February 2018
Early in February a new friend arrived on the Fosseway Heath section of the Lichfield Canal in the form of a shiny new EZ80 8 tonne Excavator on loan from Wacker Neuson based at Stafford.
Our very own Tony Gardiner, volunteer Plant Manager for The Lichfield Canal Trust was the designated driver for the EZ80 and he found the excavator both easy to use, very powerful and carried out all the tasks undertaken with ease. Even heavy excavation in dense sands/weak sandstone, which had proved difficult in the past with even heavier machines, the EZ80 performed particularly well. The need to excavate a 100 metre diversion of the Lichfield Canal channel and towpath, which included some 2500 tonnes of excavation in clay/ sandy soils and placing the excavated material on the new diversion, was all completed in two days with the help of Steve Webster from Wacker Neuson driving the EZ80 and Tony operating the Trust's own 5 tonne Excavator in attendance.
The EZ80 8 tonne Excavator from Wacker Neuson has proven a very powerful and versatile workhorse which punches well above its weight. The Lichfield Canal Trust are most grateful to Wacker Neuson for the ongoing support to the restoration work of the Trust
March 2018
A very enthusiastic Network Rail Projects team of over 30 volunteers lead by David, Peter, Bob, Roger and Tony G. braved the extreme cold weather brought by the Mini beast from the East on 19th March to move the Lichfield Canal restoration forward.
Well dressed for the cold in bright orange high-vis the volunteers set about upgrading part of the offside Heritage Towpath Trail alongside the old canal bed. On the day the team completed a record breaking 57 metres of new path which was opened at the end of the day for the many regular users from the local community.
The weather stayed very cold but remained dry and the sun even came out to melt the snow on the ground. To help fight of the cold a second group of volunteers set about lighting a fire to keep warm and a third group lead by Roger Barnet dismantled some of the old Towpath wall in the Wetland Area and helped in Towpath preparations for the Canal restoration in this area.
While much work was ongoing elsewhere moving the tunnel sections, and at Gallows Wharf, down at Fosseway ‘The Staffords’, Roger and Jean, were gainfully employed in constructing the brickwork piers, where the original towpath has been lost. These will provide the start and finish of a new boardwalk over the future wet-lands area. Not only the new brickwork walling, mentioned above, but Tony Cadwallader has been busy erecting the actual boardwalk using reclaimed plastic ‘lookalike’ timber. This material, which is quite expensive, is rot proof and durable and should last many a year.
Tony G. has made good use of the loaned Wacker Neusen digger to move loads of soil and sand around the site. We have had to make earth banks to eventually provide a path for walkers and their dogs to detour away from our work areas. We have also needed to move the canals western bank further westwards to maintain its overall width where the wet-lands area is intended. This requires a huge amount of soil and sand to be moved and compacted. Unfortunately, Wacker Neusen have now reclaimed their digger back. With one of our diggers down at Gallows Wharf progress along this stretch with just one excavator will seem a little slow. However a huge vote of thanks to Wacker Neusen for the extended loan of their plant.
Numerous sand bags need to be filled to hold the landfill embankments in place and the concrete mixer will be most welcome to help with this task. We have now regained possession of our Wacker sheeps-foot roller after repairs. A useful tool and much needed on the Fosseway site.
April 2018 - The towpath progresses
Roger and Jean continued to beaver away at the canal wall either side of the future wetlands area. It is likely they will be at it for many a week to come. This wetlands area is taking shape rapidly thanks to Tony C and his merry men. The recycled plastic material used will fit in well with their surroundings eventually.
We have been blessed with several corporate volunteer days, their input is a tremendous boost to our progress, and many thanks to them. These corporate volunteers have done some of the brickwork but they have mainly been employed constructing the footpath to the West and North of the canal bed. Their progress is remarkable and sets a very high standard. Site walkers will be impressed by the rate with which the pathway on the opposite side from the towpath has been extended. This path will eventually continue all the way to Fosseway Lane.
We were joined by two teams from Laing Murphy JV - the joint venture of Laing O'Rourke and Murphy and Sons who are working to deliver the northern section of HS2's phase one enabling works. A team of four joined us on Monday and with good weather progress was achieved on construction of a section of the new north Towpath alongside the old canal.
On the Friday a team of eight corporate volunteers arrived and in very wet conditions set about seriously progressing the towpath construction towards the Wetland area. Among these volunteers we had several site engineers including two project managers and the work rate was very impressive given the very poor weather. As we had our own Trust volunteers available, we broke out the 5 tonne excavator and the dumper to assist with transporting and placing stone into the new path, with our corporate friends taking on the levelling and compacting of the stone to a considerable 60m length of new Towpath Our new corporate friends from Laing Murphy JV worked well and the Trust looks forward to see you all again, but next time can you bring some better weather!
