Thursday 22 March 2018

The Stools March On

Tuesday 20th March

Seven of us off again to Broadway to carry on with the installation of the southbound run of rodding support stools.
The blue pickup had been loaded up at Winchcombe with everything needed for the day :


All this then has to be off-loaded on to the large PW trolley (we have borrowed) and walked up to the station. The cement mixer, aggregate and cement are left for mixing on the back of the pickup which is parked at the top of the ramp opposite the ground frame. The concrete will be barrowed up on the trolley later.



Some preparation work first to prepare a few more shuttering boxes. John P has brought his own portable saw unit to speed things up and to make sure that a nice square box results:



Jim P and Richard C  set about bolting the roller sets onto the Stools - 8 bolts per stool and two lengths of screwed rod. The screwed rod is to stop the unit tipping until the concrete sets.
We need 15 sets of rollers to reach the southern end of platform 2.




Some rodding was fitted and a lot more tweaking was required to get level and alignment to a satisfactory condition before concreting.  Eventually Malcolm was happy and Keith L began:


Here is the first one complete. We'll remove the rodding and remove the box next week after the concrete has set. We  have 15 boxes so that will be more than enough to get us up to just short of Evesham Road Bridge. The rodding will then cross under the tracks to cross over the bridge on platform 1 side


And here we are at the end of the day. Should look good when the boxes are removed and the ballast tidied up:


Must have it tidy for Friday 30th!!

Curly

4 comments:

  1. A good little production line of boxes there! We have faith that it will all be up and running at Broadway, sometimes it is these little jobs that take time but suddenly you will have it all finished and tested and wonder what the panic was all about! Great work there every one.
    Regards
    Paul & Marion

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  2. These item of news are the ones left out by other railways and it makes all the difference to see the ancillary items all coming together.
    When the rodding reaches the turnout, will it be connected and thus be controlled from the box instead of the ground frame, or will it be put on hold until you have all the point work ready for connection?
    Regards, Paul.

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    Replies
    1. No, the ground frame will continue to be used until All the electrical and mechanical work is complete. After all the point rodding and signal wires are in there is still a mountain of work to do ie track bonding, cabling, installing all the block shelf instruments and wiring, etc so our objective is to have the signal box officially commissioned for the start of the 2019 season.
      The removal of the ground frame will probably be one of the final tasks and will involve the installation of a detector unit to safeguard the points.
      Thanks for your continued interest and encouragement.
      PS Had a great ride into Broadway yesterday on one of the Volunteer Specials and the ground frame operated flawlessly and we didn't suffer any de-railments!!

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  3. Great work, S&T. I love your blog. All that rodding looks daunting, but you seem to have things under control.

    It's great work that you do, and I'm sure Lord Faulkner would agree.

    Go to it, gentlemen !

    Peter

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