Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway Steam Loco Dept Blog: More Mutual Improvements

Once again, Saturday morning kicked off with another mutual improvement class. This time, it was the turn of our Operations Manager, Neil, whose brief was to cover the topic "Signalling - A Guide for the Footplate". He was speaking from a set of notes provided by Peter Smith. The subjects of absolute block working and interlocking between points and signals are fascinating topics, but not ones that I feel I can do justice to on this blog. Perhaps in time the writer of the Signal & Telegraph blog will provide an article or two over there. Meanwhile, for those who have further interest in the subject, I can do no better than point you at one of the references that was included in his explanatory notes used by Neil from the Health & Safety Executive "Railway Safety, Principles and Guidance". The signalling section starts at page 34 and describes what forms of signalling needs to be in place on "Minor Railways". It is a sobering thought that the instigation of each of the requirements came about because of at least one fatal accident somewhere. The session concluded with a tour of some of the signals and points at Winchcombe and of course a visit to Winchcombe signal box, which was conveniently open to allow some shunting operations to take place.

Neil describing how Winchcombe signal box is operated

You'll note in the above photo that most people are stood around with hands in pockets trying to keep warm, signal boxes are usually nice cosy places, but in Winchcombe's case, the stove is currently out of order.

Neil describing the mechanical interlocking in Winchcombe signal box

Having been improved, it was over to Toddington to catch up on what was going on there. I had received a text during the week from Ian who had noticed on a recent blog post that I had been responsible for removing 2807's gauge frame. Ian wanted to know where I'd put it so that he could refit it. On the plus side, it's nice to know that somebody actually reads this drivel, on the downside, my patent sieve like memory lived up to all expectations and drew a blank. I eventually came up with an answer, which as the gauge frame has now reappeared on 2807's backhead suggests was right.

2807's gauge frame

As Dinmore Manor is shortly to head off on her holidays to the GCR for their Winter Steam Gala at the end of January, most of the work taking place was to get her ready for that.

Dinmore Manor's own tender is taking shape. Next item on the list is to manufacture and fit a couple of strengthening plates between the drag box and the nearest frame stretcher. These plates are not meant to be parallel to the frames, but offset at a small angle. The plates are of course fairly heavy items,

Shifting the A frame into position

The steel plate cut to size, it's time to lower it into place to make sure it fits

Lowering the plate for checking the fit

The plate needs a bit of angle bracket attaching, a larger section needed to be cut down to the right length for the job.

Mark watches the cutting machine at work

I include this next shot, as at the point that I was about to take the photo, there were three people in view, as soon as my camera appeared, they all disappeared. The remarkable capabilities of my camera at making people run away has been noted. Hopefully it will have the same effect the next time my mother-in-law comes to stay.

Nobody there any more

Meanwhile, the section of plate steel that was going to be welded into the tender needed chamfering to fit in at the correct angle.

Ian chamfering the steel plate

It also required a cut out making to accommodate the angle bracket on the end that will is attached to the frame stretcher.

Ian creating the cut out.

You will recollect that a few weeks ago, 7820's hanging links had been removed. By Saturday, new bushes had been turned up and everything reassembled.

I note that the brackets for the hanging links have yet to be painted, but I'm sure that will be attended to in the near future.

The re-bushing of the hanging links will have affected the valve timing, so there was a need to set that again. Step one was to get Dinmore Manor outside on one of the pits.

Dinmore Manor shunted onto a pit.

After that, it's a case of adding or removing shims on the eccentrics to get the valves to open and close in the right places. This apparently calls for the use of modern technology:

Steve and his laptop

I was assured that not only did Swindon do it this way back in the days of the GWR, but that Steve was using Churchward's very own laptop, which had been passed on to Collett, then Hawksworth and eventually via dark arts and subterfuge into Steve's ownership. I was more concerned about the fact that the wallpaper on his screen was not of Dinmore Manor, but a rival manor based on a different railway.

There was useful stuff on his laptop too though, so I'll let him off

The valve timing adjusting/checking involved shunting the loco for and aft until everything was in the right position. I was amused to note that piece of paper wedged between the crosshead and a spacer was being used as a feeler gauge. I was reminded of days of old when setting up the ignition timing on motorbikes was done using a pencil inserted through a spark plug hole to locate Top Dead Centre (TDC) whilst a cigarette paper was used to indicate that the contact breakers had just closed. This was pretty much the same thing on a rather larger scale.