helcion

But how long before tight mesh is installed ?

Dave - Thanks for an excellent atmospheric sequence. I think you've covered every aspect of the job except for the Foreman's inside leg measurement. I guess that there will have to be another possession to fit the steps down from the footbridge to the top of the concrete steps across the rockery, unless they can get a small rubber-tyred crane along the narrow track outside the spray wall. Would like to have seen the crane clambering on & off the track. [& underway as well]. The temporary pad by the yard is long gone & towards the end of the main relaying the road-railers were using the permanent pad on the curve outside Priory Tunnel - not very big for a long-wheelbase monster like that.

Dave was braver than I during the morning & I wasn’t at all tempted to go out into the crud but by about 1400 there was a slight improvement & I thought that I’d better make the effort. Sometimes your luck is in & you catch it right - the main span was rigged for the lift & after about 20 minutes the span was being inched into position with the aid of two cherrypicker crews & more men on the first span, with the gang on the track tugging on ropes from time to time. They must have put the span back down on the deck, perhaps due to the wind, after Dave left - my pix were taken 1433/1500. By 1500 the rain had restarted & with the light rapidly fading I scuttled off. I had spoken to a lady dog-walker lady from nearby Aycliffe who was looking forward to getting her beach back & she said that they had been leafletted that the job would be completed by 0500 Monday & had heard that it would be May/June before the bridge would be opened. A disgruntled gentleman who had walked down to the other end of the site & missed the lift confirmed that there had been delays during the morning due to the wind & rain.

Poised & ready to go on Wednesday afternoon. Can't positively identify the crane on Road Rail Crane Ltd's website, but it's certainly a 'biggy' & the hire charges must be impressive. http://www.roadrailcranes.com/plant A little premature perhaps, but Happy New Year to all hands & thanks to Dave for all the updates, I can imagine where a fair few locals will be taking their New Year Day's walk, so any update on timings for the job will be much appreciated. Cheers Helcion

Wednesday afternoon - the planks had been removed from the spot where the road-railers got on & off the track, nonetheless a crane was still flitting about on the rails. The little hand trollies are no problem of course. No action between Shakespeare Tunnel/Samphire Hoe & out towards Folkestone altho' there were staff & vehicles at the site of the one-time Warren Halt, but nothing on the track. I think that the Gurkhas deserve some sort of formal 'Thank You' for their help & co-operation - any thoughts ? Something alcoholic or do we have some skilled 'appreciative certificate' makers amongst the readership ? Happy to suggest text for it.

Dave - HELICON ? HELICON ? 'HELCION' please ! [the name of a Shell tanker that I worked on, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth].

Friday morning - a riveting sequence of a cherry-picker climbing onto the track whilst Ovenden’s Beach Boys re-arrange the rockery. No activity seen Samphire Hoe length or west of Abbotscliff tunnel where one lonely trackwalker was walking the track.

Virtually identical pix to Dave's views of road-railer activity, hopefully now deleted !

DP123 - Thanks for the interesting explanation in post 3021. More to it than meets the eye.

28th.July - the line west from Abbot’s Cliff Tunnel towards Folkestone, seen from Capel clifftops. Down line lifted & ballast removed to about the site of the former Warren Halt, just east of the Martello Tunnel. New ballast being unloaded onto membrane sheeting. No shiny track behind the wagons so 66732 must have pushed the wagons to the site. No time to investigate Folkestone East.

A few snaps of the rock-dumping Monday afternoon around high water. The dumped rocks are being taken away & stockpiled for future use.

The tug AFON GOCH brought the barge CHARLEY ROCK in to the beach, loaded with the first consignment of rock armour just before high water Sunday afternoon & returned to the stockpile on the STEMA barge moored offshore a few hours later. Hope to get a closer-upper view of the action when the traffic congestion subsides - this distant view is across the harbour from Langdon Cliffs. If you have AIS [e.g. SHIP PLOTTER, MARINE TRAFFIC etc] you can watch the tug's movements.

Fat Controller - Thanks - I was just going to post a similar link. http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/major-weekend-of-progress-at-dover-sea-wall-marred-by-rock-throwing-youths If this goes on any more I can see the cliff path bring closed & that will be the end for this thread. Understandably. Mind you the rock shown looks like a large piece of shingle & not really one that you'd find high up on Shakespeare Cliff, but anything thrown from the height of the cliff path could be a killer.

