More Fittings Installed

Tuesday 17th May

A bit more drilling today to finish the series of holes to mount the point rodding cranks and signal wire wheels. Here's Jim P tightening the wheels on the C-channel:

And here's the finished set:

This just leaves 5 more pulleys to be fitted to the 2 LH C-channels ; these are for the signal wire adjustment system.
There was more work going on above this with Malcolm W continuing to fit the remaining retaining bars on the locking trays. To assist with all the drilling required we have installed the pillar drill (
originally situated under Toddington box) on Neil Carrs' substantial work bench. This will be a great  asset when we start fitting the locking bars, etc.

We then fitted a short locking tray to the RH end of the frame. This will contain the tappet blade for lever no.45. A bit more bracketry will be required to support this rigidly:

The next picture shows a length of point rodding attached to one of the angle cranks - this feeds out through to the front of the tunnel. With the rodding set horizontally, this allows us to check that the
height is right to allow for the fitting of the further steelwork for supporting the cranks which was will direct the rodding along the trackside.

Finally, a few images of the S&T visit to the S&T dept of The West Somerset Railway last Saturday.
We started by visiting the signal box at Bishops Lydeard and then worked our way up the line to see the box at Crowcombe Heathfield, the box and works at Williton, and the box and works at Minehead
.
We arrived at Minehead just as a charter ( I think  from London Victoria ) pulled in to the station - a magnificent rake of Pullman coaches headed by a DB Schencker Class 59:

And on the return journey we stopped off at Blue Anchor box and posed for the group photo:

Curly

A bit more progress under the Box

Tuesday 10th May
Luckily we were out of the rain today in the Locking Room of Broadway box making further progress with the mechanical locking and drilling of the floor girders for mounting the signal wire wheels and point operating angle cranks.

Here's Malcolm mounting one of the frames to the locking tray. These will retain the tappet blades (the vertical notched bars) and (eventually) the horizontal locking bars. A bit of a fiddle to fit, but again the 4 vertical and 2 horizontal pieces in each of 5 units had been match-marked (well most of them!) previously at Winchcombe. Some of these pieces needed de-rusting before fitting,
John and Martin (making one of his visits to the railway from Wolverhampton) set about drilling some more holes for the angle cranks in the floor mounted girders using the very handy magnetic base drill. These moles are clearance for 20mm dial bolts (sorry not quite heritage here - probably originally 3/4"BSW!) :

Here are some of the holes:

And here are the angle cranks fitted

The angle cranks will connect to the lever tails above with long rods , you can just see one in the left of the picture showing the drilled holes above. This was hung from a lever to set the horizontal position of  the crank. Unfortunately, the connecting rods are not the correct length for this installation and will need shortening . Each end has a fork to take a pivot pin, so a section will be cut out of the centre and then the two parts welded back together.

A bit more drilling and fitting left for another day.

S&T Dept are off to the West Somerset this Saturday for a reciprocal visit at the invitation of their S&T to have a guided tour of their signal boxes, etc. An early start to be at  Bishops Lydeard for 09.00hrs !

Curly

Phones and Racks

Tuesday 3rd May
It's a while since Mike S gave us an update on his ongoing work with the GWSR communication system. We have gained a new recruit, Paul, whose background is in office phone systems - so straight away we put him to good use in the Stationmasters office at Toddington who were requesting a second, easier to reach, phone in the office. It was lucky that a cable route was seen which was nearly all on wood making the tacking much easier. Hope the staff can enjoy this new more convenient location.

The next task was in the Steam Dept signing on lobby where a new extension had been long overdue. A black  phone was chosen from stock for this as we thought the standard ivory would look a bit grubby before long!

From Left to right: Keith (Digger) Livett, Mike S, Jim Price and newbie Paul. Curly was behind the lens.

To explain the above photo, we move  to Toddington signal box locking room where four of us are struggling to lift the 3cwt PAX (Private Automatic Exchange) telephone unit to enable a fifth volunteer to slide a repaired support trolley underneath. One of the original castors had expired, so all 4 have been replaced with heavy duty castors.
The reason for having this unit movable, I hear you ask?
Well, some very important cross connections ( jumpers)  are only accessible via the back panel and the trolley allows access all round whilst the unit can be stored close to the wall. This  gives better access to the mechanical bits in the confined space.



Work also continues on the new concentrator phone system. The one for Toddington signal box will be the largest capacity 15 SPT lines, that we have built so far.
We hoped to change this during July but preferring to err on the side of caution and knowing how critical these systems can be, we may delay it until we can see at least a two day gap in the running schedules. Even if this means waiting until the winter shut down.
This will then complete a series of four installations leaving only Broadway when the time is right.
This will be a completely new install- much easier than trying to keep two systems working together.
.
 Each signal box will then have telephone concentrators which are similar in operation and appearance.

