KSE Signalling Project

Having previously discussed the placing of stools in the ground (to support point rodding, I hasten to add), we now move on to benches. These have legs in the ground and wooden tops... for the cranks and compensators to sit on. By the very nature of the forces involved, these are heavy lumps that need to be well planted so that they don't move. If we have loose benches, we will have points not moving far enough, and lots of wasted effort from those working the signal box. The bench in its native habitat: snoozing in the ground On site at Kirkby Stephen East, we have been lucky to find several LNER / BR concrete bench legs, with concrete tops and concrete ties between the legs. These are steadily being recovered for further use, which sounds lovely and simple. Until you come to dig them out! I will now try to recount some of the challenges we face with this task... Upon exposing the top, the original bolts which hold the separate concrete slabs together can either be undone (if you ...

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...

Monday saw 99% of the stonework completed with only a small corner unfinished because my arms are not 5 feet long and I could not reach, so we will have to raise the scaffolding as soon as possible. Rick, our amiable joiner, was on site with his tape rule and notebook taking preliminary measurements for the construction of the sliding sash windows that will form the next stage of our build. We also set about humping mountains of stone off the scaffolding boards in order to clear the decks for a rise in the scaffold of some 5 feet. Trusty tape measure in hand.. Derek ‘Del Boy’ Payne in the meantime, finished the rather tedious task of pointing the rear wall making it weatherproof for the first time in years. With a temporary lull on our hands until the scaffolding is lifted, our attention turned to the inside of the ‘box generally, and the fireplace in particular. Absolutely nothing remains to give us a clue as to what it looked like but, looking at other remnants here and there, it is ...

On Saturday, we carried out a cabinet reshuffle in the yard. Previously, we had recovered a number of location cupboards to house signalling equipment. These had been stacked on top of the concrete sleepers, out of the way, awaiting attention! Saturday was to be that day... Before: the snoozing politicians await the cabinet reshuffling in the car park. In preparation, Sue arranged for WPS to lift down the location cupboards (locs), and place them in the car park. A team set to, to strip out all the old wiring, recover reusable components, and leave a blank canvas upon which we could work. Work underway! For the current scheme, we require 5 cupboards, and these were identified during the course of the day, and marked up accordingly. We then had to sort out the correct doors for the locs, as we'd removed them to make shifting the cupboards easier... had we marked them up first, it would have saved a bit of time!! Inside a loc.: this is what required stripping out. We separated out th...

A glorious spring day on Monday enabled us to set in place the final pieces of the upper string course of the signalbox with a team of 6 volunteers persuading the large, heavy, awkward, expensive, contrary, will-not-cooperate lumps into their final position! This marks another milestone and brings us very close to completing all the stonework – with just the corners of the two string courses for our stonemason to deal with and a small section in the fireplace corner to finish. When this is done, hopefully later this week, Rick, our joiner, will measure up for the heavy timber framework that will eventually contain the sliding sash windows and also support the roof. While Rick constructs this, we will pursue a myriad of other jobs including finishing pointing the back of the rear wall, fitting the remaining floor joists, setting out the chimney breast and fireplace and clearing all the remaining stone off the scaffold so that it can be raised. The list is long and seems to get longer, r...

The rodding run continues to grow, heading towards the signal box steadily. In one of our last blog posts, we explained some of the difficulties in digging down deeper to plant the rodding stools...  Looking along the rodding from under the footbridge Having successfully planted these, it was time to drop the 4 rods onto them: a job Will had been very keen to tackle! First of all, he completed the installation of the a-frames, which bolt to the concrete stool. Then, it was a case of filling in the remaining hollows around the stools (which had been left to allow the bolts to be swapped over and tightened as required). Finally, the rods were placed into position, on a gentle curve which follows the track. These are not in their final places, longitudinally, as the benches and cranks have yet to be placed. This is why we've not yet fitted the top rollers. Looking down at the rodding from the recently-cleared cutting-top. Towards the footbridge, the rodding will cross underneath the t...