The Gift Shop Basement - Sinking The Barrel (Mud, Mud, Everywhere!!)

In last week's post, we had dug a trench and widened the trench out into the area where we were going to sink the 45-gallon steel barrel.  When we left, there wasn't too much water in the trench.  However, that wasn't the case when we arrived on the scene this morning.  Right in the middle of the area where we were going to dig was a good 3"-4" of water.  Right away, I knew that it was going to be muddy digging.

Our objective was to dig a round hole about 4' in diameter and about 4' deep so that we could sink the steel barrel which we would use as a liner for the sump pit.  So we stepped right into the middle of the muddy mess and started to dig.  Steve G worked one side while I worked the other.  This got us down about 12" when I took a couple of pails and started to bail the water out of the hole.  Or, should I say, started to bail the mud out of the hole.  Right around then Cliff took over on the digging and jumped right into the middle of the hole.  He soon had the hole down to 18"-24".

 And then the fun began.  As we got deeper and deeper, it became more difficult to dig into the sides of the hole to keep it vertical.  Water kept pouring in and from time to time we had to stop and bail the hole out.  It was a case of handing a pail of this soupy mix up to Brad who then handed it over to Bill who then dumped it into a pile against the wall.

If you take a close look at Brad's right boot, you'll see that his boot is a good 3"-4" in sticky, gooey, mud. And that's with a pail of crushed stone underneath to stop him from sinking down further!

Because it was raining outside, in addition to the clay being a soupy mess, we simply piled the mud up against the foundation wall, making sure that none of the soupy water would run back into our hole.  What you see coming out of the end of the bucket that Bill is dumping is that soupy, gooey mess.

There was no time to take a break for if we were to stop, we'd soon have the hole filled up with water.  As we went down deeper, we abandoned the long-handled shovel for a short handled one.  When that didn't work, we simply sloshed around in the hole churning the clay into liquid mud which we then bailed out of the hole with the plastic buckets.  We had one corner which started to look a little obstinate with a large-sized rock stopping our digging.  However, the big steel bar quickly loosened things up and by 11 o'clock, we were down to the depth we wanted.

I had no sooner been pulled out of the hole by Cliff and Brad when the hole started to fill up with water.  We quickly poured a 6" base of crushed stone into the hole as a base for the steel barrel.  We then placed the barrel on top of the crushed stone and started to backfill the outside with crushed stone.  One of the first things we did in the morning was to trundle down to the North end with the lorry, a dozen plastic pails, and 3 shovels to get a full load of crushed stone.  Half of this went into the mud to stabilize our walking surfaces on the sides of the hole as we were digging.  Otherwise, we would have been pulling each other out of the mud and probably leaving our boots behind.

As a result, it required another trip down to the North end for more crushed stone.  At that point, Mother Nature decided to turn the tap on with some heavy-duty rain.  However, Brad, Bill and Cliff decided to weather the storm and went down the line for some crushed stone.  It wasn't too bad for Brad and Cliff as they had rain gear.  However, Bill was soaked by the time he returned.

You wouldn't believe the amount of clay we dug out of that hole.  Bill had been piling it up against the wall.  Here's a photo of that mud pile with a lot of the water drained out of it.

We soon had the hole backfilled around the barrel just in time to go for lunch.  However, we had to get a group photo for the record.  That's Cliff in the Balaclava.

After lunch, Cliff and I returned to do the plumbing with ABS plastic pipe.  To my surprise..... well...... actually I wasn't surprised.............  the water was over the top of the barrel.

We managed to get most of the plumbing done but we were short a couple of fittings and I had to leave for a dinner engagement in Ottawa - after I had taken a nice hot shower.

We'll be back at it again next week, hopefully with the sump pump in operation so that we can dry out the gift shop basement.  All in all, a messy job that was very well done.  Thanx a lot guys for your efforts.  We certainly know how to get the job done, eh!?

The Gift Shop Basement - A New Start

With the cleanup of the excavated clay from the baggage room basement last week, we started today on the gift shop basement.  While this basement is located right next door to the stairs going outside, thereby being the shortest distance outside to the dumping area, it is probably going to be the trickiest, dirtiest, and messiest of the three basements we are going to tackle.

