RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 6, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 6, 2021 About 3 weeks ago I started initial work on the underbridge area, then got sidetracked. The overall landscaping took over, and continues to do so. However, the underbridge area has now been ballasted and today I added-in the base landscape for an embankment. There'll be plaster going on tomorrow, and then all will be clearer. The first pic dates back to April 11, the rest are from today. Jeff 17 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Popular Post Physicsman Posted May 7, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Popular Post Share Posted May 7, 2021 Some follow-up pics from today. The total dry mass of plaster used to date is about 80kg, so around 130kg when wet-mixed. Pics 1 and 2 show plaster on the hillside to the rear of the cutting and the front embankment. I've added-in some (barely noticeable!!) bumps on the top as a tribute to the spoil heaps. Pics 3 and 4 show views along the viaduct - the weathering on the track is now starting to show. Jeff 11 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
peach james Posted May 7, 2021 Share Posted May 7, 2021 (edited) Jeff, I know- it's your railway...but the contractor wouldn't have lifted the dirt up the hill to dump it. It'd be cheaper to work it out the end of the cutting, and dump it out there than to lift it up. gives a good idea of what they did in real life. I know, the spoil hills would cascade into the asleway, but that's because the contractor was out to make a bob on the whole project Edited May 7, 2021 by peach james Got the image _wrong_! 2 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 7, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 7, 2021 (edited) 39 minutes ago, peach james said: Jeff, I know- it's your railway...but the contractor wouldn't have lifted the dirt up the hill to dump it. It'd be cheaper to work it out the end of the cutting, and dump it out there than to lift it up. https://www.randbbrewing.com/greenscreenipa?fbclid=IwAR3p2AQvCiqJylgEE5H3mE1Zz2PCwlksY9pigTZPipTtU8x2uJxj-Pl8WQg gives a good idea of what they did in real life. I know, the spoil hills would cascade into the asleway, but that's because the contractor was out to make a bob on the whole project James, what I've done isn't any kind of fiction, it's what actually happened on this site. Have a look at the pics of the prototype I posted last Sunday, May 2 (page 38 of this thread). You will see the humps of the multiple spoil heaps that were used to create the cutting where I've put the reverse curve. I'm not home at the moment - I'll re-post a relevant image when I get back. Jeff Edited May 7, 2021 by Physicsman 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 7, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 7, 2021 A couple of pics of the extensive spoil heaps the navvies excavated and dumped c. 1871. 8 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
peach james Posted May 7, 2021 Share Posted May 7, 2021 The image I wanted to use was (but apparently I was a numpty and posted something else in, and it's too late to edit it...) When I saw the one with the sheep on top (the top photo, in the middle), I had assumed that the spoil was level outwards. I'm a bit shocked that the contractor would do it that way, because it would seem easier to me to have dug off the tops of the hillocks and dumped down hill, even at the expense of moving more material. Someone did a time/motion guess and came up with what they did though... the middle one with the sheep on it, that's quite the pile of dirt to wheelbarrow around. (it's probably worse than your last house's garden even !) The number I have seen referenced is 1 yd/100'/man/day As in, a bloke with a wheelbarrow can dig, move & dump a yard of fill 100' away, in a day. That makes those spoil heaps all the more impressive. What I suspect happened is that the contractor moved as much as was practical out the ends, and cast the rest over the top of the hills- that's why the spoil heaps at the end are as big as they are, and the other ones are rather less so. I know there is the wood carving image of them using a horse in a trace to drag a wheelbarrow uphill to dump, and the comments about boulder clay for the whole line... James 5 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 7, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 7, 2021 I think your theories may be correct. I know they had to dig deep for the viaduct pier footings, but as has been pointed out on here recently (I think it was Steve) there seems to be a lot more "spoil" than you'd expect. After all, the whole right side of the cutting (as in the photos above) looks to be man-made. I think it's wonderful discussing details of the prototype rather than the kind of made-up layouts I used to dream about. Jeff 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Holliday Posted May 8, 2021 Share Posted May 8, 2021 (edited) 10 hours ago, peach james said: The image I wanted to use was (but apparently I was a