Day three back filling CRC2A. We are very lucky with the weather - not a drop of rain today; if anything, it was too dry, for there was a lot of dust about again. This time, we took a hose and wetted the road surface, which helped.
The number of volunteers on site was good today, several more were kind enough to come and help, allowing us to shuttle back and forth with the little dumpers as fast as we could. Four volunteers manned the shovels to distribute what we delivered. A couple extra in fact allowed us to vary the shovel teams, and let Steve off on the roller to finish off the second layer. Roger had a good ferret around the site for broken bricks and sundry rubble to lose behind the platform wall.

The next load arrives, towards the northern end of 2A

 The first thing we did today was finish off the last 15m of the second layer, the last one with pea gravel.

The roller tamps down the N end of the second layer.

 After completing the second layer, John C marked out the depths that the next two layers (all of crushed concrete) should be. They were to be much deeper than before! The top of the two lines he marked out represents the bottom of the lamp post sockets.
Given that the next two layers would be deeper, a lot more spoil was required per meter length of progress. How we wished that our dumpers could be bigger...

Spot the machine not hired for CRC2A...

 Above is our little fleet of machinery - two 1T dumpers, a roller and a 360 excavator. The CAT tractor disgraced itself today by breaking down, but normally it is employed leveling off the spoil brought over from the new racecourse stand excavations. We have heard talk of 20.000 tons being moved here, and all of it will vanish in the field, which will end up slightly higher than before. Thanks to the kindness of the contractors Kier, we have a large supply of crushed concrete from the demolition of the old stand, and this is ideal for our back filling operations - it all stays pretty much on site, and no acquisition nor disposal costs are incurred. A win for all concerned. We are getting through he stuff at a rate of 40 - 60T a day, or between two and three large lorry loads.

If only !

 It was a busy day at the station today, with 4 spoil moving vehicles running back and forth across the crossing, our  two dumpers as well as a steam and a diesel train. Kier have two banksmen permanently in place, and everything went very politely and smoothly.

A pause for the dumper on the return journey

A class 20, a roller and a load of spoil. Every ton of spoil delivered is leveled out by hand.

 In the picture above we can see the start of the third and much thicker layer. Thanks to the extra hands to day, Steve was able to start rolling immediately, whereas yesterday it was our digger operator John C, who then of course wasn't loading. The difference an extra man makes is considerable.

At the end of the day, near the running in board.

The final tally for the day was layer 2 finished off, and of the much thicker layer 3 the first 38 meters were laid and rolled. We reckon that at this depth (nearly a foot) it takes at least two dumper loads per meter length achieved. Probably a total of 90 dumper journeys were made today, we're getting quite good at this now.

Tomorrow should see the completion of the third layer, we hope, if enough volunteers to man the shovels can be found. Friday perhaps a good start on layer 4, with completion of that on Monday. That will see us up to bottom of the lamp posts level. You can see from the picture that the dumper we use really has to be quite narrow - at Broadway, the space behind the platform was wider and we back fill rather more quickly, using a 2T machine.

Finally, a tip for those interested in the Bridges to Broadway repairs. A new blog has been started up to log progress of the bridge works, with pictures. It should be updated a couple of times a week.
You can view it here:

http://bridgestobroadway.blogspot.co.uk/