East Coast Mainline Blockade for Werrington Junction diveunder

[Donington Road]

1 hour ago, Crun said:

No sign of Tamper before 2pm today.

 

It arrived around 21:30 Saturday night.  At 01:30 Sunday morning it was making a right old racket.  I'm a mile away as the crow flies and the wind was in my direction.

You didn't hear it?  You must be a heavy sleeper.

Edited September 20, 2020 by Donington Road

[Donington Road]

56 minutes ago, Crun said:

Views North of Glinton Road bridge. Is it ballast to the right of the photograph?

Piles of all sorts to left of photograph:

 

Yes, ballast.

On the left is the box sections and pipes for drainage along both sides of the line.

[Richard E]

The concrete mixer and all the associated kit including the piling auger has gone so the piling under the A15 is done. There is going to be a pretty hefty horizontal beam across those uprights if the bolt holes in them are anything to go by. It's all loosely fixed in place for now. And it is puzzling as to exactly where the boundary fence will be either side of the bridge.

 

There are now wing walls appearing on the south abutment of the new bridge as well.

 

And there was work going on along the joint line which I suspect is associated with the up side cess for the dive under lines with a lot of gravel being carefully placed. They were working last night too under floodlights.

[Mike Storey]

It is strange that they are going to lay the S&C units on the joint line on different weekends. It would have been more normal in my day, to get the pain over with in one go, especially with levelling necessary for the crossover, if that is still the plan?

[Richard E]

3 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

It is strange that they are going to lay the S&C units on the joint line on different weekends. It would have been more normal in my day, to get the pain over with in one go, especially with levelling necessary for the crossover, if that is still the plan?

 

No crossover, two switches to be laid in the down line as the crossover has already been laid and tamped. One east of the crossover and one west. No diamond in the formation either, just the four switches.

[melmerby]

Like so:

 

[Crun]

5 hours ago, Richard E said:

 

No crossover, two switches to be laid in the down line as the crossover has already been laid and tamped. One east of the crossover and one west. No diamond in the formation either, just the four switches.

Apologies if everyone knows this already but I've found a useful film that helped me understand what folk have been discussing:

 

[Donington Road]

Just a quick update of ongoing work around Lincoln Road /Hurn Road.

No fences were breached or harmed in the making of this short video

 

 

[Donington Road]

No expense spared, using quality multi-ply plywood for shuttering around the posts on the retaining wall at Hurn Road.

Shame they couldn't afford the washers to put under the nuts to prevent damage to the nut and slot in the base plate.

 

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by Donington Road

[melmerby]

53 minutes ago, Donington Road said:

No expense spared, using quality multi-ply plywood for shuttering around the posts on the retaining wall at Hurn Road.

Shame they couldn't afford the washers to put under the nuts to prevent damage to the nut and slot in the base plate.

 

 

That's rubbish

 

Maybe that's not finished and they will get washers but no excuse for not using them in the first place.

 

One thread looks a bit short as well.

Edited September 21, 2020 by melmerby

[Donington Road]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

That's rubbish

 

Maybe that's not finished and they will get washers but no excuse for not using them in the first place.

 

One thread looks a bit short as well.

 

Certainly bad practice, finished or not.  The height of a nut is usually 80% of the bolt diameter.  A nut should engage a minimum of 80% of the thread diameter.  Put a washer on that short bolt and the nut will engage less than the recommended 80%

 

I guess quick setting resin is going to be poured in that shuttering* covering up all the errors.

* the shuttering has been sealed with silicone around all the edges.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Donington Road

[Richard E]

12 hours ago, Donington Road said:

 

Certainly bad practice, finished or not.  The height of a nut is usually 80% of the bolt diameter.  A nut should engage a minimum of 80% of the thread diameter.  Put a washer on that short bolt and the nut will engage less than the recommended 80%

 

I guess quick setting resin is going to be poured in that shuttering* covering up all the errors.

* the shuttering has been sealed with silicone around all the edges.

 

On Saturday there was a big bag of stainless washers left there - maybe some scrote has had them away.

 

Anyway I've some pictures from this morning, I've left out the one for the shuttering on the base of the columns ...

 

The ballast heap is growing, needs some impressive motive power to climb that gradient

 

 

And the embankment towards the new bridge is disappearing quite quickly.

 

 

 

 

It looks as if they are going to make some changes to the road access to the bridleway as well, just by the gate.

 

 

And they are still practising their knitting with rebar on the new bridge, this time building the bar for the bridge sidewalls.

 

 

[Donington Road]

4 hours ago, Richard E said:

 

It looks as if they are going to make some changes to the road access to the bridleway as well, just by the gate.