numpty and posted something else in, and it's too late to edit it...) When I saw the one with the sheep on top (the top photo, in the middle), I had assumed that the spoil was level outwards. I'm a bit shocked that the contractor would do it that way, because it would seem easier to me to have dug off the tops of the hillocks and dumped down hill, even at the expense of moving more material. Someone did a time/motion guess and came up with what they did though... the middle one with the sheep on it, that's quite the pile of dirt to wheelbarrow around. (it's probably worse than your last house's garden even !) The number I have seen referenced is 1 yd/100'/man/day As in, a bloke with a wheelbarrow can dig, move & dump a yard of fill 100' away, in a day. That makes those spoil heaps all the more impressive. What I suspect happened is that the contractor moved as much as was practical out the ends, and cast the rest over the top of the hills- that's why the spoil heaps at the end are as big as they are, and the other ones are rather less so. I know there is the wood carving image of them using a horse in a trace to drag a wheelbarrow uphill to dump, and the comments about boulder clay for the whole line... James The current accepted planning rates (Planning Planet) for hand excavation are 0.6m³/hour for sand and around 0.4m³/hr for clay. For transportation manually, 6m³/hr up to 10m, 3m³/hr for 20m and 2m³/hr up to 50m, so an approximate figure would be around ½m³ per hour for one man. Even taking into account primitive wheelbarrows, that would suggest something more in the region of, say, 6m³ per day, 8 cubic yards per labourer. As for the spoil tips. Obviously the terrain and the use of viaducts instead of embankments here means that a balanced cut-and-fill operation wouldn't work in the circumstances, so the spoil has been disposed of as economically as possible. The work would have been done in stages, perhaps working in 6 feet steps. The full width of the cutting would have marked out first, and the ground cleared and levelled within that area, the spoil being spread over the land outside the cutting, on the lower side. I suspect that they would then take a strip out a further 6' or so deep and create a temporary track to take the spoil to the end of the cutting to dispose of it at that level, running away from the cutting line itself, at the one level. Once the cutting was down to that dig level, the process would be repeated, with the spoil tip at the lower level, and the process repeated until the required final track bed level has been reached. Much would depend on the hardness of the rock being excavated, and also with the amount of land that had been purchased in the first instance, and knocking off the top of the hill would have required a greater footprint to be bought. No doubt the foreman would have considered all the options available, and bearing in mind that mechanical plant at the time was fairly limited, manual labour was the prime mover, and cutting out rock unnecessarily wasn't really an option, as horse power or a small steam loco could move materials much faster than a man, but couldn't really assist in the excavation to the same extent. Edited May 8, 2021 by Nick Holliday Correction of miscalculations 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mulgabill Posted May 8, 2021 Share Posted May 8, 2021 8 hours ago, Physicsman said: I think your theories may be correct. I know they had to dig deep for the viaduct pier footings, but as has been pointed out on here recently (I think it was Steve) there seems to be a lot more "spoil" than you'd expect. After all, the whole right side of the cutting (as in the photos above) looks to be man-made. I think it's wonderful discussing details of the prototype rather than the kind of made-up layouts I used to dream about. Jeff I think, perhaps, James has overlooked the time factor. Labour was still relatively cheap, and it was possible that additional manpower was extracting , and grading, spoil from the sides of the cuttings, at the same time as the bulk was shifted out the ends. Hence the job was finished sooner. With regards the false side to the cutting, the way I see it is there is a rock face, indicating the lie of the land, and that it was a "valid" cutting. But grading the cutting side may actually have necessitated removal of some spoil sideways, and that could, safely, be dumped as soon as it was on the natural downgrade. (this, in turn, prompts the thought that whilst it's harder to extract up the cutting side, the distance the spoil has to be moved may be considerably less than round the ends). I agree, Jeff, it's most interesting to be applying logic to the prototype, and discussing. In fact it can also be applied to the ficticious layouts. I have, a number of times, posed the question, Would XYZ Railway have spent the money on ABC? (e,g. bridges over odd sidings, or lightly used spurs, which could have been served differently). Keep up the good work. p.s. I'm still using the tub of B&Q Chocolate ?? emulsion, after your recommendation on KL2. In fact it's my go to basic scenic application. Including sleepers, and rail rust. My recollection of railsides in the 50s, was a darker brown, than we see offered on many layouts, or indeed the WSR, these days. TONY 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 8, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 8, 2021 Nick - thanks for your thoughtful and very interesting contribution to this topic. Always good to have a quantitative angle on things. Tony, ditto. And btw, that paint was really good - no longer available, as far as I can tell. It may have been re-named, though. