By 08.30, Keith and John O were hard at work mixing concrete. This was required for the new 140m section, where a concrete strip is required to raise the foundations to the correct level for brick laying to start. It's a 10m strip, and each barrowfull advanced the work by 18ins. We reckoned that 15 barrowloads were needed, at 90 kg each. Say a ton and a half of concrete run down to the coal face. The barrows were very heavy, so we split the loads between the three of us.
Heave, Paul ! |
At the 140m coal face, John S and Tony were spreading each barrowload out nice and smooth over the strip. 90 concrete blocks have already been positioned at the rear, so next week we should be able to lay them on top of the concrete poured today.
Here is the concrete strip completed. In the foreground is Pete, preparing the 150m section for its first course of blues. This requires removal of any loose bricks from the foundations of the old wall, and cementing in replacements on a bed of mortar. In the background we can see Tony, John S and Bob working on the 120m section, with a final layer of corbelling being applied, and backed up. At the end of the day, we could say with some satisfaction that the 120m section is finished! In front of it is the 130m section, which now requires 3 rows of corbelling to finish. That's three days then, as only one row can be done per working day, each row having to 'go off' before the next is added on top of it.
Another load of concrete blocks arrives. |
Don't even go there Keith, that is the last mini Swiss roll ! |
After a ton and a half of brick shifting. Tired, but healthy! |
An overview of the works at the end of the day. |
Finally, a picture which summarises our day - sunshine and showers. In this picture, you can see them both. In the background, beautiful Cleeve Hill, and view we enjoy every day when we have our tea. Aren't we lucky?
And now, an unexpected addendum:
What is going on here, you may rightly ask. Has the mating season for excavators begun?
In fact it is the start of works to grade the cutting side along platform 1. As readers may know, there has been an earth slip at the foot of the walkway down to the platform. There was too much material above the slag stone wall, and eventually it yielded and a whole lot of clay came down. This will now be addressed. The cutting side will be lightened and graded. There is a lot of material to remove, and the newly planted pine trees will be carefully removed and replanted at the end of the works, which will take up to 4 weeks. The lower excavator will do the grading, passing the material up to the second one in the foreground, which will load the material taken out on to a lorry. We will post with updates if possible.
9 comments:
In the 9th photo, part of the wall is very dark. Is there a reason?
Great stuff by the way. H
We found water in an area of the bricks (they have three holes in them)and syphoned it out. Normally the new brickwork is covered by sheeting, but we seemed to have missed a bit, or else it was blown off in the wind.
Howard,
The dark patch is only where I washed a bit of mortar off the wall, with a bucket of water.
Paul
Starting on the 3/4 mark... you'll be done before too long! Whatever are you all going to do with yourselves once this is finished? :-)
Noel
Can you not use the excavated material from the embankment slip works as infill behind the platform ?
Hi Mack,
No, sorry, the infill needs to be well draining, it was the heaving clay (that they are now digging out) that caused the platform wall to heel over in the first place.
The broken bricks can all be used as infill behind the platform, no? (I seem to recall some being used for that purpose at Broadway.)
Noel
Yes we can and do use those broken bricks, but we need tons and tons of infill like that.
What will we do after CRC2? Well, remember that we are the Broadway gang really, just down here to 'help'. We will go back to base, to carry on there. Or could we build something else on a Monday?
Could it be a storage shed for our carriages please? :)
Alex
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