Fat Controller - Post 2368 - CEMEX Dover - local - Dover Western Docks. BRETTS - Bulwark Street - fairly local [in Deal actually !] Cheers Helcion

I was speaking to a CEMEX employee & was told that CEMEX Dover are supplying the concrete for the piles & that the concrete for the rafts will come from Bretts.

Note the freight piling up on the A20 as 'Traffic Management' starts to be come into effect, with further congestion expected later this afternoon as the A20 & A2 are likely to be closed as Right Wing/Left Wing demonstrations take place along the seafront with the marches terminating at the entrance to Eastern Docks.. Slow traffic thru the '52 weeks roadworks' in the docks is compounded by queueing tourist vehicles tailbacking into the single lane traffic of the roadworks as they top up with fuel to get them thru France. Local fuel prices have shot up ! More similar demonstrations on Sunday - three cruise ships in over the weekend - the punters fancying a nice stroll into Dover will be impressed when they encounter the demonstrations.

& here's me thinking that they had all moved on from birding to Contractor-Spotting, attracted by their colourful plumage & hard hats of many colours . . . .

The rabble in post 1254 & their fancy equipment - Twitchers ?

Interesting little video clip on drilling operations on Dover Marina Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dover-Marinacom/161119827419486?ref=stream Unfortunately the clip stops just as the drill is retracted above ground & you don't see what happens to all the debris that it's bought up with it. Supplying the concrete must be a nice little earner for CEMEX, their local batching plant is by the old train ferry dock, about a half mile away.

Very interesting 'insertion' sequence yesterday - thanks ! Do you know whether the boys are working weekends ? Harking back to the memory card problems & the possibility that some cards might 'lose' images after several sequences of deletion & re-use - might one answer be to use the card once only & never delete the images ? With 8GB SD cards available from £2.50 & with an ability to store hundreds of still pix, & cards available with much greater capacities, might this comparatively cheap form of storage, over & above your normal downloads onto internal & external hard drives, be a life-saver on occasion ?

Very interesting close-ups of the rescue exercise at Shakespeare - the pixels must have been squeaking as you were cropping ! 27/7/09 - Belgian Sea King RS02 rescuing six kids trapped by the tide, Langdon Bay. Three 'lifts' - dropping them off at Langdon Coastguard station, two at a time. Excellent flying - not many cliffs to practice on in Belgium.

Excellent coverage by Dave [as usual]. I saw similar 'cast in situ' techniques during early days of Crossrail construction. Wonder how Archcliffe Tunnel is getting on after the discovery that it's a wee bit misaligned. As there was a little 'topic drift' to helicopter operations & a nice tale about the Belgian Navy doing a spot of shopping with P&O & I was reminded of the Belgians doing a cliff rescue at Dover a few years back [the British chopper was indisposed] - I have a few snaps which I'll be happy to post if anyone's interested. Re the comments bout the transfers - sometimes it is necessary for the vessel to alter course to get the wind 'right' for the transfer. I was on a Dunkirk-bound ferry once & we altered course almost to a heading for Boulogne. By the time the operation was over & we had got back on course for Dunkirk, we were running very late. The Master & the company were unamused..

A little off-topic, but at least local [the opposition, not far, vertically, from the worksite] - Eurostar by Dunkirk ferry - http://www.doverforum.com/sea-news/

Is the very short Surveyor's Assistant holding the staff in post 820 wearing his [or her] safety helmet on back-to-front ?

Dave covered Priory & the beach today, I got the bit in the middle. Hadn’t noticed 4w wagons before & today at least two grades of stone. Came across this interesting view on the internet, can’t remember where. Perhaps it is wellknown & the experts can give further details. Unusual to see track & a wagon on the beach itself as well as piles of timber & a dangling lifebelt. Perhaps trestle completion or repairs. I supplied the Landrover + trollies + manrider photo a few days back. We both arrived at Samphire Hoe simultaneously & they didn’t enter the tunnel. After about a half hour the little convoy headed off back towards Abbotscliffe or Folkestone. I missed that as well, chatting to one of the Rangers. Brief Encounter indeed ! For the record the Landrover was from TOTAL RAIL SOLUTIONS who have an interesting website at - http://www.totalrailsolutions.co.uk/