Cabling in Progress

 Tuesday 27th Jan

I have been absent for the last couple of weeks , so I have a bit of catching up to do.

There has been some excellent progress with the laying of new cables between CRC and Gotherington. 18" deep trenches have now been dug from CRC section signal  to Bishops Cleeve foot crossing and cables are in the process of being buried. 

So today there was concentration on feeding the cable into the trench from the CRC distant signal to BC. This is now a very slick operation using the RRV machine ( Stevie) with the cable coil on its trailer to feed the cable into the trench

You will notice that there has been a significant amount of rainfall recently , a lot of which has ended up in the trench!

John P is hanging on to the cable so that the RRV doesn't pull it away from the connection point - think the water in the trench was aiding the loss of friction to hold it back.

It's at this point that we need to terminate the cable and connect to a cabinet on the opposite side of the track to feed the lamp on the distant signal

So we insert a "high vis" yellow pipe to route the cable under the track. A mention now to Mike E who is slaving away to make all the complicated cable connections . 

Meanwhile back at Bishops Cleeve foot crossing we have decided that the best way to route the cable over the  "waterway " that passes under the track is to insert a row of concrete troughs adjacent to the sleeper ends.

It's nice to be back shovelling ballast and thanks to our new recruit Mike C for all his assistance with the heavy lifting!

Here is one of the many cable "coffin joints"

near Southam Road bridge which will now be redundant. These are potentially joints which have been giving us problems - there are approx 17 of these with different types of cable between here and Gotherington.

John P here preparing to insert a yellow tube under the track

John P and Mike C tidying up the ballast

So with our new 10 pair armoured cable we should enjoy many years of trouble free operation

 

Curly