Of manning the palisade

17th November 2024

I was trying to work out a witty title for the week - a parody of 'The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe' but the wardrobe is a bookcase and I couldn't see where a Lion or a witch could be worked in. (Don't get ahead of me with regard to the witch) so you'll have to settle for the above.

One of the unanswered questions with the straight air brake on 873 was presumably, if it had two seperate brake valves, the two outputs came together in a shuttle valve (that's industrial pneumatics speak, in railway pneumatics speak it's a double-check valve) and a single commoned pipe goes to the brake cylinders. The feed to the driver's brake valve on the right hand side was capped off, so the valve would never work, but if the shuttle valve leaked across or failed in some other way, the air pressure destined to operate the cylinder (from the left hand valve) would take the easier route to atmosphere through the right hand brake valve. Having taken that valve off the loco altogether, that left that pipe open where it connected to the departed valve, and although there was no evidence to say it ever had or would, I decided to cap the pipe off until we have had the opportunity to trace it back to the commoning point and replumb accordingly. So on Monday I popped up to Rowsley, found 873 standing outside the loco shed, and gave the pipe a sealing cap and myself pease of mind.

Tuesday was comparatively peaceful, but Wednesday was slightly different. Andrew had a lorry out and about. It had collected the rest of his pallisade fencing from Long Marston, then a lathe from Foxfield, and on Wednesday morning was to collect an oddball track inspection vehicle ('Lesmac') from Wirksworth. Originally I was told to expect it early in the afternoon, or maybe late morning, so I was in the middle of changing a light fitting at nine a.m. when Andrew rang to say it must have left Wirksworth as it wasn't on their webcams, and might be already sat at the gates. Unshaven and tousled, I headed off to the workshops to find all quiet, but I parked the van in the station car park to keep the way clear. Now under normal circumstances I would have fired up Louise and dragged Track 1 back so that the forklift could come out and assist in unloading or repositioning. The latest plan had been to use the big minilok for that purpose but so far, its refusal to move has not been diagnosed. I opened up its cab with the intention of having at least a check as to whether the 'Not-Aus' indication might give me a clue when Andrew appeared and conceded that the lorry wasn't on the Wirksworth web cam not because it had already departed but because it hadn't arrived, but it was on its way now.

Without the forklift we would have to use a combination of the lorry's HIAB and Andrew's crane, but in the cool of the morning it wouldn't start and I had just set up a charger with a jump start facility when the lorry arrived. First off was the track inspection machine - property of the Rail Trolley Trust and the second or third item of theirs we have found ourselves providing space for. This is a bit of an oddball though, being virtually all aluminium and powered by small Honda engine more appropriate for a miniature loco. Indeed it was so light that the whole trolley didn't register on the crane loading system.

On the other hand the lathe did, being about 3metres long and about 3 tonnes in weight. We lowered it down adjacent to the minilok and left the lightweight trolley behind it.

The lorry then lifted the remaining palisade in 3 loads with his HIAB, but the last had to be left in the middle as there was nowhere else he could access. He packed up and went on his way, closely followed by Andrew who had to be back at work. I stayed on for an hour or two, doing a bit of sorting of some of the palisade components and a bit of tinkering. I also dragged out a spare sheet and covered the lathe as I didn't think it would be moving until I had the minilok sorted! Over at the station volunteers were starting to put up the Christmas decorations, using pictures from last year to remind themselves what went where.

Thursday I had to pop in to Sheffield to get some parts which I thought would be needed on Friday, only to find they weren't, which was annoying as Steph and I were off to our daughter's in Darlington for the day on Friday and could have saved me much time and mileage with a brief detour then. Our trip was to collect a bookcase which our daughter's neighbours had bequeathed as they moved out, and daughter needed moving soonish. That was the reason for trying to hire a van last week, but having found a video on youtube showing how to assemble the said bookcase, it seemed a doddle to dis-assemble it and bring it south in largely its original components. The rest of the day involved shopping and eating, getting home about 11pm.

Saturday, and after emptying the van I was down at the shed for about half-nine and joined by Matt. I set him to crack on sorting the pile of palisade in the road into seperate piles of posts, beams and types of palisades, the latter to be piled in 17s, a bay-worth. Meanwhile I had decided to light another bonfire, though there wasn't half as much as there had been last week it gave me some satisfaction to do a bit of tidying. With the palisade all moved we could at least move vehicles nearer the aluminium trolley. Moving on to the Davis loco, I got Matt to put together the new bracket to carry the alternator and get it welded to the loco, while I did some bits on the Alstom loco, which is due out shortly. I did plan to re-load the software in the screen with more messages, and use a sub-routine to display them should a fault be detected before start-up, but the screen software, being a bit old, only recognises COMS 1 to 4 whereas the USB showing up on my laptop insisted it was COM 11 and no amount of jiggery-pokery would convince either to talk to the other. In the end, I deleted the new software for the PLC, unblocked the old and added a brief line to that which displays the particular message I was concerned with at other stages, and when tested, it now displayed correctly for when it was a pre-start fault. This was a relief, but slightly disconcerting as I wrote the display routine back in 2006 and I can't remember how it works, but it does so I'll stop thinking about it.

Matt moved on to manufacturing a new plate to carry the control electrics on the Davis loco and at that point things came to a stop. Andrew arrived having been over to Norfolk to collect grandson, and a brief discussion ensued about where to put the lathe. It requires rather a lot of things moving in order to get it in!

Sunday, and Andrew said he'd be down about nine, but I didn't think he would and when I rolled up at ten I was first one there. He had declared it was a tidy-up day, but as some of our most untidyishness concerns the quantity of palisade parts, these were to be sorted first, with more moving of bits from A to B to C. This was in part to sort out components to pass over to Peak Rail to rebuild a section of fencing at the station. Up to now in Midland Railway style diagonal slatted timber, that portion between the station building and the (PR) toilet block on the southbound side has been kicked down repeatedly by juveniles. It has been a feature of the teenagers around here that they seek somewhere 'quiet' to chill out. We used to see them a lot on the footpath between us and the council yard, but with the housing development further on between there and DFS car park, they seem to have moved away and decided that the area between the station structures offers them better camouflage. We went over and measured the gap - only about 4.2metres, and set back from the platform so will not affect the station appearance especially if painted green to blend in to the park behind. With that piece of info we could start putting sufficient bits to one side and see what else was needed to make up a complete 'kit' for the job. The rain started not long after this, so work moved under cover, Andrew moving bits into the storage container and re-organising shelves of nuts and bolts, while I drilled the base plate to mount the electrical box and in turn to fit the loco. It is planned that later this week it comes inside so I can crack on with getting the wiring, etc., completed.

And that about wraps things up again. The week coming requires several days in or about the shed, with a loco to depart and visitors to host. Beyond that, I am not sure, so what I'll be putting down next Sunday at this stage remains very much an unknown. So as usual, you'll have to come and find out. See ya then.