Ground Signal Re-build

Tuesday 29th Jan

Work continued today at Winchcombe with the re-painting of two line-side cabinets. The metalwork of these cabinets is in good condition - the woodwork however has not stood the ravages of time quite so well and some of the internal spars have been replaced.

Not an ideal day for painting but we managed to do this undercover in the port adjacent to the MSC shed. Peter B here with a cabinet  lid and the silver paint:

Neil C and Keith L went off to Toddington to take motive power to Broadway to take the remainder of the cable troughs off platform 2 and relay some of them northwards from the end of platform 2. Pictures of this and the re-building of the footbridge steps can be seen on the Extension Blog.

Over recent time the components of a dismantled  ground Signal have been cleaned and re-painted. Today we put it back together starting with the bottom bracket which holds the balance weight lever:

It then becomes a two man job to position the upper bracket and its clamps while at the same time getting the bar which operates the spectacle plate fed into position and ensuring that it all moves freely before  tightening the clamp bolts and before muscle fatigue sets in! Here is the finished job:

The balance weight still needs a bit of paint and will be fitted later. Not a good day for painting I'm afraid. You will have noticed that most of our activity today has been outside. There is little room left under cover to do this work.
Other jobs going on outside were the construction of two more shuttering boxes for concreting the line-side cabinets in place - John P in action with saw and hammer and drill:

And George B cleaning some more fittings for the signals:

All necessary work towards getting the Broadway signalling infrastructure completed.

I believe there are plans to do some more cable trenching northwards from the distant signal this week.

Curly