This basement was backfilled with clay when the station was built back in 1910 with the level of the clay being anywhere from 12"' to 24"' higher than it's next-door cousin, the furnace room basement.  This latter basement is the only one of the 5 basements to have a concrete floor.  Water from the gift shop basement is continually leaking underneath the concrete footings and into the furnace room basement.  Which means that the clay in the gift shop basement is a soggy, laden mess. The only drainage from this basement is a 2" ABS plastic pipe that was somehow inserted through the concrete wall from the furnace room into the gift shop basement.  This pipe finds its way over to the edge of the sump pump in the furnace room.  Not exactly the best drainage system but nevertheless it was all that we had (or could afford) at the time. 

Our objective is to turn this basement into something similar to what we did in the bathroom and baggage room basements - namely install a sump pit and sump pump, then excavate trenches around the inside perimeter of the basement, drop some 6" Big-O plastic drain tile into the trenches, and backfill the trenches with crushed stone.  Sort of something like the diagram below.

What we didn't encounter in the other two basements was that extra clay.  In order to get the holes for the drain tile in the steel barrel below the concrete floor in the furnace room basement, we have to excavate that extra 12"-24" of clay.  In addition to working in a soggy mess over several weeks, it would take us a lot of time to dig out all of that extra material.  So I decided to take a different approach.  We would first dig a wide trench from the existing 2" ABS plastic pipe over to our sump pit location and then widen that trenchwork at the location of our sump pit.  We then install the sump pit and sump pump which will then start to de-water the gift shop basement.  In about 10 day, we should be working on some solid ground.

In the meantime, when we return next week, the whole area will be a real soupy mess but it will allow us to get the steel barrel down to its proper level.  By the end of the day, this is what we had accomplished.

It always helps when you have a good crew to do the work and today was no exception.  There was Bill S, Cliff, Brad and Corey.  Just the right numbers when you consider that we are working on stairs that became greasy real fast - that's what you get when you mix clay and water - and we were working in a very closed-in space, to say nothing about the sticky, gooey, pasty, clay.  Bill and I were on the shovels, while Cliff, Brad and Corey alternated on throwing the pails out through the opening and onto the stairs, up the stairs, and out onto the dirt pile.  By the end of the morning, at least one third of the weight kept coming back in as it was impossible to completely empty the pails.

Bill took a few moments to survey the work that we had done. His hand is on the steel barrel that we'll be sinking into that soupy clay next week.  (We'll tell you more about that barrel in our next post as it required some special attention to get it through the opening into this basement.)

This is what it looks like at the drain pipe end.  You can see how fast the trench is filling up with water.  Somewhere against the concrete wall is the drain pipe that we hope will temporarily drain the water out of the basement. 

And then Bill decided to step into the excavation (or rather, I told him to pose for a photo in the excavation.  Naturally, he got stuck in the mud (as anyone would) so Brad had to come to his rescue.  It took two of us to pull him out - that's how sticky, gooey that stuff is.

Next week, we dig the sump ptt, sink the steel barrel, and backfill with crushed stone.  That's gonna be a really messy job, fer shur, fer shur!!

The Baggage Room Basement - We Got It All Done!

While we started off with a small crew of only 3 people at the start of the morning (me, Steve G and Cliff), by the end of the morning we had one of the largest crews we had ever seen since we started draining the swamp (me, Steve G, Cliff, Brad, Bill S, John W, and George M).   As a result, we got all of the dirt moved out of the baggage room basement!  Hard to believe that we only started the job at the beginning of September and, only working on Thursday mornings (and a few of those were short Thursdays!), we managed to achieve what we did.  Only way this was done was through some teamwork.

Last week, I posted this photo of where we started and what we had accomplished at the end of the day.

By mid-morning, we had that pile down quite a lot.

And by the end of the day, it looked like this. The dirt is all gone!

Quite a difference, eh!?

Here's the mug shot of today's crew.  It was a real team effort with George M and I on the shovels filling the pails, Bill S throwing them out of the baggage room basement.  Sometimes Cliff, sometimes Steve and sometimes Brad hauling the pails across the waiting room basement.  And all of them sometimes trucking them up the stairs and dumping them outside, ably assisted by John W.

Of course with all the work that we had done over the weeks, George M insisted that I put the last shovelful into the proverbial pail - sort of akin to pounding in the last spike?

A job well done, gang!

The Baggage Room Basement - We Head Into The Home Stretch

Last week saw us trucking in (or rather, bucketing in) a whole bunch of crushed stone to backfill the trenches that we had been digging over the previous number of weeks.  In digging the trenches, we were limited with our manpower so we piled the dirt in the centre of the bathroom basement for hauling out later.

