Of pinch bars and profiles
14th July 2024
Around about this Sunday back in 2010 I put finger to keyboard and created a 'blog' on a site then known as 'Railnuts'. The first few editions were brief and I imagine I meant them to be intriguing rather than informative - there was no introduction - but every Sunday, well OK, 99% of Sundays since I have come home, had tea and then gone up to the office to write 'the Blog'. (I might say 'lock myself away in the office' but as you cannot actually shut the door, and anyway I raided the door handles to fix the kitchen door as you can't buy the exact same door furniture now, it would be artistic licence of the worst order.) A few months after those initial entries the site was disbanded, and I took the opportunity to launch it as a stand-alone website and so arrived Weekend Rails. In earlier incarnations (the software gets an up-date from time to time) there was a column of past quarters - Jan-March, etc - which you could click on and access any old entry, though many of the earlier ones had been stripped of their photos when upgraded and not had them restored. In the latest upgrade that facility was lost - it was all to do with templates - and only the most recent 3months or so can be accessed.
That is fine for long standing readers who have been there, read that, but I like to think - judging from the numbers - that there are new readers coming along who might think that that is as far back as it goes. Bill Hyde at Priday Design has been working on this problem for a while, and if you were very adventurous, for the last 2 or 3 weeks you would have found an additional menu item (press on those 3 lines, top right) called 'Blog Archive'. That will, eventually, take you to fresh menu(s?) that will enable access to every past entry, that's currently over 700, but for now about 30 are accessible but even then there is a danger of disappearing down the rabbit hole. Be warned.
At the end of last week I was explaining that problems with the DAF had resulted in postponement of a job to Liverpool, to be squeezed in to the early part of this week. I had already promised to move a customer's 08 down to Tyseley on Monday, and logic said that if things went well we could unload at Tyseley, dash back and load the Liverpool loco and be across somewhere near overnight. Needless to say, things didn't go as well as they might. It began well enough - I arrived just after 8 am and found Jeff already there but he had decided that instead of driving up to the loading area, and then reverse back with a loco on board, he would turn around empty (when the trailer can be more co-operative) and back up to the loading pad. I can't fault his logic, only that he did so without informing anyone, as the loco was parked at the wrong end of the loading pad. No problem, just hitch the loco to a convenient point on the lorry and pull it down to the other end. And that is what we started to do, but having removed one wooden scotch and unwound the handbrake, I had completely failed to notice another b****y scotch that we pulled the loco hard on to.
Nothing for it but to ask the site manager nicely about bringing the pilot 08 over, drawing it off the scotch and then propelling it to the farthest end of the loading pad. which was readily accomplished, but put us at least half an hour late on my schedule. So we headed off on our seperate ways to Tyseley. I knew I would be there first - not because I passed the lorry on the way but because they have to do a long detour to avoid traversing bridges declared unfit for abnormal loads. The access to Tyseley is diagonally across a car park, and the marked bays for parking should, if observed, keep the strip clear. But a large portion has been handed over to a contractor as a site base for building works, resulting in parking spaces being at even more of a premium than hitherto, plus there are several painted bays right outside where the gateway and unloading track is located, and when I got there, one was occupied. A Tyseley man however, found the owner and got it moved, and with the gates open I thought it unlikely that anyone else would arrive and try to park there. I was wrong, I turned my back and two cars pulled in. I tactfully asked them to move on; the threat of mowing them down with a low loader armed with a 48ton 0-6-0 usually works.
Eventually Jeff arrived and we set to to get the loco back off. The unloading road drops quite steeply towards the ashpit and then levels out on to the turntable. Because of obstructions inside the front of the trailer stays outside the wooden gates and well beyond the rail ends. Our ramp is long enough to reach (though you are lining up with a pair of rails that you can't see!) and the tractor unit pulls to one side but can't get to the rear of the trailer, so the extension hoses have to be deployed. With luck, I reasoned, the loco would roll down from the trailer. on to the slope down to the ashpit, and be well clear so that we can get the tractor back on and be away. But no, the loco stopped with its second axle just on the rails and there it remained.
We have a pinch bar - a RAM pinch bar no less - but it needs a new handle and it wouldn't budge the loco. The tractor had no room to manouevre so couldn't haul it. There was nothing I could hitch a snatch block on and so haul it away, thus I went in search of a shunter to pull it. I found it and its driver at the far end of the site, but he was patching a hole in the radiator which he reckoned would take at least half an hour (I guessed twice as long) but arranged for two young and fit lads with RAM pinch bars to come to our aid. These two worked together and as soon as the loco overcame whatever it was had stuck it (which was almost immediately) it proceed to roll spectacularly all the way to the ash pit.
We packed up and headed back north. It was after 5pm when we got back but the loco for Liverpool was sat at the end of the loading pad we now wanted and it was aboard as quickly as ever we could. It looked familiar, in fact both the locos we were moving that day we had moved before, this one up from London late last year. For now it was loaded and headed back to the yard for an overnight.
Tuesday and I had a dental appointment. To overcome this manpower shortage we had had Matt H with us yesterday so that I could leave him to go over with Jeff and see the loco off. This went smoothly enough from our point of view, except that the embargoes that various authorities place on the movement of abnormals can make it difficult to get anywhere and in this case, arriving at the destination was about noon as a result. And here we got the 'dunno anything about a loco coming' speeches as if we would turn around and take it back marked 'delivery refused'. Eventually it was agreed that it should be unloaded but that 'the only place' was in the area of a shunt so unloading must wait until two-thirty. In addition, the unloading track was curved, which means judging where to stop the trailer and at what angle so that the ramp reaches the track AND as near as possible to a tangent. Matt proudly told me later that he had judged this perfectly. He then winched the loco down having forgotten to turn the fuel on on the Lister!
