Stools, Stools and More Stools!

We have now reached the half way stage with the digging of holes for rodding stools. We have successfully dug 15 holes through all sorts of ground conditions, marking the half way point in the rodding run from the S&D box to the end of the shed crossover. This run will also incorporate a re-jigged ground frame for the turntable road.

One of KSE's moles!

The differing layers we have to dig through.
Some are far tougher than others!

However, these are only roughly dug, and the stools we have deposited now require squaring up, aligning exactly and levelling. The better and more accurately constructed the run is; the easier it will be to operate and look after.

Molehills/stools

A different view of the run so far

Since we have reached the half way stage, we will tackle the alignment of these as the next job. The molehills will therefore disappear, and things will look far tidier!

The water is a constant battle. Hopefully the levels
will recede enough to allow the fine tuning of the
stools and the infilling of the holes.

The rodding run, however, does not just deal in stools. We have larger structures to add in as well: benches. These allow the cranks which change the direction of movement, allow adjustment and compensate for thermal expansion and contraction, to be fastened down. A lot of work has gone on to calculate where these go exactly to ensure the rods have the same amount of "push" as "pull". This means that if the temperature increases, and the rodding expands, the overall positions do not try to change, so everything keeps working as it ought.

In position to make a stool deposit...

Please see below for a full diagram. This is the working drawing showing the route of the rods, the location of the cranks and benches, with the compensation being the primary driving force!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fitting The NER Lever Frame

Image
Hello all! Today we're going to show how the unique North Eastern Railway Central Division level frame recovered from Pesspool Junction will be fitted into the S&DR signal box.  The 1861 box at the end of it's life. Note the additional window to the locking room, seen on the left hand wall in this picture. This is the operating floor plan showing aperture for frame and *indicative* joist locations to accommodate this. Dimensions: Apologies: all dimensions used here are imperial as the equipment and building itself looks to have been designed and built using these. They also work out very nicely! Front to back, the surviving box structure measures 10’ inside the walls. This has been used in this plan, and is assumed to be correct. The aperture for the frame to sit is drawn here as being 6” from the front wall. This is our datum, from which the other measurements are derived. This can be adjusted plus or minus 2”, but will then shuffle the rest of the aperture across. If it
Read more

NER Northern Division Lattice Signals

Image
This is a very challenging blog post to actually write, as there has been a lot of research and work that has turned up new aspects to the story. I shall try to put this together in the order in which we’ve discovered the details! When planning out the scheme, we weren’t sure if the gantry would be able to feature in Phase 1; and upon learning it wouldn’t, we needed a signal to route trains into either the Tebay platform or the Bay platform. In amongst the equipment on site when we got involved was a selection of steel lattice posts (as an aside, there *were* wooden lattice posts trialled by the Midland Railway…). These were all North Eastern Railway, Northern Division signals, that had originally been on the Newcastle to Carlisle line. Brampton had been mentioned as their original location, but that was not important at this time. Besides the three straight posts was a bracket signal, sat on top of the concrete sleeper pile, which looked to be a good bet; albeit requiring some consi
Read more

The Rafters – Part 1

Image
A couple of nice days over the weekend saw the signalbox acquire a somewhat skeletal appearance as we added the rafters to the previously erected ridge beam – a string line top and bottom ensured that everything was nicely lined up end to end so that the tongue and groove close boarding that will sit on top will be nice and flat and provide a splendid base for the slates.  On completion of this task, someone suggested taking down the string lines until some ‘wag’ suggested that the rafters might follow! So we left them in place! It may look like an unorthodox build process seeing as we have not yet completed the gables, but the slope of the rafters is required for me to accurately build the gables to profile and also to position the very large wooden purlins that will bear a large part of the weight of the roof.  The rafters on the backside will require a little more tailoring, I think, as the original rear wall on which they will sit varies in thickness, is not perfectly straight and
Read more