Many Hands...

Over August we have tackled a wide range of jobs, some of which are described herein; others in separate posts. We were very fortunate to have a working visit from friends at the Corris and Ffestiniog Railways. Their presence, support and hard work were greatly appreciated, and saw further leaps in progress! Thank you to Samuel and Joe!

Steve will relate the progress with track circuits and location cupboards separately, but work from this session did contribute heavily towards that.

The lead out bench was completed, with all the flat wheels for the operational signals bolted down into their positions. This necessitated the use of a stringline to ensure the wire runs did not foul one another as they proceeded towards the next bench. The only remaining job here is to make a few new spindles to suit the assemblies.



Next up to be tackled was the cross rod for No.9 FPL, which required digging out more ballast between the sleepers and inserting a couple of rodding rollers to support the crossrod.


With the cross rod connected up to the cranks on either side, this saw the rodding run joined up to the box... and highlighted the missing piece in the jigsaw. The final bench! 


So that was the next job. Digging. Not just any old digging: this was deep excavation through uncooperative, solid, ground. We set the bench fairly low in the ground so that we could come off the adjustable crank with a straight connection to drive the points and facing point lock. This bench will also have another crank added to suit the ground frame-driven crossover. But that hasn't yet been rebuilt, and so the exact location is still slightly up in the air!




Having installed the bench, we connected up the FPL to the lever in the box, and saw it operate successfully. No.8 points required two customised connections for their cross rod: these were rebushed from requiring 1" diameter pins, to taking 7/8" pins instead. They started out life as long, straight connections, and we then joggled them to suit their new locations with the aid of FIRE! In this case, oxy-propane, and a bit of trial and improvement to get it exactly right. This has only just been finished, and should be connected up at the next visit.


Joe set to with ground signals 10 and 16 (a stacked, LMS-pattern affair): dismantling, cleaning threads and greasing them, followed by fitting pins of the correct size to replace the temporary ones. The mechanical detectors followed. This signal is ready for connecting up and re-glazing, but this will have to wait until the hand lever on the points (No.8) is removed. Sadly the lever is just foul of where the detectors need to be mounted... We can, however, run all the wires in to place, in readiness, which out to make the commissioning a swift affair!





Location: Stainmore Railway Company, South Rd, Kirkby Stephen CA17 4LA, UK

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