 

Finally, we erected a new set of racking up against the container in Winchcombe yard. We are going to stack 4 GWR motor point operating units on this. They are currently languishing on the ground out in the open by the MSC shed. One of these will eventually be installed at Broadway south near    Childswickham  bridge once it has been overhauled. Another job for the near future. 

Curly

A Bit more progress under the box

Tuesday 26th
Five of us descended on Broadway to do a bit more fitting in the Signal Box locking room. There are a lot of parts to be fitted here, many of which have already been brought from Winchcombe - so we needed to clear some space for the main event which is the fitting of the C-channel girders to the steel   channels which had been previously concreted into the locking room floor.

The two shorter lengths on the left hand side of the picture will support the angle cranks which will operate the point rodding and the longer beams will support the pulley wheels which will direct the signal wires out through the tunnel. Nothing here is lightweight and heaving these beams around to drill the holes was labour intensive. Malcolm and John P have the privilege of using our new magnetic drill to punch the holes in the girders:

Meanwhile Carl S was fitting two of the signal wire adjusters. These are fitted to the signal box floor behind the levers. The securing bolts are particularly awkward to fit with now very limited access from underneath:

The completed unit from above:

We finished off by fitting the covers to the locking trays. The tappet  blades which are connected to the cams have been fitted -  more details of the locking system in due course.
 Because interchangeability was not the strongest point of mating GWR components we are glad that we took the precaution of pre-assembling and matchmaking all the main components of the assembly in the MSC shed at Winchcombe,  although a certain amount of "fettling" has still been necessary on site! Here is John P struggling to fit one of the locking tray covers.

Curly

A bit more equipment installed

Tuesday 12th April
Five of us departed from Winchcombe with the blue pick-up well loaded with the remaining 40 mechanical locking cams, locking trays, some signal wire pulleys and point rodding parts. Still quite a lot more to follow in due course.

We spent most of the day fitting more of the cams, only another 7 to go. Tightening the mounting bolts and fitting pivot pins and split pins in fairly inaccessible places is a bit of a challenge but we escaped without serious injury!
Our final objective for the day was to mount 5 locking trays. These mount vertically below the cams and are seriously heavy cast iron beasts. It's a 2 man lift to hoist them into position while a third pair of hands attempts to locate 6 fixing screws .

There is still a bit of adjustment required to get all the slots correctly aligned, but the final view looks pretty splendid. Malcolm W will have a bit of work to do here to configure all the interlocking combinations required.

Another box ticked

Sitting in the signal box at lunch makes you realise what a splendid set of views there are - there's going to be some competition signalman duties here!

Curly

A Little more progress at Broadway Box

Tuesday 5th April

Three of us from S &T did a bit more work on the Signal Box today. There are 45 mechanical cams to be fitted to each of the levers in the frame downstairs in the locking room. These are fairly heavy lumps requiring two of us to juggle them into a rather restricted space. We decided that 15 of them in one day would suffice.

Theses cams operate the mechanical locking bars which will eventually be fitted in vertically mounted locking trays.

We also delivered the newly refurbished locker - it is very useful already as it houses the S & T tea making equipment!!

Couldn't resist taking a picture of the bridge span being lowered into place- another great part of the station taking place.

Oh and don't forget the matching desk:

Another 15 cams next week!

Curly

A Day of Mixed Activity

Tuesday 8th

Five of us at Winchcombe today with a range of tasks

John P and Carl S cutting and fixing the planking to form the platform for the
re-conditioned bracket signal which will eventually replace the unit at
Cheltenham Racecourse.

Richard C spent most of the day rubbing down and prime painting a signalman's desk. This
will be part of the furniture for Broadway Signal Box - only undercoat and topcoats to go!
The wood is in very good condition . Not sure where this unit came from though.

Kervern O and Mike S are in the process of upgrading the telephone system and are now
Installing the new Concentrator Unit in Winchcombe Signal Box. There is a considerable
Amount of re-wiring associated with this - quite a task!

Keith L with angle grinder re-conditioning yet another signal part - this time a 20 lb balance weight.
We should have most of the signalling equipment ready for Broadway now.


We all then went off to Broadway to fit the outstanding lever locks and handles to the lever frame. Not much else we can do there now until the box is officially handed over to us. We are poised like coiled springs to get on with it!

Curly C