SVR S&T Dept.
SIGNALLING NOTES - Chris. Hall
On Sunday 4th August we took advantage of the availability of the milling machine to manufacture fourteen locking studs using the tool made in 1999 for the work we did at Williton. On completion the tool had worn rather badly and so we will need to manufacture another at some time. This is a highly skilled job which may take several attempts.
The machine is set up to feed the tool downwards to a fixed stop after which the bedplate is traversed exactly 312.5 thou (5/16″). [Photo: C. K. Hall]
On Sunday 1st September the mounting for the new circuit controller for lever 55 at Kidderminster was measured up: this bolts to the frame and to the concrete floor and required a frame support to be moved one pace left. Point rodding, that universal and versatile standby, was used to fill the gap between the mounting and the floor. The lever was painted blue over brown (its first function will be to release the FPL at Foley Park and levers for FPLs are coloured blue) and will shortly be fitted as a 'temporary spare'.
On Tuesday 3rd September the location cupboard at Foley Park was planted. This houses a telephone, local indication of the main line points detection and a key release instrument to release an Annett's key to unlock the ground frame with full 'shut-in' facilities. The next task is to connect it up and commission it. We are also machining locks for some changes at Highley to the mechanical locking (planned for November) and have manufactured a location cupboard to replace the one at the crossing at the north end of platform 2 at Bridgnorth.
The inside of the location cupboard as will be seen by the Traffic Shunter. [Photo: C. K. Hall]
The newly installed location cupboard on 3rd September. [Photo: J. Smith]
Om Sunday 15th September we spent most of the day removing and renewing a worn compensator on 30 points at Kidderminster, arranging a suitable time between trains with the signalman. Some effort was required to remove bolts that had not been disturbed for over forty years - the technique is to undo then one at a time, clean then and replace them so that the disconnection time is minimised (and does not intrude onto our lunch break).
On Tuesday 17th September trenching between the location at the Up Homes berth track (54) and the ground frame at Foley Park (53A) was dug in and cables laid. At a later date the cabling between locations 55 and 56 will need to be tested and the new location at the ground frame brought into use.
On Sunday 22nd September we took advantage of the frequent train service to get from Bewdley to Kidderminster to find a suitable lever contact box in our stores for lever 5 at Higley (required by the work planned in November) and then travelled to Highley to prove that it would not fit! Returning to Kidderminster we sourced a different contact box that should fit. On a further excursion to Highley on Wednesday 25th September (a non-running day) Paul and myself marked up tappets 1 and 10 and a whole day's machining on Sunday 29th September saw the ports cut before the milling machine was relinquished for about six weeks' work on loco componentsby 1501 group. Hopefully we will have the use of the milling machine again by the weekend of 9th/10th November to machine the remaining tappets, which can't be removed until the possession starts.
The condition was fitted to tappet 10 on Sunday 6th October after a search at Kidderminster for the right bits of kit and will be welded to the tappet.
Tappet 10 with the condition fitted. [Photo: C. K. Hall]
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