Work in Progress: 12th March

Point rodding and concrete!

Another Work in Progress Report from Roger Bye.

Although the Thursday gang provide the General Manager with some extra labour, much happens during the rest of the week. A priority job this week was the replacement of corroded point rodding. This required the cutting of sections of rodding to length and threading the ends to take screwed joining couplers.

1 and 2. On the left an example of the corroded rodding and the new galvanised replacement rodding.

3 and 4. The lengths of new rodding. These control the crossover at the Barnstaple end of the station.

5. Concreting was the first task for the gang and Dave and Mike discuss the mix required for the job (or were they chatting about their Western Australian experiences?).

6. As the support saddles that support the point rodding are no longer commercially available, we have to make them ourselves.  Here Jim loads concrete into the custom made moulds, while Martyn vibrates the concrete to ensure it reaches all parts of the mould.  The results of previous castings can be seen stacked on the wagon in front of of the moulds.

7. Having some spare concrete to hand, the opportunity was taken to concrete in the drain cover on the approach to the toilet block.  The high quality floated finish was courtesy of Dave!

8 and 9. In the shed John and Clare were forming an ejector exhaust pipe for "Charlie".  This is a part of the vacuum braking system and will be fitted along the top of the right hand tank.

10. In the paint shop Jim Pounds continues his painstaking paint touch-up work on the heritage carriages.

11. Meanwhile Pete Williams gets right down to the job of greasing Isaac in preparation for use in traffic this weekend

12 and 13. In the station building - the Tea-Room was cleared of furniture so that our contract cleaners could thoroughly clean the Tea-Room and shop floors in advance of the coming season.

14. Some of the gang took a works train trip down the line......note the newly topped up ballast....

15 ...to move some fish-plates and collect some old sleepers for the next project...

16. The control cabinet for the sewage treatment system, whilst essential, is not that attractive and is something of blemish on many a photo.  Hence todays construction of a screen formed from old sleepers. Here Hugh starts clearing and levelling the ground so that...

17...the sleeper screen can be built up...

18...with expenditure of much effort sawing the sleepers to length...

19...until the cabinet is hidden from sight. Some trimming is required but the very wet gang decided to call it a day!

20. The improved view!!

Other work in hand but not captured on camera included the continued upgrading of the electrical systems by two of the electrical Dave's and the painting of the platform benches by Nigel.