Wednesday 10 February 2021

S & T Update

 Wednesday 9th Feb

While us volunteers have been on leave from the railway the Ops Manager and Head of S & T have been busy on several fronts.

Firstly, the Toddington south crossover. Malcolm W installed the final piece of mechanical locking in the signal box and Neil C completed the wiring. They then went through  a comprehensive locking test list and signed off the crossover as working. These photos shows point lever 7 reversed and disc 6 cleared:






Also because there are now no spare levers Malcolm made a rack to hang the " reminder appliances" on:


Back at Broadway the wiring up of the electrical locks begins and the replacement of two of the originals which had faulty coils.

All locks and contact boxes have now been wired up and wired back to the relay board on the back wall of the locking room. Here is one of the locks with its cover removed:


Attention then turned to the signal box chimney which once again has succumbed to blockage by nesting jackdaws. The blockage has now been removed and Malcolm has fabricated a chimney guard which has now been fitted. (I have no idea how they got up there to do it, so don't ask me!!).

Anyway, there was a successful steaming with smoke coming out in the right place:



Curly

Photos and info courtesy of Neil C


6 comments:

  1. Thank you Curly
    Bet that was a sight for the eyes with smoke coming from the signal box chimney, did you do a proper fireside test and make toast? Well done for getting out in this awful weather.
    Regards
    Paul & Marion

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  2. Not a 'nit pick' as such, but you refer to POINT LEVER 7 !! The lever is (by the looks of it) blue. Is this because it has yet to be painted black, or some other reason please.
    Regards, Paul.

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    Replies
    1. Electrically-worked signalling equipment has the controlling lever shortened to remind the signalman that minimum effort is required to operate it. In the case of points, modern point machines have the Facing Point Lock built into them, so the controlling lever is painted half and half - Blue over Black. The principle is that the top colour is the item that operates first - i.e. the FPL.

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    2. Now I understand. Thanks for the reply.
      Regards, Paul.

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  3. Hi Paul, Points 7A&B are two HW2000 point machines. 7 lever being a short lever and the bottom being black. The photo of the block shelf shows the instrument reading 'R'. The timer above is for approach locking on the main signal which reads over 7A.

    Neil C.

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  4. Interesting blog Neil. Great work going on.

    ReplyDelete