The remaining track to the driveway, on a downgrade, was relatively plain sailing, compared to the cutting.
An advantage of working on the track in winter was that it was clear where water tended to accumulate necessitating drainage measures. At both side of the driveway, 60 mm slotted drainage pipe was laid under the track and the trench filled with ballast and/or larger rocks to allow water to percolate through.
The next section of track from the driveway along the side of the lily pond was always going to be tricky, as the ground level dropped by 400 mm over a short distance. Initially, I started using the soil removed from the cutting to build up an embankment to try to maintain the 1 in 50 maximum, but it soon became clear it was going to require a lot of dirt and, as the ground level continued to fall, the embankment might never reach natural ground level.
Plan B was to relay several track sections based on a steeper 1 in 33 gradient, and also dig a shallow cutting immediately past the driveway so the downgrade would commence earlier, to limit the length of the embankment.
In the photo below, the track on the left is on the original embankment, and I have removed the track and ballast from the centre section in preparation for lowering the embankment. The track on the right is at the new, lower level.
After relaying this section, the resulting track height fits in much better with the general lay of the land. The piles of dirt to the left of the track as what I removed from the embankment plus more dirt removed from the cutting earlier. The excess dirt will probably be used somewhere else along the line as there are some low lying areas in the back garden.
