Since our last update the team have been hard at work maintaining this crucial part of the railway infrastructure. Through May little work took place on the railway as we hosted our first Steam Gala since the pandemic, but the team worked from home as they completed drawings, maintenance records and planned the next few months' work. As a railway we are extremely lucky to have all the engineering drawings for all our bridges both in hard copy and digital.
11th June 2024 back at Bradnop the culvert maintaince is in full swing. We spent some time back filling around one of the new chambers we installed a few weeks ago on the Up side of the cutting, close to the tunnel.
Next, we made a start on major improvements to C10U ( Chamber 10 Upside), this has been a thorn in our side for some time, as it is an old North Staffs Railway chamber that had partially collapsed and was threatening to totally collapse if left unattended.
It will take several weeks to complete, but today’s first photo shows the open 12” pipe, before work started.
The second shows the open pipe having received some new blue brick and correction of the stone “through route “.
Later in the day we met with our local brickwork contractor to review some of the work needed at Br39 (Bridge 39), Consall.
21st June and a slightly different side to Bradnop. Bridges Dept out today, doing bridges (not drains). Finally managed to complete repairs to the Leekbrook facing wingwall at Br9 (Bradnop Tunnel). This wet wall had a significant hole in the stonework.
Nice to see the finished work.
26th August 2024 - Bridges were out on the Churnet Line last Friday carrying out vegetation removal from the wing walls of Br39 at Consall. The reason being to clear the way for one of our contractors who will be refurbishing the pointing and stonework during September. Whilst in the area we also took a closer look at the underside of Br40 and Br41, both bridges that need our attention before Winter. Finally, the previous day’s storm had brought down a large tree (opposite Consall Mill) the top end of which protruded out over the running line.
Tim & Mike made short work of the offending tree top thus allowing safe operation of the Saturday train service.
With a total of 36 Underline bridges (A bridge constructed to allow rivers, streams, roads, driveways, farm access tracks, footpaths, etc. to pass under the railway), 24 overline bridges (A bridge constructed to carry roads, driveways, farm access tracks, footpaths, small streams, etc. over the railway), 2 side of line bridges (a bridge that is built away from the main railway alignment, but is still connected to the railway and has a bridge number assigned by the railway (we have two bridges we maintain over the Caldon canal), 20 major culverts, 2 tunnels (Birchall Tunnel and Cheddleton Tunnel), 8 major retaining walls (supporting railway cuttings and embankments in areas where there is insufficient space for earth slopes), we have a lot going on.