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Donw Posted May 8, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 8, 2021 The land the railway has to buy is the land within the fencing I suspect the top layer in the middle of the cutting was dug off and tipped over the sides. However as they dug deeper it would start to be more of an issue to lift it out of the cutting so a some point they started taking it to the ends and dumping it there hence the end spoil tips are bigger than the side ones. I dont know how accurate this is but you may find it interesting https://victorianweb.org/history/work/sullivan/7.html What I do know is we do not work like they did. My grandfather was a foremen in a Seed Merchants. He would open the gates in the morning and close them at night in the summer that would mean a 14hour day. He would work hard all day to keep the men working hard too. The heaviest sacks were 2cwt. He was doing this until retiring at 66. Still he lived to 93. Don 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Popular Post Physicsman Posted May 8, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Popular Post Share Posted May 8, 2021 (edited) Latest picture updates, apologies about the flock colour but it's the phone camera again. All of yesterday's plastered areas have been painted brown, then covered in the base flock mix. Not very photogenic, so 3 of the 4 pics are of rail and the viaduct. Jeff There IS progression in these photos, but I can always stop posting them.....if people think they're too samey..... Edited May 8, 2021 by Physicsman Missed out half a sentence!! I'm a silly sod at times. 18 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark axlecounter Posted May 8, 2021 Share Posted May 8, 2021 By heck Jeff , thats amazing that s curve looks like the one at Horton in Ribblesdale just before the station. keep up the good work buddy Mark T 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 8, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 8, 2021 25 minutes ago, mark axlecounter said: By heck Jeff , thats amazing that s curve looks like the one at Horton in Ribblesdale just before the station. keep up the good work buddy Mark T Ha! It certainly wasn't planned! Nice to see you're still looking in, Mark. Are you still doing Blea Moor and Hellifield? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Holliday Posted May 9, 2021 Share Posted May 9, 2021 17 hours ago, Donw said: I don't know how accurate this is but you may find it interesting https://victorianweb.org/history/work/sullivan/7.html What I do know is we do not work like they did. My grandfather was a foremen in a Seed Merchants. He would open the gates in the morning and close them at night in the summer that would mean a 14hour day. He would work hard all day to keep the men working hard too. That's a fascinating piece, and I can well believe the prodigious outputs that a good labourer could achieve. The figures I quoted are for an average (flabby?) 21st century worker. I have worked with men who could achieve similar feats as those Victorians, but they were the exception rather than the rule. One, single-handedly, lifted up the tail of the Ford Transit mini-bus to allow a tyre to be changed, whilst others could accurately toss clay from the bottom of a 4m deep pit! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold MarshLane Posted May 9, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 9, 2021 Superb as ever Jeff. I keep looking in most days, but feel that a constant response of 'Wow' or 'Wonderful' would get repetitive! Instead I just star in aww at your achievements! Had a zoom call with some friends last night, its become a regular fortnightly thing during lockdown where five of us from different parts of the country get together every other Saturday evening. Its been a nice contact over the past year, and all of us have agreed it needs to carry on when life returns to normal! Anyway, back to the reason for telling you that, during a 'share screen' moment, which is usually railway photos from the past trips or highlights, I have two or three times earlier this year, put on rmWeb and shown your viaduct, to the accompanment of several gasps and 'wow' comments. Having not shown it for about six or eight weeks, I thought it was a good point to give them a progress update .... everyone agreed you have totally nailed the S&C 'look' even without doing any more to it! So there you go, there is a reason for publishing plenty of photos, we are