Notes from the Project Co-ordinator

6th March 2004

We walked the Radstock to Mells Yard route on Saturday morning. We parked a car at Mells Yard, and drove on into Radstock and started from there. The whole route has been cleared and the sub-base is down from approx chainage 1800 to 4250.

There were attractive clumps of snowdrops in places and we heard a woodpecker drumming. We also heard quite a few buzzards. I also met the other John Price (Ecological Clerk of Works) walking in the opposite direction.

Meadow View - It looks like we may have a problem with getting past the parked cars.

Route completely cleared all the way to Mells Yard - didn't realise how bad the sleepers were. Cycle path generally kept 2m from nearest rail.

Near Kilmersdon - Interesting as it shows details of construction. Technique is to skim 100mm of railway ballast to remove vegetable material, put down Terram 1000 to suppress growth; deposit 100mm Type 1 sub-base (scalpings to you and me); finally a dense bitumen binder course of 10mm will be laid.

This shows how we have had to deviate the route in places to satisfy ecological constraints.

This shows tool used by subcontractors to lay sub-base to correct depth.

At 3.65km from Meadow View, path changes from west to east of railway line.

Path changes back again at Mells Yard.

John Price

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