More Cleaning and Painting

Tuesday 29th Oct

An excellent turnout today with twelve of us  - just about room for us all in the mess coach.

We continued with the painting and re-assembly of the replacement Cheltenham bracket signal - not room for many more hands in here!

Got it together at last - a good job all the parts were matchmarked because a bit of twist and bolt holes need pulling into alignment. Are we pleased?!

The fittings removed from the soon to be installed Broadway bracket needed a bit of paintwork touching up after the rigours of bolting and unbolting. Screw threads also needed a good clean up and greasing.
I believe the decision has been made to transport the signal by rail to Broadway - and use the telehandler to  erect it. Watch this space.
Here are some of the fittings now ready for action

Next main task for the  CRC bracket was to find a suitable steel baseplate which will have to be welded to the main post. This post is currently in a pile at the back of the yard, will need the telehandler to get it out ready for cleaning and painting. Not sure yet if the  bottom end of it will need squaring off prior to welding.
Keith L found suitable plate and trailered it in for examination

Unfortunately there was some confusion over the size of the plate and hole spacing to suit the existing foundation block at CRC so John H and Jim P were despatched to CRC to take measurements. This subsequently meant that this plate would need cutting down to size - however, pilot holes have now been drilled on the correct centres, and the edges marked up for cutting.

Various other cleaning and painting activities were going on including a cover for one of the point machines stored in the yard - this is fibreglass and has a split in it which needs repair to keep the rain out - George B cleaning it to remove all loose "muck"ready for the repair kit

And Carl S cleaned and painted the side covers for this point machine

Our telecommunications experts Mike S and Paul D spent most of the day in Churchward House removing all the computer and telecom wiring and sockets  from the offices ready for installation of the new system.
Paul de-commissioning some plastic trunking:

And Mike disposing of the rubbish

Another sub-team set off to Toddington to complete the replacement of the ground signal lens plates that was unfinished business from a few weeks ago.

So  all in all a day of mixed activity

Curly