair Watson.
As with all our structures vegetation is a constant
nuisance and a very large clearance job was organised by Mike Peers using two
contractors. That work extended to the land at the south end of Hunting Butts tunnel and
right down to Br. 45 (Swindon Lane), to enable a detailed examination of the
south end of Hunting Butts tunnel & Br. 45 Swindon Lane to be done later in the
year.
Br. 24 (Greet tunnel) – Due to the size of these structures (app
7.5M to the crown of the brick arches) it is necessary to use a MEWP (Mobile
Elevating Working Platform – railway name & abbreviation for a cherry
picker).
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| Road/Rail MEWP |
Unfortunately there is no road access to the tunnel and so a much more
expensive Road/Rail MEWP has to be used. This was transferred from road to rail
in Winchcombe yard, where it travelled up to the Greet tunnel. The
examination work took 2 days (more photos to follow).
Br. 43 (A435 Evesham Road Bridge) – This is a 3-arch brick structure carrying the
busy A435 road to Evesham. We had a choice of a Road/Rail MEWP, or an underbridge unit. A Road/Rail MEWP has some restrictions in trying to get into
the two side arches and so we decided to use an underbridge unit instead.
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| A435 half closed at Cheltenham Race Course. |
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| CRC side arch inspection with underbridge unit. |
This
machine would be parked on top of the bridge and thread its arms wherever it
could. The road had to have a half closure and we had to provide traffic
management. Glos. C.C. restricted us to between 9.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. This took just one day and more photos will follow.
Br. 44 (Hunting Butts tunnel) – This tunnel has always been packed with wagons (mostly awaiting removal from the railway), since the tracks were first
laid into it nearly 20 years ago.
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| Privately owned goods wagons drawn out of the tunnel. |
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| Road/Rail MEWP on its way south through CRC station. |
All of these had to be dragged out and
parked in P. 2 at CRC, with some from the down side shunted onto the
up side, just outside the tunnel.
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| Inspection of north portal of Hunting Butts tunnel. |
The final photograph shows the MEWP with engineers on
board, inspecting the north portal. The work took just one day.
23.2.2019 - JOHN BALDERSTONE
Photos courtesy of Alastair Watson, John Balderstone
& Jonathan Symonds.
Thanks for that extensive report!
ReplyDeleteDid the inspections reveal any problems that need to be dealt with?
Noel
It will be a few weeks before we get the reports from the examination contractor.
DeleteExellent work at Stanway viaduct , Lets hope we do not have to spend any ££ on Hunting Butts tunnel as we do not need to consider using it as part of the GWR ever again .Going south through a deep cutting is a No No .john M.
ReplyDeleteFraid not! Hunting Butts Tunnel and the trackbed just about to Swindon Lane bridge belongs to the GWSR and no-one else is going to look after it.
DeleteThere is always in the future the possibility for the line being extended again to Malvern Road
ReplyDeleteI doubt it will ever get that far. Have a look at the satellite view of the area on Google maps and see how much of the formation has been altered, built over and even removed.
DeleteThere's not anything that's properly irreversible there though. I'm not a massive advocate for extension in either direction but if you compare it to going the other direction to Honeybourne I feel Cheltenham comes out reasonably favourably.
DeleteNone of the formation south of CRC has been built on. That's the good news. Unfortunately there's some bad news, too.
DeleteA section of embankment at Pittville has been removed to put a new road through, and the bridge spanning the Waitrose access road is only a lightweight structure, not suitable for rail use. St George's Road bridge, at the junction of the Honeybourne Line with the branch to St James station, has been rebuilt with very low headroom, more like a pedestrian underpass.
So it would take some major civil engineering to restore the line. It would be possible to do it - the route is still clear. But the cost would be well into the millions.
There's also the awkward problem of providing a terminal station at the Cheltenham end of the line: there's nowhere to put one.
Malvern Road station is gone for good, I'm afraid. There's now a new housing development on the old loco yard (which unfortunately meant the GWR loco shed was demolished just last year), the eastern boundary of which runs along the edge of the southbound platform.
I think a single track plus cycleway could run through the site, and it might be possible to put in a single platform in a new position, and create a very basic station. But there's no room for a run-round loop or any extensive facilities.
