Day four, and another good day's work at CRC2A.
Seven volunteers came today, just about do-able: one on the 360, one on each dumper, and 4 shovelling the infill as it arrives behind the platform. No reserves to give a bit of slack though.

Ron is about to receive a gift. Step aside now.

The day started with a fresh delivery of infill from the race course site. We needed it badly, as we had just about got through the last two lorry loads, and the situation is the same again this evening - none left. Luckily communications are good, and 20T can arrive quickly.

Can you come a little bit closer?

The job today began at the third level, where we had paused at the 38m mark last night. This level is really deep, nearly a foot, so filling was slow but persistence pays, and at the end of the day the third level up to 100m was achieved, and indeed rolled. Your scribe drove along the top of it with a first load  for the fourth level, and it feels very high. We are over half way up now, perhaps two more levels to do.

You may breathe this, there is no charge.

An issue which became quite prevalent today was dust. You can see on the photograph above that the foreground is damp where the Kier banksmen and ourselves had hosed it down, but in the background is the huge trail of dust being left by one of the spoil lorries. This dust billows across the site relentlessly from both sides of the railway. What can you expect, with all this sunny weather? The good news is that, as I understand it, a bowser/sprinkler will be made available to follow the shuttle lorries around. With this hot weather, the ground soon dries out again, so this is welcome news.

Trying to keep the dust down at the level crossing

The two dumper drivers got a good rhythm going, as can be seen in the picture. As soon as the empty one arrived, and the banksman gave the signal, the full one - in the foreground - set off with a fresh load.
At the beginning of the day, the journey was 200m there, and 200m back, so the gang on the shovels could have a little break in between arrivals. However, by the end of the day, the distance to the dump site was halved, and loads were arriving hard and fast. The gang on the shovels had no respite; worse still, one man could only come for half a day, so there were fewer of them after lunch. Well done all though!

Dinmore Manor arrives at the 100m mark.

The picture above, taken in the latter half of the day, shows how the gang had nearly reached the end of 2A. The little brick 'T' is the 90m mark, and the bucket in the right foreground is full of scrap raked up out of the infill. Waste not, want not ! The dumper is parked up, pending completion of the train manoeuvre, thus allowing your scribe to get off and take a photograph of the activities. Here the gang of 4 is down to a gang of two...

Caught it !

I couldn't resist a little railway photography, and this one shows the crew of Dinmore Manor catching the token from the signal box. I was rather impressed by the professional way the loco was driven, very smart shunting..

A final rolling of today's infill

The last picture shows the situation at the close of today, Thursday. A ramp has been built back down to foundation level. Tony B is on the trackbed, and this shows how far we have managed to fill so far. Looks nearly full ! But quite a bit more to go yet. We will be back on Friday and Monday. As were are the Broadway gang, we are having a day off on Saturday - at Broadway :-)