A Bit more progress under the box

Tuesday 26th
Five of us descended on Broadway to do a bit more fitting in the Signal Box locking room. There are a lot of parts to be fitted here, many of which have already been brought from Winchcombe - so we needed to clear some space for the main event which is the fitting of the C-channel girders to the steel   channels which had been previously concreted into the locking room floor.

The two shorter lengths on the left hand side of the picture will support the angle cranks which will operate the point rodding and the longer beams will support the pulley wheels which will direct the signal wires out through the tunnel. Nothing here is lightweight and heaving these beams around to drill the holes was labour intensive. Malcolm and John P have the privilege of using our new magnetic drill to punch the holes in the girders:

Meanwhile Carl S was fitting two of the signal wire adjusters. These are fitted to the signal box floor behind the levers. The securing bolts are particularly awkward to fit with now very limited access from underneath:

The completed unit from above:

We finished off by fitting the covers to the locking trays. The tappet  blades which are connected to the cams have been fitted -  more details of the locking system in due course.
 Because interchangeability was not the strongest point of mating GWR components we are glad that we took the precaution of pre-assembling and matchmaking all the main components of the assembly in the MSC shed at Winchcombe,  although a certain amount of "fettling" has still been necessary on site! Here is John P struggling to fit one of the locking tray covers.

Curly

A bit more equipment installed

Tuesday 12th April
Five of us departed from Winchcombe with the blue pick-up well loaded with the remaining 40 mechanical locking cams, locking trays, some signal wire pulleys and point rodding parts. Still quite a lot more to follow in due course.

We spent most of the day fitting more of the cams, only another 7 to go. Tightening the mounting bolts and fitting pivot pins and split pins in fairly inaccessible places is a bit of a challenge but we escaped without serious injury!
Our final objective for the day was to mount 5 locking trays. These mount vertically below the cams and are seriously heavy cast iron beasts. It's a 2 man lift to hoist them into position while a third pair of hands attempts to locate 6 fixing screws .

There is still a bit of adjustment required to get all the slots correctly aligned, but the final view looks pretty splendid. Malcolm W will have a bit of work to do here to configure all the interlocking combinations required.

Another box ticked

Sitting in the signal box at lunch makes you realise what a splendid set of views there are - there's going to be some competition signalman duties here!

Curly

A Little more progress at Broadway Box

Tuesday 5th April

Three of us from S &T did a bit more work on the Signal Box today. There are 45 mechanical cams to be fitted to each of the levers in the frame downstairs in the locking room. These are fairly heavy lumps requiring two of us to juggle them into a rather restricted space. We decided that 15 of them in one day would suffice.

Theses cams operate the mechanical locking bars which will eventually be fitted in vertically mounted locking trays.

We also delivered the newly refurbished locker - it is very useful already as it houses the S & T tea making equipment!!

Couldn't resist taking a picture of the bridge span being lowered into place- another great part of the station taking place.

Oh and don't forget the matching desk:

Another 15 cams next week!

Curly