Personally, I think the best option for the restoration of the railway through Cheltenham would be to reopen it as part of the National Network, with trains from Swindon and South Wales, which currently terminate at Cheltenham Spa (Lansdown) station, running up as far as Bishop's Cleeve via some sort of running powers arrangement - much as the Swanage Railway now accepts trains from Waterloo running to Corfe Castle.
This scenario has actually been considered, most recently in 2013, when £3.3 million was spent on drawing up redevelopment plans for Cheltenham Spa station.
The plan envisaged relaying the first few hundred yards of the Honeybourne line, into two new platforms on the Honeybourne line formation at Cheltenham.
The plans did not include any track relaying beyond Queens Road bridge, but the obvious advantages of restoring the line all the way up to CRC were discussed at the time.
Here's a news item with details of the plan:
http://tinyurl.com/cheltenham-station-plans-2013
Unfortunately the plans stalled for the usual reason: nobody was prepared to put up any money to take things further. The redevelopment of the station was reduced down to a new multi-story car park (currently under construction).
But the idea of extending National Network services north from Cheltenham along the Honeybourne line hasn't gone away. Sooner or later it'll be put back on the table.
Bishop's Cleeve is on its way to becoming a substantial town of around 20,000 people - almost the size of Penzance - and public transport will inevitably become an issue. From a public transport point of view, bringing the National Network up to meet the GWSR would be a far more viable option than extending the GWSR down to meet the National Network.
It would have great advantages for the GWSR. The GWSR would keep its main terminus at CRC (although special trains could go further south, and charter trains could come north on to GWSR metals), but the big plus point would be that the GWSR would get a connection into the centre of Cheltenham and the main line at no cost to itself.
As the owner of part of the trackbed, the GWSR would automatically be a major stakeholder in any such project, without having to spend any of its own cash. A nice situation to be in!
It's all a case of one-day-maybe, of course, so perhaps we shouldn't speculate too much...
But in the meantime, I do think an extension through Hunting Butts Tunnel to a station at Pittville would be viable. It's a good destination in its own right, within walking distance of the town centre. And the sight of rails at Pittville pointing south to Lansdown might just help to keep the reopening of the rest of the line on the agenda...
A concise report, very easy to understand, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI would agree there are many obstacles on the p way route to Malvern Road but the same sentiments were voiced when it was suggested the GCR north and South route be rejoined at Loughborough
ReplyDeletethe long missive from MJ is of no use to the GWSR , there are no plans to go south for the reasons he states , so why keep on raising the subject . if you read other blogs and work on the railway ,you should know the high costs of maintaining the 15 miles as shown on the recent CE blog . Contractors on Aqueduct , Viaduct ,and now Stanton Bridge looming up , mean that most plans to improve the railway's infrastructure have not started this year .
ReplyDeleteplease stop dreaming about Cheltenham , it's a NO NO .john M.
It may well be that the project is a "NO NO" but remember what Steam Railway said about the prospects of GWSR 30 years ago. What was thought impossible has been achieved - having these dreams can sometimes attract finance from unexpected sources.
DeleteQuite.
DeleteThe company's policy quite reasonably is a 5 year consolidation period.
But we need to keep our options open.
Where will we be in 50 years time? Isolated or connected? Will we rue then something we didn't do when we could?
I joined the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway Society (as it then was) as a teenager in 1981. I remember virtually every idea that was put forward over the years meeting a 'NO,NO, NO!' reaction - starting with the idea or restoring the line in the first place.
DeleteIf I remember correctly, someone quite high up in the Severn Valley Railway management wrote a very dismissive article in the railway press, claiming that there was no market for another heritage line in the West Midlands/South West area, and we were doomed to fail. That was a fairly common view at the time.
People also said it was far too big a job, given that there was nothing left but bare ballast. We'd have to rebuild a railway from nothing - it just couldn't be done. But we went ahead and did it.
It was suggested early on, as the first few yards of track were painstakingly laid at Toddington, that the only part of the line worth restoring was the Toddington - Winchcombe section, which would make a nice little preserved railway in itself. Going any further would be far too expensive, with major structures to maintain. It just couldn't be done. But we went ahead and did it.