"Later" arrived today, notwithstanding that we had several inches of snow that was still lingering.  It was a very fresh day - time to do some heavy lifting.  First, we shovelled off the boardwalk from the door into the operator's bay going downstairs so that we wouldn't slip as we lugged heavy pails of clay across the boardwalk to be dumped over the edge.  Then we got down to work. This is what the pile looked like before we dumped the first shovelful into the pail.  We had quite a task ahead of us, eh!?

At first we only had yours truly, Cliff, and Brad but we were soon joined by - surprise of surprises - George W.  Since George had torn his shoulder several weeks before, I put him on "light" duty.  As I filled each pail, George lifted the pails the short distance into the main waiting room basement.  We soon had all 15 pails moving which kept Brad and Cliff on their toes. After 45 minutes at this pace, I needed a break!

We no sooner got back at it when Bill S showed up.  However, George W had a business meeting so he had to leave us to get uptown.  Bill, Brad, Cliff, and I managed to keep up the pace with me filling up the pails, Bill lugging them across the main waiting room basement, Brad hauling them up the stairs, and Cliff taking the final stretch across the boardwalk, across the tracks and dumping the pails. That's Bill S sticking his head through the opening into the baggage room basement with Brad way off in the distance in the furnace room basement getting ready to haul two full pails up the stairs. 

For the last 20 minutes or so, Bill came into the baggage room basement to help me move the loaded pails, Brad carried them across the waiting room basement into the furnace room basement and up the stairs, while Cliff carried them the final distance over the boardwalk, across the tracks, and to the edge.  From time-to-time, the pails got backed up with the trip up the stairs and outside as they are quite a load when you try to take two pails up those steps.  So we periodically took a break to move the loaded pails outside.

Today was a short session as I had to bail out at 11 o'clock on personal business.  In those two hours, we managed to move about half of the pile outside.  We were all quite surprised at the progress we managed to make in that short period of time.  Compare the photo below to the one at the top of this post.  In that photo, the two concrete columns are completely buried. 

(Here's a side-by-side before-and-after photo.)

Next week, we're back at it again moving the rest of the dirt out of the baggage room basement.  Hopefully, we'll be able finish the job so that we can next start on the gift shop basement.

We could use a couple of extra hands.  So, if you're looking for something to do, why not join us?

The Baggage Room Basement - The Last Of The Crushed Stone!

IMHO, today was truly a momentous day in the life of the Swamp Chronicles.  We hauled in the last of the crushed stone into the baggage room basement.  Of course, it helps if one has a really good hard-working crew that can sling those buckets onto the lorry, with two heaves of the wagon have the loads hurtling down the tracks from the North End back down to the station, and then throw those buckets down the stairs without losing a single stone.  Okay, so I exaggerate a bit - but just a bit!

We really moved a lot of crushed stone into the baggage room basement - 6 loads of 12 buckets each weighing 50-60 lbs each.  I'll let you do the math.

At first there was only Brad, Cliff and I as Corey had done a number on his leg when he decided to run into a sidewalk on his bike the day before (Corey was on light duty today doing some clean-up in the basements).  It was a question, however, as to who was going to fill those buckets first - Cliff or Brad.  Then along came George M a bit later and finally Bill S for the last two loads.  All the help was gratefully appreciated as many willing hands make short work of the task at hand.

From the load on the platform that you see in the photo above, we moved the loaded buckets to the entrance to the basement.  I let Brad and Cliff haul those buckets down the stairs as they're full of more P&V than I am.  Or rather, at my stage in life, I'd be crazy to bring those loaded buckets down those stairs.  At 50-60 lbs each, they aren't exactly light.  

Once the buckets were on the landing, Cliff would bring the buckets halfway down the stairs and Brad would take them down the rest of the way, throwing them through the opening into the waiting room basement. (Cliff doesn't like to have his photo taken, even though we had to twist his arm.)

 George M and I (and later on Bill after he arrived) would truck them across the waiting room basement and throw them through the opening into the baggage room basement.  Once Brad and Cliff had all 12 buckets into the furnace room basement and through the opening into the waiting room basement, we'd all shift over one room so that George and I would be in the baggage room basement and Bill S, Brad, and Cliff would be carting buckets across the waiting room basement. 

