Connecting up

 Tuesday 11th April

No trains running today so we took the opportunity to complete the re-routing of the signal wire to the outer home at Winchcombe (on the approach to Greet Tunnel).

The 24 stakes on the opposite side had already been positioned and given a concrete 'boot' by last Thursday's gang.

They have been beautifully aligned to mirror the curve of the track

We are using the existing wire which is in good condition - so the first task is to unbolt the brackets holding the wheels to release the wire and then lift it over the track 

But first we are fitting new roller blocks to the new stakes

and lifting the wire on to its roller at each position.

This then leaves the fitting of some new wires to connect up across the track at each end. Here is the modified connection to the signal using the vertical wheel 

And across to the horizontal angle crank on the opposite side

Once everything was connected up and re-jointed Neil C went back to the signal box for a test pull. After a bit of adjustment it worked perfectly with no significant addition effort on the lever.

This just left the removal of the old stakes which were relieved of their concrete with brute force using a combination of pick axe , crowbar  and sledge hammer. John P managed to avoid hitting Malcolm W !

Some of the other work carried out last week was the re-connecting of the electrical cables at Little Buckland which had been removed during the re-stressing and re-levelling of the track between Laverton and Broadway. 

These cables are the connections for the track circuits, signal lamp and signal detector.

The cables needed to be buried trackside so a bit of high energy ballast digging was required!

And the week before that we had an emergency job to stabilise the block holding the point rodding compensator connecting the pointwork at Toddimgton south. This block had been observed moving under stress making point operation problematic. 

So we excavated round the offending block and surrounded it with an additional dose of fresh concrete. 

Problem solved.

Curly