When the railway's embankments started collapsing I heard the view expressed that this would finish the GWSR, especially when the insurers refused to cover the later slips, meaning the railway had to raise a million pounds and do the repairs itself. People said it couldn't be done. But we went ahead and did it.
I remember the arguments over the Broadway station rebuild, with views expressed (all the way to the top of the PLC board, if I recall correctly) that a basic, CRC-style station was all that was required. The notion of building a replica of the 1904 building, in all its Edwardian detail, was dismissed as an unnecessary indulgence, and far too difficult and expensive. It just couldn't be done. But we went ahead and did it.
I even recall some saying that extending the line to Broadway would be a disaster - an expensive white elephant that would never generate much extra revenue. Someone on the National Preservation forum argued, in all seriousness, that extending to Broadway was a mistake, and what the GWSR should really do was build a carriage shed - because rolling stock in nice condition would be much more of an attraction than trains to Broadway.
Well, I think a carriage shed would be a good idea (I understand there are plans for one), but to claim that by helping to keep the carriages in good condition a shed would generate more business than extending services to Broadway? Bizzare!
In short, EVERYTHING the GWSR has ever done has generated a negative reaction from someone, both inside and outside the railway. But history shows us that we can do anything we want to do, and make it a success.
Maybe not quickly, and maybe not easily, and sometimes with a bit of argy-bargy along the way - but we can do it.
I sometimes think that the GWSR really should have more confidence in itself. The achievements of the railway are stupendous. The GWSR is now one of the heavyweights of the heritage railway industry - and yet sometimes we seem so reluctant to punch our weight.
So, an extension to Pittville? Of course we could do it. We own the land, after all. It would make a lot of sense in that at present we have to maintain earthworks and structures on a part of the line that brings in no income. It would be nice if Hunting Butts tunnel could make a contribution to its upkeep.
Getting close enough to Cheltenham town centre to give the line a real destination at its south end would be a major plus - and it would help to keep the future of the rest of the line firmly on the agenda.
I don't think we should do it tomorrow, or even next year. But in - say - five years' time, when the current projects (Broadway platform 2, the carriage shed) are complete, there'll be an opportunity to get some new projects under way.
I think, eventually, we'll do it, and it'll be successful. Because that's what we do.
Well done Michael, faint heart never won fair lady!
DeleteWhere will we be in 50 years? Connected or not?
Totally agree. There's a number of obstacles in restoring any railway. The first and perhaps largest is a closed mind. The second is finance and the third is manpower or lack of it. The rest is merely the subject of numerous future railway history publications.
DeleteWhatever the future holds for the GWSR it should never be limited by a lack of ambition. Present day evidence shows this not to be much of a problem.
I agree, we own the track-bed to Pittville Park and are liable to maintain it anyway - no one else will. In its current state it is attracting vandalism, so keeping it clear of undergrowth, maintaining the drainage and the tunnel and over-bridge are all obligations. We are at a point where we have to consolidate 35 years of hard work - but laying track into Pittville and building a simple halt for dmu's would be good for people who want to access the railway on foot - and then who knows.....
ReplyDeletePittville Halt sounds a good idea and that would utilise Hunting Butts tunnel for everyone to travel through and might also solve the vandalism that seems evident on that part of the line
DeleteI have fond memories as a child of traveling regularly by train between Birmingham Snow Hill and Cheltenham Malvern road
ReplyDeleteThen as an adult Based at Saltley MPD regularly working one of the four freight trains a day over the same route the last train worked being two weeks before the derailment
We at Saltley had looked forward to the line reopening but we were very saddened when it was discovered someone had removed all of the track
When it was subsequently announced that the Fledgling GWRS had started to relay track we all looked forward to being able to relive our memories of the line again
Since the reopening of the line I have made several visits and I have been greatly impressed at the high quality of restoration of buildings and track and the professionalism of all concerned in the operation of the railway
Wherever the GWRS eventually extend the line I look forward to the opportunity to travel over it
some of us have punched our weight for several years to get to Broadway and we are rightly proud of our efforts ,but there are some ideas that do not stack up and Pittville is one of them .
ReplyDeleteThis is a personal opinion.
DeleteThe company's policy is to have a 5 year pause before reviewing our options.