Concentrating on the Concentrators!

Well, its a slight over alliteration but it'll do for a title.

Whilst all the mechanical work has got under way at Broadway we, newby Paul and I,  have been steadily working away under Toddington Box to prepare for the last in the series of Concentrator  upgrades.

Paul inspecting the workings of the old system at Todd

This particular one is taking longer to build because it is the largest capacity of all the ones we have built so far. We need 10 lines at present but will shortly need 11 so we have to build for 15 and its keeping  Kevern busy.

Internal view of the 10 line until at Winchcombe

 Presently we plan to do the change over in the Autumn or perhaps over the winter shutdown. However the old lady thats presently installed has been playing up and despite valiant efforts to make her behave she still, like any old lady, has her moments. ( I found last week, to my exasperation that taking out keys to clean them can put on more faults than you started with- something I learnt back in the 1970's whilst a final year apprentice (Y3YC) working on 40 year old automanual boards . For a young man the cord changes were the interesting bits- say no more!

Mike just checking  that the records are correct

So we have had to prove out and prepare detailed records  so that we know exactly how the old concentrator lines are connected to the cable heads.
When we do make the changeover  we hope that it works first time- at least that policy has held us in good stead so far and this will be the last of the four to be done.
Broadway should be an easy new install so we will know where everything is.
Slowly and steadily we seem to be getting it right, giving the signalmen a standard, simple concentrator system that works the same whichever Box they happen to be rostered to.
( Didn't my English teacher say that you shouldn't end a sentence with preposition?)



Oh, I nearly forgot. Whilst working at Todd yesterday P&O went past majestically.

All ready  to exchange tokens  on the run in to Toddington

 

All we can say is "Well Done" to all those engineers who worked to bring her back from scrap

Mike S