Back from hols, and there is good progress to report at CRC2. There have been three different activities (broadly speaking) so I will report in chronological order over the next couple of days.

 

The exciting prospect was the laying of some 200 new platform coping slabs using a road-railer and trolley, but before this could be done, the northern half of the platform had to have it's drain completed and be at least partially back filled. Day one, June 1st, therefore covers this activity.

It was a grey day, and 8 volunteers came to help. 

 

Before you start, you need some material to back fill with, so Elliott's came with 3 loads of 20 tons each. JC is making sure it hits the right spot. 60 tons duly delivered.

 

Then you can start loading the dumpers. They only take one ton each, as they have to be small enough to wriggle in behind the wall, and alongside the rear drain. Here you can see Ron loading the first dumper up with rubble. This can be a very dusty activity, but not here, as it was such a damp day. Yesterday (June 15th) was a different story, but we shall come to that later.

 

After a short run down behind the wall, Tony is seen here unloading in front of JC and John O, who will spread the load to make a level surface, approx 9ins deep. We don't fill the wall all in one go, but add several of these layers, compacting each one in turn. For the lower 2 layers, we also add a drain and above it a second layer of pea gravel. You can see JC standing in a trench made ready for the second layer of pea. More scaffolding boards and bricks have been laid along the wall in readiness.

 

Once the material is dumped and the eager volunteers have jumped on it to shovel it away, Tony has the tricky task of reversing back all the way to the beginning, without hitting either the wall or the cutting side. With 60 tons delivered and two dumpers on site, that's 30 reversals for each operator. Per layer! You can see the tight clearances involved by looking at Tony's wheels by the scaffolding board. But by now we are a well oiled machine, and things have gone very well indeed, and nothing untoward to report.

 

With the second layer of back fill and pea gravel completed, the space behind the wall was wide enough to accept the vibrating roller. This is a rather meatier machine than last time (on the southern portion), and it could be heard some distance away in our car park.

Ron and JC returned on Tuesday June 2nd to complete this job. This gave the slab layers, due on June 8th, a level surface to stand on all along the rear of the platform. 

 

A start was also made on clearing the site. We have now finished laying bricks, but two pallets of blues remained on top of the cutting side. Stevie Warren came along with the JCB and picked them up out of the long grass, and after a temporary placing next to the box, they are now by the car park, waiting for transport to Winchcombe.

 

Next: The slabbing adventure! We will provide a full report with pictures tomorrow.