 

(That is a full pail of crushed stone that George M is trucking across the waiting room basement!) (Okay, so we didn't exactly throw those loaded pails through the opening into the baggage room basement!)

From there, I'd dump the buckets into the trench and return the empty ones.

Once the 12 buckets were emptied, back down to the North End we'd go for another load.  Around about the last load, John W came by to inspect the work (after getting permission to enter the "job site" from the Job Superintendent!)  so we let him carry a couple of "symbolic" buckets for us.  We did this 6 times today.  My first estimate was that it would take 3 loads but it took 5.  And when I looked at the level of the crushed stone in the trenches, I decided that we needed another load to top up the stone and finish the job properly.  This is what it now looks like with the crushed stone in the trenches.

We started moving crushed stone at 09:15 and we had the last load in and everything put away by 11:45.  By this time it was time to go for lunch (Brad and Corey had to get to classes, Bill had an appointment in Ottawa and I had personal errands to do) so we all trekked on over to McDonald's for lunch and some good conversation.  But before we did, we had John W take the proverbial "group photo".  Here's today's crew who contributed to today's effort.  Thanks, gang, for a job well done!

Next week, we start to move that excess dirt out of the baggage room basement.  Now that's going to be a task-and-a-half!  But we'll get there, fer shur, fer shur.

See y'all same time, same place next week. 

PS - 6 loads x 12 bucket x 50-60 lbs equals 3,600-4,320 lbs or roughly 2 tons of crushed stone.  Now that's a lot of crushed stone, eh!?

The Baggage Room Basement & The Bucket Brigade - The Crushed Stone Guys

Last week I had some personal business to attend to so we didn't do any work on the swamp.  However, today was a different matter, even though we were down to four and then five of us old codgers - well, at least four of us were old codgers with one young buck, although one of those old codgers kept the young buck on his toes.  Anyhooo..............................

Today was the day of the bucket brigade - the crushed-stone-trucking-bucket-brigade - Cliff, Brad, Bill S, George M and me (I'll let you decide who the young buck and the old codgers were).  Load 12 plastic buckets onto the lorry (along with 3 shovels).  Push the lorry down to the north end.  Load each bucket to the top with crushed stone (1" clear septic-bed crushed stone that's been washed twice).  Cart each bucket over to the lorry.  Load the buckets onto the lorry - six buckets on each side.  Push the lorry back down the tracks to the station. 

Now comes the "grunt work".  Each loaded bucket weighs about 50-60 lbs.  Twelve buckets multiplied by 50-60 lbs equals 600 - 720 lbs per trip.  Unload the buckets onto the station platform.  Carry the buckets to the doorway going downstairs.  One bucket at a time down the stairs into the furnace room basement and across to the opening into the waiting room basement.  Shove it through the opening.  Carry the bucket across the waiting room basement.  Shove the bucket into the baggage room basement.  Carry the bucket to the end of the trench and dump the 50-60 lbs of crushed stone into the trench.  Truck the empty bucket back outside.  Repeat the process 12 times.  Down to the north end for another load of crushed stone.

We did that 6 times this morning - 600 - 720 lbs per trip times 6 trips equals 3,600 - 4320 lbs or 2 tons of crushed stone.  That's the amount of crushed stone we trucked down into the basement today - one bucket at a time.  We've got about two-thirds of the trenchwork filled with crushed stone.  Another 2-3 trips next week and we'll have the trenchwork in the baggage room basement done.  At last!

However, we've got a lot of clay to move out of the baggage room basement which we'll start on - hopefully next week.  We're making progress - slowly but surely. 

Oh yes.  Almost forgot.  Cliff and I managed to get the bits and pieces of the 45-gallon steel barrel into the gift shop basement and bolted together. 

PS - Left my camera at home today so I wasn't able to take any photos.  We'll add them next week to show you the progress we made today. 

A Change In Course - We Head Into The Home Stretch

Today was a change in the course we were taking.  As we had limited man-power, I took a closer look at the trenching and made an executive decision.  The 8'-10' remaining to be trenched was back-stopped by the trenching in the bathroom basement.  So I decided it was now time to install the drain tile and start backfilling the open trenches with crushed stone.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Sump Pit Liner - Gift Shop Basement
A few weeks ago, I put out a call for two 45-gallon oil drums for the Gift Shop Basement (aka the Ladies' Waiting Room Basement).  The opening into this basement measured only 18" wide and 30" high.  Given that the diameter of a 45-gallon barrel is 24", we would have had a problem pushing a barrel through this opening.  Recall that a 45-gallon barrel makes a perfect liner for a sump pit.  So if we were to install a sump pit in the Gift Shop Basement, we would have to think of some way to get a 45-gallon barrel through that small opening.  What to do!!??

