The Gate Winter
Re-laying the Track across the Gate
This was a major project! There is an intention to re-lay the road surface across the drive so the opportunity was taken to re-lay the railway there.
The rail across the gate is embedded in the tarmac so the job was not trivial.
The tarmac was dug from around the rail exposing rotting wood sleepers. The rail was now re-laid on a grid of plastic material to maintain the gauge, (sadly no picture) and a pipe for signal wiring was buried alongside. The project took several weeks and temporary wood sheets allowed cars to pass between sessions. The above pictures give a some sense of the project but there are many more in the Archive News for winter 23/24. There are several references, scroll down after using the link.
Re-laying at Bay Tree
The down main was lifted and re-laid and some spot sleepering undertaken beyond the bridge. Disturbing the track circuit wires on the down main exposed the fragility of the Bay Tree wiring and some errors in the cable record but the track circuits were (eventually) repaired.
New Cables at Spinney
The wiring at the Railway is showing its age! Whilst Richard Stokes was with us, his skills kept the show on the road - just. The 'Cat 5' cable is now over 20 years old and is not designed for outside work; corrosion and brittle wire cores caused several failures during the previous summer prompting Alan A and Robin to set about re-cabling the Spinney area. The aim was to provide a new, labelled, distribution board in Spinney box, new, labelled distribution boxes adjacent to the track and new cable. Terminal blocks with links to isolate sections were part of the plan. The project was partially completed during winter 23/24.
New design of Point Machine
The point machines at the railway are based on windscreen wiper motors. Such motors rotate in only one direction making the design of the machines a bit complicated with parts prone to twisting and occasionally jamming. Any disturbance, even temperature change can upset the settings and cause failure.
Small reversing motors are now available and Nick has developed a new design for a point machine and installed one at Dingly. The new design also detects the blades directly which was not the case in the old machines.
The new machine works fine when driven by a local battery but we found a problem in connecting it to the signal box electrics and the point was still to be commissioned when we started running.
Improved Signal Connections
Throughout the winter Peter made and installed improved connectors for the signals. This included the re-wiring of the colour light signals in the tunnel. One of Richard's last "improvements" was to add an irregular colour light signal in the tunnel. We found this now could produce all its colours at the same time and it has been disconnected.
Other things
- Bay Tree point 14 repaired after being out of use - broken electrical connections.
- Platforms cleaned by pressure hose - thankyou David D.
- Mechanical point repair at Old Oak - warped wood
- Cutting walls cleaned - thank you Jamie
In March, the team was invited to Mick's extensive model railway. Mick lives in deepest Essex so it was quite a way for the many team members who made the journey but they were rewarded by seeing this fantastic layout in operation. Of course, it is not complete, (what model railway ever is) so we look forward to other invitations in the future.
More pictures of the visit in the Archive News for winter 23/24.