Donington Road

A few more of the tarmac laying. At Lincoln Road the area either side of the gate has had a rough base layer laid. Beyond the tarmac to the bottom right and around the corner to the existing haul road alongside the railway has had the hardcore rolled. Still unsure if this is going to get a thin top layer of tarmac or if it will be left as just hardcore. The new entrance along the side of Brook Drain is getting a rough base layer of tarmac, all barrowed in by hand. There is always one who couldn't wait for the lorry to leave. Tying in with the old entrance which gave access to the relay room near the footbridge at Hurn Road. It was said that this entrance and the old track to the relay room was going to be abandoned once the Brook Drain entrance was opened. Not sure if this is still the case.

Something tells me that there is going to be some laying of tarmac at Lincoln Road this week.

I'll elaborate a bit on the work that has been going on at the north portal/Hurn Road this week. Using Crun's photo below. The area between the green arrows is new green fencing and they are working towards the fencing on the middle right. The yellow arrows indicate where the soil at the bottom of the embankment has been pulled up to create a gentler slope near the cess. The red arrows are where the office complex was situated next to the bungalow, this was all removed by Wednesday. The large red skeleton jib crane that had been on site since the beginning was being dismantled on Monday and the smaller crawler crane in the background has also gone. The clearing up has started from near the ECML and piles of spoil and other rubbish are being moved nearer to the entrance at Hurn Road. No of it appeared to be moving off site, just shifted along a bit and dumped again The only work at Lincoln Road this week was the loading and removal of six concrete barriers on Monday.

Thank you for your recent posts about stressing, very interesting. I have seen quite a few safety issues over the time I have been recording this project, not to the extent of life threatening, but those that could end in broken bones , pulled muscles, etc. As I was an engineer for my working life I have been through many courses on safety, the use of heavy machinery and lifting practices so it is easily recognisable when watching others working what the outcome will be when corners are cut and shortcuts taken. In most instances when I see something that is a bit dubious I cut the relevent footage from the video out, out of respect for those who stray slightly from working practices. In the instance I recorded with the two leaning on the bar, that was a accident waiting to happen, I have seen those bars break and they can shatter and splinter under extreme pressure, plus those holding it would have gone down with their knuckles on the ballast and their body weight on top.

Starting to dismantle and take away the office buildings at Hurn Road yesterday.

Thanks for posting that article. Graham Skelton is a most likeable person, his enthusiasm and knowledge almost certainly transmitted to the workforce on the Werrington site. I found him extremely helpful, he always had the time of day to stop and answer any question that was put to him in minute detail.

In the area where the cutting and welding of the rail takes place the clips are replaced with new ones, perhaps about twenty clips per rail from the bit I watched. All though I missed the stressing bit and only captured what you saw in the video I don't know how many cuts and re-weld there was in a given length of track. Judging by the amount of blue boxes on the hand trolley and those at the trackside it did seem an awful lot of clips to exchange. I really don't understand how the rail is stressed on curved sections. On straight sections the rail is stretched then welded up again but on a curved section my thought process thinks the radius will be pulled tighter rather than stretching the rail. Does it need more cuts and stressing per length on a curved section and less on a straight section of track? I was a bit mad with myself about missing the stressing operation but I have yet to find a way of being in two places at the same time.

Thank you Richard. It was a bit hit and miss with some of the video, straight into the sun and hand held with some of it and I can't see what is on the screen unless its an arms length away! It is getting harder to find anything interesting to video and report on now that there is much less personnel and equipment on site. Before hand, it was easy to get a timeline of future events by either second guessing or feedback from staff around the site, plus we lost those regular monthly meetings at Loxley. The intriguing bit now is how all these new entrances at Hurn road are going to tie in with each other. When it is completed the issue is how do they get heavy equipment should it be needed to the north of the dive under. As the old wide Hurn Road from Lincoln Road is now railway, the existing Hurn Road from the dual carraigeway at Waterworks Lane is too narrow and not suitable for anything other than large vans. Keith suggested this evening that maybe the entrance they are creating next to Brook Drain near the cottages will cut across Hurn Road into the field on the north side joining up to the existing haul road, thereby creating a loop around the top of the embankment. All other guesses on a postcard please.

Short summary of ongoing work yesterday.

The entrance off Lincoln Road for Glinton Junction has kerbing beyond the gate across the access road, suggesting that the surface there maybe concrete with tarmac beyond to join up with the existing road alongside the railway. Whatever the farmer drilled in his reclaimed field has soon sprouted and greened up, probably winter wheat.

Stiil no access to Cock Lane until the end of the month so no updates in that area or from the main site. There was a change looking towards the north portal of the dive under from Hurn Road that happened at the beginning of the month. This was the scene on the 16th of September with the large pumps and the water pipe that diverted water around and across the north portal. As seen today, the pumps and pipework had all gone by the beginning of this month. I assume the water now goes directly into the siphon on the eastern side to be pumped under track level to the western siphon where it is discharged to Brook Drain. Not much else happening at Hurn Road apart from a long boom excavator cutting what appeared to be drainage channels on the northern bank. This a photo from a video clip. The gang on the tracks had been cutting and welding the tracks to stress relieve them. I only managed to catch up with them as they were re-clipping the track in place. This excavator was sieving the large lumps of dirt out to leave a fine grade of topsoil. The new entrance from the site to the field opposite was about to get a layer of hard chippings. I manage to speak to a chap as to why they were creating a new entrance. He said in the broadest Irish accent I have ever heard that it was a safer entrance for the workers to enter as pedestrians. Asking again why the wide entrance that was capable of vehicle access was being created he just went on again about it being better for safety. Either he did not understand me and I could not understand his accent so I gave up!

Due to too many ferroequinologists swinging on them.