Aha!!  Split a 45-gallon barrel in half!!  How do I get the two halves together after I've shoved each piece into the Gift Shop Basement!!??  Very easy!  Cut two strips off of a second barrel, drill a whole bunch of holes, and bolt each half together using the two strips from the second barrel.

George W took on the challenge of finding two barrels.  With a little bit of arm-twisting some of the businesses in downtown Sensational Smiths Falls, he quickly located two barrels.  I trucked them into Ottawa to our secret machine shop and got Ross R to cut the barrels to spec.  Here's Ross at our secret machine shop using a plasma cutter to cut one barrel into two halves.  At first the air was very clear which is usually the case when using a plasma cutter.

What's a plasma cutter, you ask?  It's simply an arc welder in reverse, only without a welding rod attached.  The electric arc between the business end of the cutter and the barrel turns solid steel into a molten mass in the blink of an eye.  A stream of compressed air blows the molten metal out of the way, much the same way an oxy-acetylene torch does the job, only with much less heat.  A plasma cutter is one of my favourite tools!!

However, as he moved the torch down the length of the barrel, the paint heated up and started to smoke.  There had to be at least 10 coats of paint on exterior of that barrel - but none on the inside.

The air soon filled with smoke so we had to take a break for a few minutes while the air cleared.

I then used my handy-dandy angle grinder to clean up the rough edges, lined up and drilled matching holes in the two halves and two strips, installed some bolts, nuts, washers, and lockwashers, and tightened them all up.  Voila!  A barrel that can be dismantled, pushed through the opening, and reassembled inside the Gift Shop basement.Neat, eh!?

There was, however, a fair bit of exposed steel that would quickly rust through, which had to be painted.  Brad arrived on the scene this morning suffering from sore teeth as he had had a couple of molars pulled.  So we put him to work sloshing paint over the exposed steel.  (You can see the two strips of steel on the far side of Brad's leg.)

Stringing "Big-O" Drain Tile In The Baggage Room Basement
Meanwhile, Cliff, Bill S. and I were down in the basment stringing out the "Big-O" drain tile and threading it from the Waiting Room basement and into the trenches of the Baggage Room basement.  At times, wrangling those coils of "Big-O" seemed as if we were trying to hold onto a big Anaconda snake from the Amazon jungle.  However, we soon had the drain tile under control and into the bottom of the trenches.

Filling The Trenches With Crushed Stone
Our next step was to trek on down to the North end with a lorry, 12 buckets, and 4 shovels to get some crushed stone to backfill the trenches.   At this point, George M decided to join us and gave us a hand filling the buckets with crushed stone.  Not to sound like a record here, but if you ever install drain tile, the type of crushed stone you get is very, very important.  This is 1" clear septic bed crushed stone.  It's been washed twice at the quarry so it doesn't have any of those fine pieces of grit which is known as "stone dust". 

The lorry that we use will only accommodate 12 buckets - 6 on each side.  However, when you fill up a bucket, you have one heck of a lot of weight.  And given that we're no longer full of the same p@#s-and-vinegar that we had 22 years ago, throwing those pails of crushed stone around is no easy job!

Once the pails are filled, we put them on the lorry, wheel the lorry back to the station, and unload the pails onto the edge of the station platform.  One-by-one, we then struggle with a pail to the door going down into the basement.  Walking a pail down a flight of stairs is no easy job.  And once we've got the pail down into the furnace-room basement, the job is only half done!  We next lug the pail through the opening into the Waiting Room basement, across that basement, and into the Baggage Room basement.

Here's Bill S. sticking his head into the Baggage Room basement with a pail of crushed stone.

And here's me emptying the pail into the trench. 

We managed to make two trips - 24 pails of crushed stone - before lunch.  This is the trench work that we managed to fill.  It doesn't look like a lot but those trenches are 18"-24" deep.

It's a case of that old story -
How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.
How do you fill a trench with crushed stone?  One pail at a time. 

We all had personal business to attend to after lunch so we called it a day.  We'll be back at it again next week.