Wednesday 23 October 2019

Preparations at Broadway

Tuesday 22nd Oct.

Rather short-handed today with four of us plus the boss.
I understand that the round of fire extinguisher checking/replenishment was happening today so Carl S and John P went off to Gotherington Signal Box by train to bring the two extinguishers back to Winchcombe - a bit difficult for the contractors to access.

Peter W and Richard C continued with the painting of the Cheltenham bracket signal parts - nice sunny day for a change.


After lunch it was decided to depart to Broadway to do some preparatory work for the wiring up of instruments in the signal box.
We had already mounted the block diagram unit on its brackets hanging from the roof, but this is not a very practical position to do the art work and fitting of the track circuit lights - so we struggled this down and mounted it horizontally on a pair of trestles ready for Malcolm W's artistic talents:


Once the artwork and lamps (LED's) have been fitted we can remount it ready for wiring up.

Some of the plungers have already been mounted on the blockshelf and the holes drilled through ready for the wiring. Today we had 3 more to fix (those generously donated to us by blog reader Aardvark!). They are being positioned over levers 39, 40 & 41.  40 & 41 are the levers for the main arms on the new bracket (still to be erected) and 39 is the North siding signal.
We are still have to find one more plunger.



Neil C has cut the entry cables to length in the locking room and mounted the connection blocks. Just a few connections to make now from these 20 pair cables!


And finally, a shot of the renovation of the signal box steps which have now been completed by George B - with  the shiny black treads re-fitted




Curly

PS  Relating to the question about the lock stretcher on Toddington points last week - this type was designed to pass under a slip/third rail. All the rods and stretchers here were purchased new. This is now probably considered a universal fitting - I am open to comments on this point!!

3 comments:

  1. I do hope Malcolm is going to draw Broadway's box diagram in proper GWR/BRWR style rather than the nondescript versions in the other boxes! This is an example of the BRWR Style - http://tillyweb.biz/gallery/bb/bewdleynthdiag.jpg

    Incidentally, some of those black step treads at Broadway came from Banbury North, I salvaged them from under the box the week before it closed.

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  2. Noticed a couple of GWR plungers on Ebay £40

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  3. Joe Nemeth has a brass plunger for sale on his website: https://www.junctionrailwayana.com/product/gwr-brass-signal-box-plunger-number-41-stock-code-pr-034200

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