PAX Problems- a report for Strowger Nerds

No pictues I am afarid, the pax units have always looked the same!

Tuesday July 7

Paul and I had been called in to investigate a alarm caused by a blown fuse on the Winchcombe Pax and also a lack of dialling tone at Todd pax.
These two Strowger Paxes' were built by AT&E of Liverpool in the 1960's so they are a bit vintage.
They allow phone calls from all over the network but they seem to be used mostly for stations to report train departures up to Toddington using the 2 tie lines provided in each direction.
 Unfortunately the blown fuse had locked out the line circuits supplying all four tie lines!

Friday July 10

Off to Todd to look into the "missing Dial tone" and hoping that the problem was not to do with the tone generator.
 Although these are standard PO Ringer 2a's, the way they have been grafted into the AT&E units is non standard and we have no diagrams for that part of the arrangement.
 Interestingly, the original vibrator generator is still there in position ( they were used as standard in smaller systems such as UAX 12's)
The report was correct, there was no Dial Tone, because there was no start signal to the ringer, but why?.
These units were never fitted with malfunction alarms ie release or fuse alarms ( Winchcombe does have a visible fuse alarm system since it can be checked more easily from the yard). In the event of a rotary magnet being energised for two long, a relay which has specially wound coils would operate  and reduce the magnet current to a safe level. However what had happened was that due to a recurring line fault, the rotary magnet fuse on every selector had blown, leaving them all "off normal". Since there were no other selectors to seize the whole unit had come to a standstill!

So having got Todd pax working again it was back to Winchcombe to see what was happening there. We found that the fuse blowing was only on the first tie line!  We have had to leave that "busied " for now awaiting out next visit. This was 19 so 10 is still available for calls from Winchcombe area towards Todd.
 Watch this space, if you are still awake! Next visit  on  Tuesday 21st 

Mike Stephenson and Paul Dinucci

Cabinet Update

Tuesday 30th June

Hope I'm not overloading you with lineside cabinet stuff, but here's another transformation courtesy of Neil C. 

This is the before and after of the cabinet at signal 25 at Toddington:

All cabinets between Far Stanley and Toddington have now been serviced and painted. So we should have a reliable system when we run. 

All signal box equipment will need to be tested in due course - including the checking of every nut, bolt and split pin, etc - several days work I'm sure. 

No more cabinets for now! 

Curly

Track Circuit Batteries

Monday 15th June

Courtesy of Neil C here is the answer to a previous blog question regarding the "white box" in the lineside cabinet. Inside there are two 2v  25AH cells, a float charging circuit and the track feed resistor.

Having seen a picture of the rails on one of the other blogs there appears to be a good coating of rust - I suspect a bit of running will be required to get the circuits working effectively. 

These are the cells:

Hope you enjoyed this exciting blog! 

Curly

Excellent Metalwork

Sunday 7th June

And now for something completely different 

which I would like to share. 

In Pershore we have a blacksmith who has constructed some excellent metalwork for various buildings in the town. The one which I am particularly impressed with is a memorial to horses which were used in both world wars. 

The horse in the picture below is almost completely constructed from horseshoes welded together. The attendent soldier is fabricated from sheet metal. Both of these are pretty realistic.

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If you are likely to visit Pershore I would recommend a having a look at this in the Abbey Park.

Hope this distraction from railway matters gives a little light relief!

Regards to all

Curly

Spot The Difference

Wednesday 3rd June

A brief blog from S & T just to keep the juices flowing!

Neil C (ops manager) has sent me a couple of photos from his recent walk up the line from Far Stanley to Toddington to check on and tidy up lineside cabinets. The one shown below is T1 at Toddington.

Here is the 'before'

And here is the after

Quite an improvement!

Regards - Curly

A Few Moving Pictures

Sunday 10th May

Trawling through the many pictures I have on my phone I have come across a few short videos that may be of interest.
The first is of the pointwork at Broadway South as we were installing the ground frame. The detection bars had not yet been installed but this shows the operation of the Facing Point Lock (I think the voice in the background is mine!)

https://youtu.be/jLRmKkxHD1s

The next one is a very short clip of Steve and his JCB dragging a rather delapidated Stop Block out of the brambles in Winchcombe yard.
This, if I am correct, ended up at the top of Broadway Head shunt.

https://youtu.be/5XKn0CLuP9Y

And finally the testing of the re-installed point motor at Toddington after the track replacement in March 2017.
Here we have all the detection bars operating and with Malcolm W in charge!

https://youtu.be/owd7-aelzxw

Looking forward to getting back into action!

Regards to all

Curly

A Quiet Day

Tuesday 10th March

Only four in today - quite a contrast to last week, so an opportunity to crack on with a few jobs in Winchcombe yard.
One of which was to move the preassembly of the CRC bracket signal along a bit.
Because we are using a cut down section of the main structure a new plate needs fixing to it for attaching the support strut.
Malcolm sets to with the hole drilling:

The support strut positioned after some adjustment to get the clamp casting seated correctly on the post.

The two dolls were then put in place so that the fittings can be positioned to determine the lengths of the down rods - but that will have to wait until next week

(the dolls are actually parallel - the direction of shot seems to have given the wrong impression!)

Today's other task was to re-assemble a crows nest now that it's component parts have been repainted. We only have one other spare one so this will be a welcome addition to our stock ready for the re-furb of the next signal.
To make life easier for fitting new boards we have bolted it to a post which currently holds up a lean to by the MSC shed.

Carl S is doing the woodwork

The final bolting down of the boards will be done next week - we have left them soaking in a bath of creosote to give them a better life expectancy.

Curly