Thursday, 20 May 2021

Ground Signal Swap

 Tuesday 18th May

You may remember from last week's blog that we had an eventful  wrestle with the turnbuckle on the detector rod at the Winchcombe PWay yard points - so this week it was decided to replace the ground signal controlling these points - it has shed most of its paint and is in a rather sorry state.

So here we go with  John P and Malcolm W - luckily most of the bolts yielded without too much drama. 


And a barrow load of bits:



We have the replacement ready to go in the barrow- here's the "before and after"


In order to fully dismantle, the balance weight has to be removed from the arm. To do this the securing bolt has to be removed, but you may have noticed in the above picture that this bolt, at some point in the past, has been sheared off. Attempts to drill it out failed


So we resorted to more serious tactics. It came off quite easily using a sledge hammer!! Luckily we have spares of these 20 pounders. 


So off to the metal skip with the bits. 

The re-conditioned signal was put in position and secured to its sleeper with four new coach screws (the old ones were suffering some serious rust). 


The yellow and white  spectacle disc needs a re-paint before it is replaced so the signal will be out of action for a short while - job for the Wednesday or Thursday gang 

Since we have been able to come back in limited numbers on any one day we have spread ourselves over several days so there is a bit more continuity. 

Curly


4 comments:

  1. Hi interesting article, maintenance is a never ending task.
    You say yellow and white paint, in my BR experience it was only "black" dummies that were yellow, white ones were always red. Was GWR practice different?
    Malcolm

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  2. Yellow dummies were a BR invention. The GWR used a white light in a Red dummy. Both could be passed in the 'On' position for moves that the signal did not apply to. The colour of the actual signal post/structure was irrelevant in that respect. GWR ground signal castings were always painted black, although some were latterly painted aluminium in BR days. The BR(WR) tubular post type could be found painted black, white or aluminium. (The WR widely used aluminium paint on their signal posts after the mid-1950's)

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