Benches II - Sitting Around Idly?

Following on from the previous instalment on benches, we had a discrepancy in height to tackle on the first bench along from the Junction ground frame. This was due to the bench top being a thicker sleeper than we had anticipated. Fortunately, we were only 1" out, so it was a quick case of marking up where the concrete legs touched the timber (allowing a bit of leeway), then flipping the timber over to cut out enough to allow the whole lot to sit lower. The alternative would have been to dig out the legs completely, then dig out even more underneath, before levelling them up again. We didn't fancy that in the slightest!!


A battery circular saw was used to make multiple cuts across the timber, before the hammer and chisel were deployed to chisel out the excess timber.


Once both sides were suitably rebated, the timber was flipped back over, levels checked and attempts made to push the threaded bar back through the holes. This was a bit fiddly, but accomplished the moment additional hands appeared to shuffle the timber slightly to ensure the previously-drilled holes lined up once again!

Everything was fully tightened up, checked once more and then it was time for some "inverse mole activity" - filling in the holes using the material we had previously dug out. This material was carefully packed in around the legs to ensure they don't move! Finally, the ballast we had scraped back for safekeeping was spread over the top to make it all look tidy.

Next time, we ought to be able to connect up the turnout to the first crank on this bench.

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 stra...
Read more