Joint Venture

 I took advantage of the nice weather on Monday to fix a wet/noisy cable joint which had been causing problems with the Gotherington internal phone extension.  Nowadays we try to buy and install cables in the correct length to span between cabinets, so that the joints are well above ground, in the dry and only occur where cable access is required.  However, in the old days we often acquired second hand cable in varying lengths and this needed jointing far more frequently.  My predecessor on the S&T electrics side was fond of joining cables in what he called 'Trough Joints' (a crimped joint in a drainpipe inside a length of S&T trough) or a 'Coffin Joint' (a crimped joint in a brick box on the ground with a lid of some sort).  Whilst these joints served a purpose they suffered from rodents nesting in them (and eating the cable grease and insulation) and water ingress.  This inevitably led to cable failures and noisy phone lines.  I have gradually been removing these joints, either by cable replacement or repair.  The cable from Far Stanley Cabinet to Gotherington Box was one of the last he installed and that had a coffin joint just short of Gotherington platform.  The inevitable rodent damage had occurred and the phone line to the Gotherington Box internal phone had gone low impedance to ground, tripping the exchange.  This joint is just a straight joint in a 10 pair grease filled cable, nothing joins or leaves the cable here, so I decided to try an experiment.  I cut the rather moth eaten ends off both cables, cleaned off the grease, remade the joint with new crimps and then 'potted' it in a standard mains resin joint case (see photo).  This joint is now sealed for life and is rodent and moisture proof.  Let's hope it does the job.  The Gotherington phone line is certainly back to normal. 

Now that the joint has set I have dropped it back into the brick coffin and replaced the metal lid.

Neil C.