SVR S&T Dept.
SIGNALLING NOTES - Chris. Hall
The last three months (August to October) have been relatively quiet but it is definitely ‘the calm before the storm’. We have been able to do some of the smaller jobs and preparation for some of the Winter jobs.
An interesting fault was reported on Saturday 19th August - the route indicator had fallen off the signal at Bridgnorth that we refer to as ‘signal 4/18’ but which is more correctly known as ‘No. 1 Platform Line to Hollybush Road Siding/Carriage Siding Starting’. Station staff had lashed the heavy framework to the adjacent fence to stop it moving further and the signal was booked off. We were able to dismantle the route indicator by the end of the day and arranged for a Handsignalman on the following day. Raiding the stores at Bridgnorth for suitable bolts, and obtaining assistance from the electrical section who were fortunately on site, we formed a team of six to lift the reassembled framework into place. All back in order by Sunday afternoon.
One remaining job at Bewdley South was to replace the 110V power cable from the box to the Up Starting signal. Matt and Brian found this an absolute swine of a job for which NR would have probably used a gang of 6 to 8 people. They managed it by themselves in just over a day so were quite pleased! And they both knew about it the next day!! This has cleared the earth faults in this area.
There is definitely something missing! With the assistance of the Station Master, I was able to undo the remaining clamps holding the bottom of the framework on the post and lower the route indicator to the ground and dismantle it. The photo shows how it looked on Saturday evening. The framework and slides now await our attention on the following day. [Photo: Author]
Preparations for the rewire of the signalling equipment in Bridgnorth Signal Box over the coming winter continue. John (S.), John (T.), Dave and Thomas have almost completed the installation of new cable trunking in the locking room and they are currently cleaning up, painting and refurbishing the interior of the cabinets that house the relays, external cable terminations and power supplies. New mains LED lighting has been fitted in the locking room and low voltage LED has been fitted within the cabinets thus making a much improved working environment. Heritage style wooden trunking for the wiring to the block shelf and illuminated track diagram is being manufactured for the operating floor to maintain traditional appearances. It is hoped to commence running the new wiring before the end of the year. The timing of the changeover and subsequent recovery of the old wiring is dependant upon obtaining a suitable engineering occupation of the station area between January and March and at the time of writing the precise details have still to be confirmed.
Meanwhile at Kidderminster work is in progress to install an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for the signalling indications that we send to Network Rail. Although Kidderminster Station Signal Box has a standby generator which starts automatically in the event of a mains failure there is still a short break in the supply while it starts. As a result, any interruption to the SVR mains supply, even for a few seconds, may result in a loss of indications to Network Rail thus triggering a false alarm at the West Midlands Signalling Centre. Not only is this an inconvenience but it may potentially result in maintenance staff being called out unnecessarily if it happens out of hours. An interesting side effect of this installation work was the discovery that two of the rather aged signalling power supplies in the signal box were wasting considerably more power than they provide! Replacing these will result in a saving on the Company’s electricity bill that is much greater than the cost of the UPS installation!
On Saturday 21st October the CS&TE Paul Marshall had invited us on a rather fine day out on the Observation Saloon. An excellent day out for which we are most grateful. It was therefore unfortunate that there were two major faults (the faults themselves were simple but they had the effect of causing Bewdley South Down Main Inner Home and Kidderminster Up Home to Main to be locked at Danger the whole day). We can say that a large team swiftly ‘attended’ the faults but were not able to rectify them! The fault in Bewdley North cleared itself as I walked into the box and Tony and myself could not reproduce it so we had to record the fault as ‘NLP’ (no longer present). The Up Homes at Kidderminster can be reached by car and the fault proved to be a sticking carbon brush on the motor. We were therefore able to catch the 2.57pm to Highley with all faults cleared (including replacing a bulb on Bewdley North No. 2 siding disc) to complete reinstallation of no. 1 lever in preparation (eventually) for the fitting of a disc signal at the north end to read into the Yard and to do a transfer of six long section tokens as Highley would otherwise be left with a single token by the end of the day, leaving the machine empty once the token had been withdrawn for the possession to lift the Starting signals in the coming week.
Other work includes replacing the timbers on the Down Inner Homes bracket at Bridgnorth, which has been reported in ‘Express Points’.
I think a look forward to the various jobs that have recently emerged from the planning process would be useful.
We have been preparing a new wooden signal for some time, originally intended as a replacement for HY12, Highley’s Down Starter, which has a concrete post suffering the ravages of time. The plan is now to lift this signal out on 25th October and while the hole is being made ready, lift out the Up Starter and use this as the replacement. The new wooden signal will then be used as a replacement Up Starter. I have forgotten why we couldn’t do this with two lifts rather than four. The job will require the MEWP, the 30-ton crane and many willing helpers for the digging, painting and installation.