But they got it off and gave me an ETA to meet them at Crewe, to pick up another loco. I had originally hoped to be there at about 2pm, but had warned my customer that we would be later and it was nearly half five when we got in to site. But the loco was sat there waiting and we set up. I had to bleed the Lister through before it would run but nonetheless it was loaded and we were on our way by about 7pm.
The loco was destined for Teesport, so Jeff must travel so far that night else be stuck by embargoes, but Matt wanted his bed and his van (in no particular order) and the van was in Rotherham, so he transferred his loyalties and possessions to me and we returned via Congleton, Buxton and Tideswelll (where we stopped for chips) then the edge of Sheffield. Matt got his van, and I headed down to the laser cutters to make a late night collection. A 24 hr operation, they had been told to expect me about 7pm (it was now after nine) but after explaining it was all loaded up and I got home.
Wednesday and it transpired Jeff had made it to Dishforth so after agreeing noon to meet at Teesport he was there by half-ten, had his induction and waited. Mine was out of date so I had to do it too, then I went in, sorted out where and how and brought Jeff in and into position. The ramp was built up and the loco refused to move off the trailer. Yeah, it happens. The worst was one which had been stood for 18 months and it was subsequently found to have totally dry axleboxes, but this one had been in use only the previous day and showed all the usual signs of oil and other leaks while on the trailer. Standard practice is to pull it up a bit to disturb the stiction, but there isn't much space for this and it didn't make any difference. The customer's engineer eventually got a response with our RAM pinch bar and it made the usual crawl down the ramp until the third axle was almost down on terra firma then stopped. There it was started up and driven clear but as they had wanted it a particular way round it was trapped until we packed up and moved clear. As I drove away alongside the perimeter fence it was out exploring its new surroundings.
T2 has returned to Darley Dale. It came in one evening and Andrew oversaw it all, discovering that reversing with a dolly between the tractor and T2 adds a whole new set of problems thanks to the second point of pivot. From having been keen on the idea of putting in an offer for the dolly when T2 departed, he was now minded not to. Work this weekend therefore has concentrated on getting it ready. The power unit has been placed high on the neck and I have mounted the electrical panel and throttle controls below it.
The old incorrect valve was removed and the two new 5/2 valves fitted and connected up. (I realised incidentally, how it had been rigged to work with a 3/2 valve. A branch off the air feed went through a regulator to one side of the cylinder, and the 3/2 controlled full air pressure on the other side. Thus when the valve operated, it only allowed the cylinder to function with the nett difference in pressures and the full air pressure had to force the regulated pressure back down the small bore pipe and out through the relieving port of the regulator. No wonder it was slow. Andrew started assembling some of the profiles and periodically questioned me where this or that fitted.
The rails were cut to length and put to gauge with an old tie bar. Andrew had ordered up some amber side marker lights and as one is broken I replaced it with a new one. I had ordered up a cable, two button pendant and a plug to suit the trailer's remote steering sockets. The first two are with us but the plug has yet to arrive. Andrew had promised to 'sort out the steel' for the 'rail' fabrications which will carry the loco 'over the threshold' from the 75lb/yard ramp rails to the 110lb/yard deck rails. At Thursday he chucked the problem back on to me! Local stockholders Twiggs had quoted him but without a delivery promise. My drawings had assumed 60 x 40 bar. Other places he had tried, he said, couldn't offer any. I ascertained that Twigg's had nothing in stock and couldn't get anything before at least Tuesday. I looked around and rang a stockholder in Sheffield who had one 6m length and I got it delivered next day.
Andrew couldn't make Sunday but I had Jagger and his friend Jake so wasn't lonely. Jagger finished drilling pilot holes for more tie bars and did some other bits for me, while I did an air test on my new pneumatics and carried on with other bits and bobs on it. In between times the two Js were on Pluto, starting to dismantle the brake rigging so that we can fit composite blocks and make the rigging work properly (it came back from the border in a partially seized condition).
Late Sunday afternoon I got a chance to play with Alstom's loco again. After my exploits with the oscilloscope last week it had occurred to me that the tacho system was apparently immune. The tacho though uses a 'two wire' inductive sensor so produces a sine-wave, whereas the speedo driver uses a 3 wire proximity sensor so should produce a square wave. The electronics on the module should cope with either, why not try an inductive pick up on the speedo? Of course I didn't have one in stock, so ordered up a couple of cheap chinese ones which arrived late in the week. Wired in place of the proximity sensor I fired the engine up and the speedo needle remained motionless. Later on, with a gearwheel bolted in to a battery drill chuck, I held the sensor close to the rotating gear and watched the needle rise and fall. Yippee. Without further ado I unbolted the mounting plate which carried the (M12) proximity sensor and drilled out the hole to 14mm to tap it M16. But a little voice told me to double check. The inductive sensor might be metric, and might be 16mm diameter, but is it normal M16 coarse pitch? No, it is M16 x 1.5. And do we have an M16 x 1.5 tap? Do we heck.
After all the troubles the DAF has been suffering the last few weeks, and the Merc is still having a gearbox repair, the last thing I wanted to hear was another breakdown with the DAF just as we were about to start a programme of movements. But like it or not, that is what has happened so the first move is delayed while we sort out how to resolve things. The crystal ball is about as blank as it can be at this moment, as to what will happen for the early part of this week. Come back and see how we suceed in the face of adversity. Or something like that. See ya then.