Yet More Cabinets!

Tuesday 19th Feb

Off on another "jolly" to Broadway today by railcar. A bit easier getting to Broadway by rail rather than road today. Stanton skew Bridge closed for works to restrict its use by lorries now that a 3 ton weight limit has been imposed.

Here we are loaded up ready to go with the next two large line-side boxes with concreting kit:

Two of us alight at the home signal to sort out the siting of the start of the signal wire stakes towards Childswickham Bridge while two more alight at Childswickham Bridge to mark out the 15ft intervals for the stakes back to the home signal with white spray paint.
Neil C and Keith L carry on with the rail car to the North end of platform 2 to install a cabinet at signal 39 (controls entry into siding). Just in case you were wondering when the next picture of a cabinet would turn up - here it is completed:

Meanwhile back at the home signal  two stakes have been positioned to start the run at a 14ft 6" distance from the track.
This is the distance between the track and the roller attached to the side of Childswickham Bridge, so maintaining this dimension all along the run will give a nice straight pull and look good!
Jim P and Malcolm eyeing up the alignment from the signal

Keith L unloads some of the stakes - these are zinc plated  angle iron with pre- drilled holes for attaching the roller castings:

Then starts the hammering in of the stakes - I didn't count them but it's circa 25. They will need a reinforcement of concrete in due course. The side of the embankment undulates quite a bit along here so having levelled the stakes by eye from the track some of them don't penetrate too far into the "ballast" 

Neil C, Keith L and George B return to site the second cabinet by the signal at Childswickham Bridge - this should be the last of the large cabinets required. A lot of the cabinets that have been installed on the railway have suffered from rotting wood in side their bases because they sit on damp blocks - this current idea of bolting them onto large angle iron supports should hopefully eliminate this problem and help to keep nibbling rodents away fron the wiring insulation inside. George B pudding the concrete in mid pour:

And the finished job:

I should mention that the main reason for keeping the 14' gap between the stakes and the track is for vehicular access, which brings me neatly to the next picture of the horizontal pulley at Childswickham Bridge. This now has two substantial rail barriers to stop it being inadvertently run over!

Curly