As predicted ...CinderTrack update

A few weeks ago I made an inspection run up the Cinder Track and pointed out that drains near the Rugby Club had become full of silt and would, sooner or later, cause water to run down the Track and erode the loose surface.

Lo and behold, the drain hasn't been cleared ....

Silt filling the drain

.... and the Track surface has severely eroded.

Water running down the surface has exposed

 the Track's brick and rubble base.

Joined by even more water further down the Track, where more sections of the drain have silted up with run off from the fields next door (cue blog post on soil erosion and the number of harvests we've got left if we don't make more efforts to keep the soil where it is), we've not only got drifts of loose material but also the beginnings of deep gullys.

Drifts of loose material ready 

to catch out the inexperienced.

This gully is over 20 cm deep and an obvious hazard.

There's an old saying that "a stitch in time saves nine". In this case the failure to maintain the drain means that the surface will now have to be repaired as well. Unless, of course, we're prepared to simply leave it in a hazardous state.

+ I'm meeting officials from the North Yorkshire Moors National Park next week to discuss the role volunteering might play in maintaining and improving the Track. Here's what I wrote in an e-mail to the National Park, the Borough Council and our fellow Friends Group (Gateway) who are based in Whitby.

"I was out on the Track last weekend with Ian Lambert, a Sustrans Ranger and member of the Friends. As well as tidying up some signage we also did a litter/fly tipping pick along the cutting between the Gallows Close Centre and Cross Lane Bridge in Scarborough.

During the previous week I also conducted a quick inspection ride between Scarborough and Ravenscar. http://seven-billion-to-one.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/cinder-track-feb-2018.html

The challenge facing volunteering on the Track is the scale of the task. Major work is needed to improve the quality of the Track (especially in the urban areas where it gets most use and where there is the greatest potential for latent demand to be released). This is beyond our capacity as volunteers.

However, there are some discreet tasks that are amenable.
1) Controlling vegetatative overgrowth of the Track but only along short stretches (e.g. in the summer of 2016 three of us scraped back the vegetation that had dramatically reduced the path width between Newby Farm Road and the Scalby viaduct).

2) Litter picking
3) Drain clearance (e.g see the picture of the silted up drain near the Rugby Club in the report linked above). It would undoubtedly be useful to have access to the Maintenance Schedule so that the most important jobs could be readily identified (Paul?)
4) Tree planting. It's clear that some trees, particularly those that have grown in drainage channels, will need to be cleared as part of Track improvements. A start could be made on planting replacements further back from the line of the Track.
5) Habitat monitoring and recording.

It's possible to undertake some of these tasks independently of LA involvement but not all of them.

Best wishes
Andy Sharp
(Chair of the Friends of the Old Railway)"

n.b In Suggestion 3 I mention "the Maintenance Schedule". This is a bit cheeky because I've never seen any evidence that it actually exists.

What the sea taketh away...

The recent weather system known as the "Beast from the East" not only turned our house into a freezer (it stands up above most of Scarborough and was directly exposed to the strong, and very cold, east wind) but also scoured enormous amounts of sand off of both of the town's beaches.

Freshly exposed rocks in the North Bay

No slippy algae on this one

This part of the coast has always been subject to a phenomenon known as longshore drift where sand is picked up by the sea and tends to drift towards the south. The end result of all this is Spurn Point, a long spit of sand at the mouth of the Humber. 

Spurn Point

Of course we'd rather that our beaches didn't just disappear but we're used to the fact that they keep on changing and when I went out for a walk yesterday I became confident that at least some of the sand would soon be back, and the uncovered stones would once again snuggle back under their sandy blanket.

Random dog playing in the turbid water

Sometimes the waves coming in are white, bright and frothy. At others, like this, they're brown and murky. The sand is on it's way back...