Inverse Moleing

 ...or Moleing ^-1 (to the power of -1: my phone can't do that easily!)

A Day in the Life of the Moles of KSE.

First up was getting trolleyed... in order to shift the spare location cupboards out of the way and into storage, we needed trolleys. The rubber-tyred trolley was heavily laden with previously-cleaned and painted components. These were transferred to storage, pending installation. But to make space for them, we had to first move all the NER CD lever pivots...


So, with one trolley reclaimed, we had to find a rail trolley. And empty that, too! It was then a case of tipping the three location cupboards onto their sides, onto the hand trolley, one at a time, to move them close to the track. They could then be pushed up to the location cupboard store, where they were unloaded in the reverse of the operation. These cupboards will come into their own as we develop the Phase 2 signalling with the junction box.


Finally, it was time for some mole-related works! A quick clean up of the bracket signals footing, and then a good coat of bitumastic paint!


Whilst I was on with this messy task, Will was busy constructing another wooden bench to take a ground signal, and Jim was busy cleaning up yet more components for the signals and wire run, ready for painting. As an aside, some of the wheels that have seized up are putting up a heck of a fight!! It was then time for digging out a suitable hole in which the bench could be placed!

Mole at work!

A proud Will beside his installation at the end of the day.

Not very much in the way of moleing, you say? The Moles are taking it easy?! 

Well... the big task today was filling in the bracket signal hole. The post is fastened down to nearly 2 tonnes of concrete, but is also set in a hole. This needed filling in once the bitumastic paint had dried. The first layed was excavated earth, returned to the hole. We did then take things easy (relatively speaking), and used up various large (and heavy) lumps of concrete...

First load of earth in position - Moles warmed up.

Manoeuvring the concrete into position, ready to place into the hole - Moles feeling weary.

Large lumps of concrete all in place, some packing commenced around them.
Moles definitely tired.

Finally, more of the excavated material was thrown back around the concrete and the signal post. This was packed down, but will be left to settle over the next few weeks, before final tidying of this part of the site is completed. By this stage, the Moles were barely standing!!

All that was left to do was pack up, try to take some pictures and rehydrate! Jim managed to paint a load of the components he'd stripped and checked over.

Red oxide primer on the components: flat wheels are the main priority
at the moment: next will be lever quadrants!



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

The Big One

Image
We’ve just had a very busy 4 days, in conjunction with track modifications and with great support from Lampitt Rail Services. In that time, we have successfully planted 5 signal posts, dismantled a crossover and moved the components to their new locations, ready for reinstatement. Lots more has gone on at the same time, in the background, that will appear in future posts. This entry looks at the signal post planting… Teamwork with the spoons: making adjustments to the hole for No.4 signal Still more to dig out ... Battling the ground foe the fixed stop signal Trying to get the last bits out of the bottom Swallowed by the ground, or the mole returning home? (Don't worry - this was posed!) Well, you can’t plant a post without preparing the ground for it first. So the Moles of Kirkby Stephen were at it again! The locations for the posts and the depths of the holes depended upon a fair few factors, such as visibility of the signals, distances from the track and pointwork they are prote...
Read more

Welsh Slate

Image
We have at last managed to get 4 coats of paint onto the fascia boarding of the signalbox and the attendant woodwork, leaving us free to commence slating the roof at last. We were keen to create a period look and therefore opted to use reclaimed welsh slates some of which I would guess have already seen many years of service, but were still good for many more. In the past as you will recall that rain has, on many occasions, brought work to a frustrating standstill and created havoc with work we thought was complete. That being said, slating is one job you can carry on with rain or not and so we did on Tuesday, ignoring the showers, getting wet, and revelling at being able to stick two fingers up at the weather. It is not going to improve much at this time of year so I suppose we will get several more soakings before the roof is watertight but I will tell you about them in due course.   
Read more