Charwelton re-signalling

[43110andyb]

Thought I would start this topic as a spin off to our layout thread for Charwelton http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/121262-charwelton-80s-spotting-days/

Work has started to add point machines, troughing routes, location cabinets and cabling to the layout to bring it into the 80's.

As Charwelton unfortunately never made it into the 80's on the railway front it's a 'what if' scenario and we have had to do what we think might have been (not an easy task!).

Location cabinets (first fit).

 

 

Battery cabinet with cables

Point machine and ground signal with cables.

 

-thanks to DaveC for photos and not least his excellent work!

[jim.snowdon]

Very neat - if anything too neat. Clipping the cables to the sleepers is, to me, more of a 21st century practice, whereas in the 80s, they would as likely have been laid in the middle of the bed between sleepers, possibly in the infamous orange tube that is no longer regarded as permissible.

 

The other detail is that cables would not normally be routed right next to fishplated joints on account of the high vibration levels from passing trains.

 

Jim

[phil-b259]

Please take another look at the positioning of the point machine in particular where it lies in relation to the tips of the switch blades (the ones that move).

 

As you can see from this photo the detection and FPL rods are located in the sleeper bed before the switch tips and the point machine needs to be mounted accordingly

 

 

[43110andyb]

Thanks for the feedback, it's not easy to get any decent pictures of cable runs in the 80's and as I started on BR in the late 80's my memory isn't great. I remember a combination of several practices for cables, the orange pipes were used and were soon taken out as they created great problems when damaged cables were hidden- Also tampers could pierce the pipe if hit in the middle. There were cables clipped down as we have done above and also cables that were strewn across the ballast especially after failures when they would be thrown in to get things up and running.

I think we maybe need to do a few of the above to stop it being too neat as mentioned.

Again the machine on reflection may need tweaking but I hold responsibility as I have been feeding Dave info and he's been working off the odd photo.

Edit- the point machine has been tweaked into the correct position.

 

Again thanks for the feedback!

 

-Andy

Edited July 23, 2017 by 43110andyb