May 2018 - Enter the trainee bricklayers
We were blessed with a party of trainee bricklayers from Walsall College who together with their instructors progressed the brickwork at a great rate of knots. Not only did the Walsall College contingent work at The Fosseway site several days a week, but some of their highly skilled tutorial staff volunteered to assist with the brickwork in progress at the Gallows Wharf site. Many thanks to Walsall College for all the help you have given us and you are most welcome to come and hone you bricklaying skills on our towpath walls any time.
Come May, you may recall, we had several heavy thunderstorms. These turned the Fosseway site into a sea of mud, and the ramps down to ground zero became almost impassable. But did this put our volunteers off? No, whenever it was practicable Roger B. and his gang would be out there organizing the many deliveries of concrete blocks and bags of sand and then 'set to' at laying more bricks and blocks along the ever extending towpath wall.
During the hot weather it was neccessary to keep a good supply of water with which the brickies could prepare their mortar at both Fosseway and Gallows Wharf. David H. was in great demand, ferrying trailer loads of the wet stuff from site to site. Volunteer Steven W. came to the rescue. He sourced two large bowsers and fitted them to two towable trailers. We can now take as much water as and when needed to any of our sites with ease.
June 2018 - the mud turns to dust
The restoration of the Fosseway length of the canal continues to proceed at speed. To express the progress in words or pictures does not do justice to the amount of work and effort put in by the volunteers. We have been lucky to have entertained a large contingent of corporate volunteers from Jaguar Land Rover one Wednesday this month. Between them they carried out a tremendous amount of work, particularly along the northern foot path and also on the bund alongside Falklands Road.
Activity at Gallows Wharf often took priority. Even so, many loads of clay have been delivered, eventually to make the wetlands area water tight. (With all the dry hot weather we have been having it is now unworkable till we have had a got load of rain to soften it again). The rebuilding of the towpath wall continues at pace. Again the hot dry weather has had an effect on it's progress. The mortar had to be mixed rather wet or it was drying before one could lay a trowel on it. And there is little or no shade in that region, so not only was the mortar drying out but the bricklayers as well.
With no end in sight of this spell of dry hot weather, Fosseway is now like the Gobi desert. We do need some rain. Lets hope that it doesn't come in one big downpour or we will be back to a mud bath again. There's no pleasing some people!
Summer 2018 - endless bricklaying and sandbags
At Fosseway work has been going on much as before. Endless bricklaying towards the reconstruction of the original towpath wall continues. The extremely hot weather has made it difficult to get the cement compo mix just right, The trick is to mix it on the wet side and by the time it came to be used it is perhaps at about the right consistency. But the Fosseway site is not just about bricklaying, lots of other work is being undertaken at the same time. The gorse bushes alongside the bank adjacent to our storage compound /shed have been removed and burnt. It was felt that they presented a fire risk. (They were burnt under strict supervision with no risk of the fire spreading.)
Great progress has been made with the construction of the sandbag retaining wall adjacent to the railway embankment. This wall will have to be built up to the same height as the footpath along the canals westerly bank. It has to be substancial enough contain the water in the turning circle at the Faulkland Drive turn. The bank is being made from sandbags filled with a weak dry mix of sand and cement. Over a period of time the bags set to become a solid structure. A lot of back filling and compacting goes along with these workings.
The wetlands boardwalk is now progressing again. (Post Gallows Wharf), and the top planks are being screwed down. Puddling clay has been laid, albeit dry and unworkable pending a good downpour of rain.
We were blessed with a weeks work by the Wergies. And also by a team from NCS, (a volunteer team of youths from 16 through to 17 year olds) It restores ones faith in youth when one can see just how hard these youths can and do work. The Wergies were also full of get up and go and made great progress on the reconstruction of the towpath wall.
With Roger B's return from holiday, the brick capping on the newly built towpath wall has progressed rapidly. The wall section to the right of the new wetlands area has been completed. And John M has done an excellent job of back-filling this wall and re- establishing the towpath ready for it the be resurfaced along this length. The Summerhill Work Party, led by Phil Cheesewright, has now joined us at Fosseway to work on Tuesdays, effectively shutting down the Summerhill section for a while.