in awe of your skills ... and you have achieved our 'commendation for modelling ability' award! One did ask when there might be trains running over the section .... I told him not to be silly and go to the back of the class, this is landscape modelling and the trains just got in the way - honestly, what do some people think this is?? A model railway? Pah! Keep up the good work Jeff. Rich 2 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 9, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 9, 2021 Rich, thank you very much for your (usual) very supportive comments. I'm glad you choose to comment intermittently as I really appreciate the positivity, but - as you say - continual "Wow" etc. does get a bit wearing. I hope to gradually improve the look of the viaduct area, as the scenic stuff is the best bit as far as I'm concerned! Jeff 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 9, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 9, 2021 Ok, I thought it was about time to do something a little different, though - as you will eventually see - there is method in the madness (there usually isn't!) In the opening post of this thread I showed images of the structures I planned to incorporate into the layout. One of these is the lovely brick occupation bridge that runs across the cutting a couple of hundred metres north of Kirkby Stephen station. This allows access for livestock from one side of the railway to the other (pics 1 and 2). Pic 3 shows the plan I drew up in 2019 (it's dated May 11, 2019), based on online imagery. Pic4 shows the scribbled conversions based on this plan that initiated this afternoon's activity. The 3 hours work will be summarised in the following post... Jeff 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Rowsley17D Posted May 9, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 9, 2021 A very Midland feature, Jeff. They must have built hundreds of them. Look forward to seeing this structure develop. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 9, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 9, 2021 The basic method is a slimmed-down version of what I did with the viaduct. 4mm ply - easy to cut with a scalpel or craft knife - was marked out and the front fascia piece cut out (pics 1 to 3). The pier backings use 12mm birch ply, left over from the viaduct, as does the road deck. Pic 4 shows the assembled "skeleton". Pics 5 to 7 show the fascias glued and screwed to the skeleton. Arch rings and liners will (eventually) be constructed and added on - I need to re-stock with plastikard first. And no DAS bricks here, the detail is too fine. So it'll be Slaters 4mm brick sheet.... To give a sense of scale, the whole structure measures about 32cm x 9cm max. Jeff 13 1 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Rowsley17D Posted May 9, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 9, 2021 That's not going to move in a hurry! 1 2 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold teaky Posted May 9, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 9, 2021 Well, that's disappointing. I was expecting individual bricks and a brief explanation of how you made the kiln. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 9, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 9, 2021 I thought I'd better show the context into which this structure will be placed. On my original plans, from 2019, I envisaged the bridge a little way round the bend from the underbridge. However, because of the way the real layout has developed I couldn't do this and was faced with scrapping the idea. Last night I decided I'd still use it to bridge the cutting, a bit further round, AND act as a scenic break as viewed along the reverse curve from the viaduct. Nothing is ever simple, though. Excavating the cutting faces was ok - except the 2 sides of the cutting were on ply bases, which were awkward to remove in a confined space with a Stanley knife. But the area is carved-out - it will need tidying up and a pathway added in on both sides of the cutting. More fun for later. Plastikard will be ordered tomorrow. Jeff 12 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted May 9, 2021 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted May 9, 2021 22 minutes ago, teaky said: Well, that's disappointing. I was expecting individual bricks and a brief explanation of how you made the kiln. Cheeky! Just because you "won the lottery" of madness in suggesting/predicting how the Cumbrian lunatic would/should build the viaduct... 1 hour ago, Rowsley17D said: That's not going to move in a hurry! To be honest, I thought it was a bit flimsy by my standards. Especially as I've just discovered the ply fascia is only 3mm. Oh dear, I wonder if it will drop off in the next 200 years?!! J. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lambiedg Posted May 10, 2021 Share Posted May 10, 2021 Your new bridge sit well where you’ve chosen to place and it will frame the scene nicely. D 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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