 

 

 

 

No markings there yesterday.  Anglian Water were digging a deep hole there yesterday where the black tarmac is, probably looking for their mains water pipe that goes across the railway.

Haven't noticed the black bollard before, I'm not very observant

[Donington Road]

Whist Richard was at Lincoln Road/Hurn Road I went the other way to Cock Lane, got to social distance and all that

Lot of work still going on at the dive-under.  The concrete raft is slowly creeping ever nearer to the footbridge.  Spoil at the northern end of it, next to the concrete piles is slowly being dug out with two large dumpers now using the underbridge as access to the wide-way.

EDIT: just noticed the concrete lorry and pump top left, and the new concrete going in in the foreground.  How far can you actually pump concrete?  It seems a long way to me from this photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The concrete walls atop of the piles is getting a wash and brush up.  Perhaps someone can enlighten us as to what they are actually doing.  Is it a sealer/waterproofing that is being applied?

 

 

All the concrete pillars on both sides have now been cast which will accept the steel girder cross beams although I cannot see any fixing points for those.

The concrete base at the bottom of the wall which was used by the workforce to stand on during construction of the wall has been broken up ready for preparation of the track bed for the Up Stamford Line

 

 

Another oddity was the excavation of a large hole at the waters edge near the outfall of Brook Drain culvert.  A hole was dug then dammed up water side witha pump used to drain the water out of the hole.  No idea what was going on, looking for something or found something, 'tis a mystery.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Donington Road

[Mike Storey]

On 21/09/2020 at 16:15, Richard E said:

 

No crossover, two switches to be laid in the down line as the crossover has already been laid and tamped. One east of the crossover and one west. No diamond in the formation either, just the four switches.

 

Thanks - I am obvs out of date with this. But it is still strange to lay only one switch per possession.

[Donington Road]

Thanks to our roving reporter today the mystery of the hole being dug next to the Brook Drain culvert has been solved.

Watch out for next weeks episode featuring the installation of the diving board

 

Meanwhile things in the dive-under have moved along at pace in the last four days.

Another section of concrete slab is being readied and more spoil has been removed exposing the concrete piles.

 

 

 

At the southern end towards Marholm Junction laying of ballast for the Up Stamford is really moving along.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The baseplates of Cock Lane footbridge look to be getting a layer of resin to protect them.

 

 

[Richard E]

An update for Friday.

 

At Cock Lane there was a delivery of re-bar to the southern end of the dive-under whilst I was there.

 

 

They were struggling to get the bucket off this digger in order to use it to unload the bar.

 

 

Work was still going on for the new Stamford alignment as well.

 

 

Whilst it was also being worked on at the northern end.

 

 

At both Cock Lane and Lincoln Road the footings of the steelwork have now had their mix poured into the shuttering. It's concrete and has broken away with the shuttering in numerous places, this one is a good one (apart from the nuts and washers, about 3 washers on each stud nearest me and none on the far ones).

 

 

The north side of Lincoln Road bridge was having the abutment walls cast, concrete pumping was under way.

 

 

 

And yet more rebar going in place on the bridge.

 

 

Meanwhile under the A15 there is a big hole.

 

 

They seemed to be having issues with one of the piles, the digger was able to wobble the top of it easily by just brushing against it, I think it has cracked part way down.

 

 

And the steps that used to go down the side of the embankment from the footpath on the top down to Hurn Road have gone.

 

 

Would you believe it is rather soggy underfoot as well.

 

 

[Richard E]

Just come across some more pictures posted on Twitter by Network Rail.

 

Firstly the boring machine.

 

 

Next an aerial view of progress on the box.

 

 

And finally a view inside one of the guide tunnels. The tunnel segments look awfully familiar as I've seen very similar sections at the concrete plant at Tallington. It seem remarkably dry in the tunnel too.

 

[Crun]

More photo's from Network Rail on Twitter. These show a narrow gauge railway to remove the spoil from the tunnel boring:

Edited September 25, 2020 by Crun
New additions

[melmerby]

Blimey.

This is getting some serious engineering..

[40F S & T]

Hi  What are the tunnels for?  Will they go when they dig for the box?  

[jamie92208]

20 minutes ago, 40F S & T said:

Hi  What are the tunnels for?  Will they go when they dig for the box?  

The single rail in the floor of the tunnels are the guide rails for the box when it is jacked through. Quite how it will cut through the roof of the tunnels I'm not sure. The box should be almost complete now.

 

Jamie

[Crun]

Saturday 26th September 2020:

Photo's from around the Cock Lane bridge:

 

[Crun]

Photo's from around the A15 and Lincoln Road bridges:

[Donington Road]

A bit of action from today.