West Vale Branch
Projects
Steppingstone Lane Bridge Restoration

We agreed at the previous work party in 11 January that we would meet again today. Normal service had been resumed in the weather department with waterlogged paths and overflowing ponds. Bernard was soon set work emptying the ponds through the new rigid suction pipe.

There weren't many photo opportunities this week - work was pretty mundane but steady. The highlight of the day was bring down of the first end wall. Richard and Orph set work clearing the large pile of  bricks from the north side of the bridge, while Chris cleared some of the loose earth from the top of the south side to prevent it falling in to the cleared central section.

With all the roots now freed from the infill, Chris could set to work clearing more of the earth and rubble with the digger. The culvert under the collapsed bridge comprises five sections of pipe. The most westerly one was shattered with a sledge hammer to allow it and the rubble beyond to be cleared.

The first section of culvert is removed

Because of the culvert, Bernard cannot drain both ponds fully - there is always a fair amount left in the western pond. Over the years the bottom of the culvert has silted up by approximately 4 inches. Having removed the first section of pipe, we took the opportunity to clear some of the silt to allow more of the western pond to drain. Phil crawled in to the culvert to clear the final foot or so of silt that we could not reach that prevented the water flowing through. The situation isn't helped by the fact that the culvert is intended to flow the opposite way to what we would like!

Orph, Alan and Richard removed a small, but damaging, tree stump from the top of the bridge. This required removal of an 18-inch cube of bricks that the roots had forced their way through. This tree had obviously caused considerable problems in the past because there was a great deal of patched-up brickwork all around it. The three amigos then moved on to manhandling a loose stump from the infill that had been freed last work party. It took quite some effort rolling the not-so-round stump up the steep bank, but we got there in the end.

Eventually Chris could resist temptation no longer and unleashed the digger on the first end wall. For a video of the event click here [700k Windows Media - you will find it best to right-click the link and then click "Save Target as..."]. The end result is shown below.

The wall succumbs

You will see from the film that the wall did not topple terribly easily - after the debris was cleared from the base it was clear why. There were metal tie-rods embedded in the concrete either side of the culvert hole. A bloody great pair of cutters and a hacksaw soon dealt with them. It also became evident that there is quite a large solid platform under the wall so we will have to get in a breaker of some sort to allow the walls and bases to be removed easily.