I suppose there are logical answers somewhere to this mystery entrance and the build up of storage units in a field that is supposedly being put back to agricultral use. I wonder why they need to create a new entrance when there is an existing one no more than ten yards away?

There is something going on in the field to the north of Hurn Road, opposite to where the entrance to the dive under site is. No one was available there to ask what was happening but some photos. This was the field back in March with mounds of spoil and other debris with the contractors access road to the A15 . Aerial view by MGNorthern at the beginning of September shows the field outlined in red. The spoil and debris had all gone by then and the field has been levelled. All that remained were an accumulation of skips, signs, fencing and storage containers from the main dive under site on the other side of Hurn Road. Where the yellow line is in the above photo a small section of hedgerow has been grubbed out and a section of chain link fence installed a couple of weeks ago. There were a couple of lorries there this afternoon with what looked like new/refurbished Portakabin's like the blue one. In the field itself there were two dumpers, a dozer and an excavator moving soil about and piling it up behind the hedgerow along Hurn Road. It seemed odd that there was a very large pool of water in the middle of the field when it had been levelled out previously. Looking at the amount of soil being removed perhaps the 'pond' has been dug out on purpose.

Commisserations to your wife, I bet that is still sore. Problem is as we get older we don't heal as quick. You can now see though that if you stumble on the footpath you are not going to be caught by the 200mm step but you will end up going down 440mm to the road.

Just to give everyone an idea of what the drops are from the footpath to the road surface on the Lincoln Road bridges. Meanwhile, the entrance to the access gates at Lincoln Road is going to get a new surface. The concrete and hardcore is being removed to re-instate the path and road surface. At Cock Lane the footpath to the bridge remains closed until the end of October. I could not see any work being done on the bridge or any signs of changes to it. There were two vans from this company and a container on site.

The general public will always take the shortest route possible irrespective of obstacles put in their way. I can understand the need to have the water pipes either side of the bridges to distribute the weight. What I don't understand is Network Rail's idea of having these raised footpaths which go against what would be considered a health & safety issue if it was on their own site. They would have gentler steps with hand rails and warning signs for their employees so they could safely transit the area without sustaining any injury. Where do Peterborough City Council come in to this? They were insistant on a rubberised surface for the footpath/bridleway at Hurn Road for 'a horse' yet their many rate payers are being put at an unnescessary risk just to walk on a footpath with those high kerbs. It seems to me that the three players, Anglian Water, Network Rail and PCC have not liased with each other on the final design or undertaken any risk assessments. The whole thing is not user friendly for pedestrians and even more so should they fall into the disabled or blind category.

The new pavement and road is a bad design IMO. The old footpath coming from the Glinton direction was continuous to the footpath going down to Davids Close. The present layout forces pedestrians, often with small children and pushchairs off the footpath near the grassed area and into the road, which at that point has no dropped kerb and where some inconsiderate cyclists are going at speed down the long slope. An accident waiting to happen. The narrow footpath from Lincoln Road to Davids Close needs to be made wider to cater for both cyclists and pedestrians, with a raised section for pedestrians. The raised section can then be connected to the old bridge and the footpath made continuous across the two bridges by removing all the grassed areas and strips of pyramid paving. A short angled barrier between the pedestrian part and cycle part at the junction of Davids Close/Lincoln Road bridge would direct the cyclists to the road and pedestrians to the footpath. Although I think this would be better, there is still the issue of the very dangerous drop from the high footpath across the bridges. Another solution would be to raise the road surface so that it is at a normal height to the adjacent footpath. This could be done by closing the present narrow path to Davids Close and extending the road and footpath 50 to 100 metres further down the old Lincoln Road to join Davids Close. Extending the length of the road would make the incline of building up the road surface less obtrusive.

Still not much progress in front of the access entrance at Walton, although the gate has now acquired a chain and padlock.

This is just what LNER where doing today. Running from Doncaster to Peterborough and back on the Joint.

It has been a pleasure doing this. Something interesting like this on your own doorstep doesn't happen everyday and the input from Richard and Crun plus my good friend Trackside ECML has also been welcome when I have not been able to get out. With the new fencing being set back a few more inches from the pavement and the bushes having been cut back it is possible to drive through on the pavement. Nobody would do that, would they? Something will have to be done to restrict the width which may be a job the City Council has to do, althought the new bollard has been reinstated too far from the edge of the pavement compared to the original one. The original bollard and the mark on the road for the gate post to the right of it. The position of the new bollard.

i would have thought that creating a turning space at the dive under end to drive out would be a priority on safety grounds. Closing the existing entrance would also free up space for a new footbridge at Hurn Road, something that is desperately needed IMO.

New access to the dive under at Hurn Road. The old access (below) to the relay room next to Hurn Road footbridge is according to local sources being closed off. The new permanent access being created at Hurn Road is next to Book Drain North as it is said that it wll follow along the side of the drain to the dive under. I am standing over Brook Drain (the rusty railings) on the right which flows under Hurn Road on is journey passed Glinton to join the Folly River at Peakirk.

New flight of steps going in on the embankment west of the A15 bridge at Hurn Road.

Some new fencing at Lincoln Road. The Armco fence has been completed along the top of the embankment next to the access road to Glinton Junction. Green fencing at the end of the field next to Lincoln Road. Yesterdays (2021-09-15) state of Lincoln Road, the trees alongside the footpath are about to get a haircut. Today (2021-09-16), shiny new fencing. New gates at Lincoln Road for the access to Glinton Junction. From the gates towards the new bridge they have dug a trench to fit the rest of the posts for the galvanised steel fencing when the other wooden posts are removed. Instead of digging a trench all the way along to the bridge they took the easy option here by leaving the tree roots in place, then cutting the bottom of the fence to suit. It is like this in quite a few places.