Troughs and Stools

Tuesday 3rd July

Some pictures first of the replacement cabling work going on at Winchcombe. A new cable has been connected along the sidings to the signal box, but not yet fully dug in. Looking towards Toddington a trench has been excavated by Steve and his JCB and the cable placed in:

And buried along the side of the barrow crossing. Looking towards the station the cable continues in the trench.

When the tenching becomes imupossible at the convergent tracks/rodding the cable continues in the concrete troughing that was collected from Broadway last week:

Steve in action with the JCB with Neil C supervising:

And a few more troughs to put in here to finish the job off.

A new cable drum holder has been fabricated. This will mount on the diesel rail car trailer to lay the next 1000m of cable in a trench from Laverton to Little Buckland. Trench still to be dug - should be able to keep Steve busy for a while yet!

Back at Broadway (5 of us today) work continues bedding in the rodding stools. We have positioned and lined up another 9 today, just past the position for the compensators - decided to leave further concreting until next week. Meanwhile John P knocks out and re-assembles the shuttering (in the shade of the footbridge) from the completed positions:

And Peter B puts in and bolts up a bit more rodding. 

While the rodding team were in action, Malcolm makes a start with positioning and fitting some roller sets to the southern end of platform 1 wall (makes a change from rodding!). These comprise a four roller set (lower) and a two roller set (upper). 

Four wires are required at the bracket signal - two arms and two call-on arms. Then one for the outer home signal and one for the advanced starter. All these signals still to be installed. 

Main concern at the moment is that we will run out of the special rodding t-bolts. A new supply being investigated. 4 are required per rod. 

Curly