"Hello Houston. The "Big-O" Has Landed!" (The Swamp Chronicles" Continued - The Bathroom Basement

Okay, so it's not as big an event as landing on the moon, but we finally achieved what one might think was the impossible.  This morning, we completed the 18"-24" deep trench around the inside perimeter of the bathroom basement.  We got a whole pile of excess clay moved out so that if you wanted to put in a lift 6" of clear 1" septic-bed crushed stone over all of the bathroom basement and then add a 6" layer of concrete on top of some 6-mil plastic, the bathroom basement would all be ready.  However, that's not on the top of the priority list.  You should'a seen the pile of clay that was piled up outside when we broke for lunch.  It was quite the pile.

In the meantime, we took the big coil of  "Big-O" drain tile and rolled it from the main waiting room basement into the baggage room basement.   If you think holding on to an Anaconda is a trick-and-a-half, you want to try uncoiling some "Big-O" drain tile.  Brad uncoiled the pipe from the coil, threaded it through the opening into the bathroom basement and passed it on to Corey.

Corey then passed it on to me.  All the while, the pipe was trying to recoil itself back into a big roll. 

And I tried to push it into the bottom of the trench, all the while trying to keep the coil straight so that it would roll naturally into the bottom of the trench without it coiling back up again.  While I've never wrestled an Anaconda, I kinda got the sense of what it might feel like as we tried to fit the "Big-O" drain tile into the bottom of the trench.

It was a bit of a task but we had the job done in about 30 minutes.  By this time it was time to break for lunch so we all hiked up the street to Burger King where we recovered in the cool of their newly renovated restaurant.

After lunch, we then shifted into Phase 4 of the project, Phase 1 being lowering the 45-gallon steel barrel an extra 24" into the ground, Phase 2 being digging the trench around the perimeter of the bathroom basement, and Phase 3 being installing some 6" "'Big-O" drain tile into the bottom of the trench.

Phase 4 involves the moving of some 1" clear septic-bed crushed stone from the north end of the Museum back down to the station, and then lugging the crushed stone down the stairs, through the basements, into the bathroom basement, and filling up the trench with the crushed stone.

This is a different kind of grunt work.  It's not glamourous or glitzy.  It's back-breaking, hard on the knees, legs, arms, and muscles, to say nothing of the back.  But it has to be done if we're to succeed in draining the swamp.

It's that same old question again.
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
How do you move crushed stone into the bathroom basement?
One bucket at a time.
How do you fill a bucket?
One shovel-full at a time.

There's no other way to do it.
And that's how it's done.

First we liberated one of the lorries and moved it down to the north end next to the pile of crushed stone.  This is stuff that's been left over from 2006 when we relocated the mainline onto its new alignment.

Then we shovelled the stone into the 8 plastic buckets that we used to move the heavy clay out of the basement (they're doing double-duty now, eh!?)

We then moved the loaded stone back down the tracks to the station.

We then off-loaded the buckets onto the station platform.

Then the fun begins!  Each one of those pails weighs about 40 lbs.  Truck them across the platform, down the stairs and into the furnace-room basement.  Then it's into the waiting-room basement.  Across that basement and shove the pail into the baggage room basement.  Then across the baggage-room basement and shove the pail into the bathroom-basement.

Take that pail full of crushed stone and dump it into the trench.  One bucket at a time.  Slowly but surely, the trench gets back-filled with the crushed stone. 

Repeat the process all over again.  

We managed to get about 1/4 of the trench back-filled in spite of the heat and humidity.  We made some really good progress today.  If we can keep it up, we should have the baggage-room basement done in about another 2 weeks (we only work on this project on Thursdays).

In 5-weeks worth of work, working only on Thursdays (I'm only available on Thursdays), we've managed to get rid of the alligators (How do you drain the swamp when you're up to your eyeballs in alligators?), and get rid of the water.  It's quite the difference between then and now!!  Fer shur! Fer shur!

Today we had George M, Steve and Cliff, and John W inspect the work that's been done.  If you want a personal guided tour, let me know. And make sure you let those young lads know that they've been doing a really good job.  Without them we wouldn't have achieved what we have achieved.

Stay tuned for next week's episode. 

PS - Steve and Cliff were really tearing up a storm cleaning the mainline track from the weeds.  Cliff was running behind the lawn mower (This lad doesn't walk.  He runs!).  And Steve was right behind him with the weed-whacker cleaning up right next to the rails.  Lotsa progress being made today, fer shur, fer shur!!

 

See y'all again next week when it's more crushed stone, more crushed stone, and more crushed stone and 'Eureka!", we've got it done!.