Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Tom. Are you saying that the water in the cess at the lower left hand corner of the photograph is draining in the facing direction of the photographer, and is not water entering the slip from above ? Having not observed the small. and it is a relatively small circular failure, it is difficult to make a sound judgment, but if the cutting is getting deeper then the ground above the failure must be getting higher and therefore be potentially capable of feeding water into the cutting from above.

As I say, without observing the slip in field conditions it's difficult to come to a conclusion about the mechanism/s, other than to say that water, ground or surface, is one of the prime suspects.

 

Tom if you look closely at the image, I believe you can just make out 'Black Hut' in the distance.

Chris

 

Yeah, that was what I thought. The photo is clearly looking south, roughly quarter of a mile south of the southern portal of the tunnel.

Tom

 

What I'm saying is that I'm not an infrastructure expert when it comes to drainage!

But for reference, the photo is taken looking southwards, which is the downhill direction. So in normal circumstances, water should drain from behind the photographer towards the distance in front. You can see the landslip has temporarily blocked the cess, but that it continues in the middle distance as it flows out of the cutting. I assume that the cess, and the corresponding one on the west side of the line, acts to drain all the water that originates from the tunnel and from the cutting south of the tunnel.

Tom

 

Only just catching up with messages, but to clarify a few points:

• The slip is approx 250 yards south of the tunnel and the photo is indeed looking southwards.

• The whole area is and always has been particularly wet (even by the clayey standards that the Bluebell is used to!) and about 3 years back a fair bit of work was done to improve the drainage around the tunnel portal and surrounding area.

• The small drain running downhill away from the photographer on the left hand side of the photo does not drain everything coming down the cutting from the tunnel. About halfway between the tunnel mouth and the slip site there is a substantial drain, part of which is contained in a concrete channel. This takes most of the water that flows down from the tunnel area itself underneath the line by means of a culvert and away to the west side off railway property. After periods of heavy rain the rate of flow through this channel is substantial.

• However there is a gentle slope on the neighbouring field which would direct more water towards the top of the cutting south of the culvert, and this probably hasn't helped matters with the slip itself.

Work has been going on all week to repair the area and I gather that, although things are looking hopeful, a decision won’t be taken until around lunchtime today as to whether or not a full line service can be operated this coming weekend.



Cheers,

Jon

 

Thanks Jon for the info.

The STN for this weekend confirms a full line service with departures both days (pulled by the H class) at 11:00am, 1:15pm and 3:30pm from SP and an hour later from EG. The DMU will be running training trips between HK and EG for crew slotted in between the service trains.

Tom

 

For those interested I've just completed a web album of slide scans from the Bluebell's SECR Centenary gala staged back on 7th August 1999. Here is the link;

https://picasaweb.google.com/105454327852537837128/SECRCentenaryEventSaturday7thAugust1999#

Cheers

 

cracking pics there, thanks for sharing

 

Thanks, some scans have come out in pretty good photo repro others though sadly not, but still brought back good memories. Here's a slide scan, albeit not very good as my Dad's original photo was very dark, of a SECR loco actually in BR black on the Bluebell! 178 was cosmetically painted in this livery back in the early Eighties, this was taken in 1983.

 

no contest, SECR livery all the way!

 

Did 178 carry Southern liviery for a little while cosmetically? I swear before restoration the side tanks had a faint looking Southern (Maunsell era lettering) and 1178 below it.

 

That's a very good question, my Dad can only remember 178 being cosmetically painted BR black in the early Eighties and has no photos of it in SR black. So it might have been a case of the old SR livery/markings showing through the paint work.

 

More likely its industrial livery showing through http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/pic2/wn-2011b/pioneer2_baxter_archive_early70s_h.jpg

 

Yes, but Pioneer II was a pseudo-SE&CR livery, not Southern.

Tom

 

Ah managed to find the answer. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SR_1178_&_33001_at_sheffield_park.jpg

I remembered seeing the side tanks after it was dismantled and the lettering was fading.

Must say I prefer her SECR liviery.

 

I see that the DMU service is now running for 4 weekends http://www.bluebell-railway.com/event/diesel-service/

 

My understanding is that it is a contingency against the Freshfield Bank and HK works overrunning. If it is not needed, we'll revert to a whole-line steam service, but the additional work needed to clear the slip north of HK has made it more likely than not that the extra week will be needed.

As has been noted on the Yahoo group, lucky the ballast got through to the railway - albeit with 24 hours to spare before the line got blocked! The point work for 23 points is also on site, but was delayed on account of a tree blocking the local roads before Christmas which delayed the delivery (by lorry).

Tom

 

An update from Chris White about the nature of the slip near the tunnel:

http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/ext/inf_news.html

Tom

 

Thanks for the link. Interesting to read the comments about the underlying geology. The Severn Valley, after the storm wash-out of 2007 found that they too had underlying "slip planes" where the surface ground was moving over --and downwards--a lower, different type of formation. I guess you cannot cure these issues, rather they have to be dealt with as best you can at the time, and then monitered into the future. Certainly the key to the long-term slip at Sterns on the SVR appears to be keeping on top of the substantial trackside drainage systems.

I guess it is often the case that the surface water draining onto the railway property comes from well outside your boundary. On the SVR, in some cases, from much further "up the hill".

46118

 

Parenthetically, I found out recently that the name was pronounced "Pioneer the Second" and not "Pioneer Two."