Towpath wall construction to the left of the wetlands area and Falklands Drive has also gone on apace catching up with those who are prividing the wall's concrete foundation. This towpath wall, as it approaches Falklands Drive, must now deviate from it's original line and follow the adjacent fields fencing. The old path used to be part of the now redundant, and in fact totally disappeared, lock 20 at this point. When the new towpath reaches Falklands Drive grass margin it will take a sharp right hand bend and follow the road on towards the future railway tunnels.
Autumn 2018
Work is now virtually 100% at our Fosseway site. Work continues at the 'wet lands' part with Tony C. having all but completed the new boardwalk. The two mini islands still need to be completed before the boardwalk can be walked from one end to the other. Clay is being placed beneath and around the boardwalk to allow the area to be watertight and hopefully the water loving plants can thrive therein. The old towpath wall has now been dismantled all the way to the Falklands Road turn and is rapidly being reconstructed.
The new wall has a concrete base on top of which there are some two or three layers of concrete blocks. These are topped with courses of brickwork for which we are reusing the original bricks. Roger B. and Phil.C. are doing a great job here as is John M. who is busy laying the foundation concrete, together with their helpers. The sandbag wall running parallel to the railway line will be all but finished by the end of the month, at last count there are only another 75 bags to be filled and placed to complete it. Stirling work by the bag fillers has enabled about 2000 bags to be filled and placed to make this wall. Thanks to Chris A., Emlyn W. Simon C. Derby Bob, and John M. in particular for performing this task.
We continued to play host to many corporate volunteer groups. They have worked on the new towpaths and footpaths to great effect. One gang installed the new gates at the top of the footpath adjacent to the railway line.
September 2018 - Guided Walk
About 50 people joined us for for our Fosseway guided walk on September 23rd, a joint venture with Lichfield Discovered and Lichfield Waterworks Trust. Begining from the Sandfields Pumping Station with a short tour by David Moore we were then led by Peter Buck along the original route of the canal up to Fosseway Heath Nature Reserve, then on along to Lock 18, the first part of the canal to be restored.
October / November - More Concrete and Clay
With the mound complete work on preparing the turning pound base to the correct height could proceed. Sand and soil were, in some places too high and in other too low. A lot of time, both of volunteer hours and machinery hours were expended getting it right. Then it needed compacting thoroughly, The prepared base has to be overlaid with about 18" of puddling clay and then on top of the clay we need to lay about 6" of concrete. This may sound a bit excessive but over the winter months it will probably see a lot of traffic over it and also we have to be absolutely sure that it is entirely waterproof around the base to wall junction. To have water seeping into the surrounding bund, and making it's way through to leak onto Falkland Road is not a risk to be taken lightly. However, throughout October some 200 tonnes of clay were delivered. Valiant efforts by the volunteers enabled it to be spread and compacted.
Working with clay is not everyones favourite occupation! Two large areas were worked on. An area adjacent to the new sandbag wall, and a second area where the new towpath wall is being constructed. Multiple deliveries of concrete were delivered during the following weeks.
Two corporate teams attended the Fosseway Lichfield Canal site in November and made great improvements and progress on a new section of the restoration of the Valley Nature Trail. Several of the corporate volunteers from both Jaguar Land Rover, who attended on Monday, and Laing Murphy JV, who attended on Wednesday, were visiting us for the second time.
December 2018 - Ending the year on a high
Being December the weather, as you would expect had not been too kind to us. Lots of rain and a cold atmosphere made life less than pleasant on many a day. However the brick layers still turned up as did the digger drivers and the dumper truck drivers and the labourers and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. We splashed though mud and puddles up to 12" deep at times. Another large section of concreting shuttering was prepared where the towpath wall is to continue towards Falklands Road. However the concrete delivery itself had to be re-arranged several times and the concrete didn't get to be poured till 10th of January. As always the towpath wall grew both in height and length. as also did the towpath itself. Great work by navvie Paul Jewitt for his labours on this path.
Massive porgress made in December. Many thanks to Chasetown Civil Engineering Ltd for loan of an 11 tonne JCB Excavator and 6 tonne Dumper Truck over the Christmas /New Year period. It was also due to the fact that many volunteer navvies made themselves available to operate these machines, when all sane members of the Trust were sitting down stuffing turkey and plum pudding down themselves. Thanks in particular Adrian Sturgess and Tony Gardner who put in so many hours. The task was to clear the bed of the canal all the way from the steps to lock 18. This canal bed had been filled, and more than filled, many years ago with all sorts of rubble, concrete and soil.
We had loan of the excavator and dumper till 9th January and by working every day, except for Christmas Day, the task was completed, just. There is still a lot of work to do around lock 18 but that's another story for another day. Thanks to all who have helped get us though 2018 and here's to 2019. - Hugh Millington