This will be a busy week as the crane will also lift in the other half of the crossover at Foley Park, as there are plans to create a siding for a stoneblower which is going to have a storage contract with the SVR. Further sidings are planned at a later date. We will then need to connect up the points to the GF as and when we can, but ideally as soon as possible as the stoneblower arrives in early October and will have to be stored elsewhere pending this work. The P-Way estimate of the position of the toe of the new points is 66211mm from the toe of the main line points (based on 10′5″ rail to rail separation) so it will be interesting to see how close the estimate proves to be. We need to dig in two large concrete bases - we no longer have hoards of young folk to do the heavy work so are hoping to have the RRV available. The Sunday gang will then complete the setting up so that the ground frame can be tested and brought into use. Initially this will be accessible out of hours using the possession key. A design to allow it to be used in traffic hours is being worked on. This will require an extra lever (no. 55) at Kidderminster, an Annet‘s Key Release instrument at Foley Park, more instructions for the signalman and quite a bit of wiring work under the box so isn‘t something that can be done in five minutes.
The motor points KR14 at the south end of the carriage shed (remember the buffer stops are at the north end) are being renewed by P-Way in November - there is a gap between 5th and 25th November (three weeks with two weekends) with no passenger services running. The midweek gang should be able to tackle this as soon as the P-Way have finished. The replacement point motor has been prepared and should by now be up and running on test. This should allow the line speed through these points to be raised from 10mph to 25mph.
After the final day of running (Monday 8th Jan. after the Winter Gala) we will need to disconnect BH14A (the yard end of the crossover Down Main to Yard as the track needs to be raised 2″ as part of remodelling the yard. Latest news is that the work in the yard may not be going ahead, but if it does the whole of the Bridgnorth complex would be under possession for the duration of the work.
The detection on the ‘A’ end of the newly installed Yard crossover at Bridgnorth has been giving problems and various faults have been reported, signal 15 and 16 slow to replace to Danger, signal indications showing ‘wrong’ with signals correctly at Danger, points making up correctly but the signal wire slide unable to move to clear the signal. Numerous attempts have been made to adjust this - it had gone significantly out of adjustment just before the gala. It was adjusted on gala Friday and then John had to attend to it again the next day. It then failed again the following day! Matthew and Simon had a thorough investigation on 21st September and found that the ‘short’ rod to the detector and the extension piece was visibly bent. It may be because the signal slide for 16A wasn’t returning fully (rectified on gala Friday). Due to the bad angle of the bent rod it was then pushing the detector up, which then jammed against its floating base which then resulted in it keep going out of alignment each time the points were swung. A fairly comprehensive repair was called for, as would be required if the points had been run through, and all now appears to be in order.
There is some spring on these points (and has been for as long as I can remember) making it difficult to release the electric lock from the normal position. The technique is to push the lever away from you with one hand and press the plunger with the other hand to allow the lever to spring out of the normal position. It can then be reversed using both hands. Due to the weight of the points, some signalmen are struggling to release the catch handle with one hand. Let it not be said that we do not listen to complaints! Within a few weeks the LZR (‘economiser’) circuitry had been modified so that pressing the plunger now maintains the lock in the released position for seven seconds from both normal and reverse so that both hands can be used on the lever. This does mean that the signalman will have to wait 7 seconds before being able to clear the yard exit signal (as the locking proves not only that lever 14 is reverse but also that the electric lock on the lever is engaged).
On 19th September Matthew and Brian were filmed by BBC and ITV (shown on Midlands news on 22 September) as Network Rail signed a partnership with the SVR to use us as a training facility. We hope to get some locking fitting experience from them in turn, and maybe other useful knowledge and help.
The Westinghouse circuit controller (a device which incorporates an electric lock at each of four positions of the lever as well as contacts that make and break at different parts of the lever travel) on lever 48 (derailers on the Exchange Line) was removed and a refurbished SGE model was fitted. The SGE type has some advantages over the Westinghouse type. It was a true team effort. Dan restored the whole item from a unit we had in our stores, Brian and Matthew set up the bands ‘coarsely’ and tested it ready for installation, Geoff and Matthew installed it and Fred fine-tuned the bands and commissioned it all for use. There was a slight issue with the economiser not making early enough which Geoff remedied and now it works very smoothly indeed. We hope that will be the end of stress ’phone calls from ground frame operators in the future! Dan has also prepared the same type of circuit controller for KR45s (platform 2 motor points) and is making a spare as well. That will then mean the Westinghouse type are redundant on the SVR. We won’t be sad to see them go!
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