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Unusual Rail Joints?


melmerby
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7 minutes ago, Trog said:

If you want an unusual set of fish plates how about these?

Elephant ear IBJ 800x600.JPG

Are those for when that last bit of your sectional track won't quite reach?

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18 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

When doing any inspection or testing of points equipment I always liked to see a train go over them as it gave you far more information about the state of the equipment. You can often hear something starting to work loose before you can see it.

 

Hence why I have always said point maintenance (yes even from a S&T perspective) is better done during the day.

 

Unfortunately what with the railway getting busier by the year, plus the safety bods putting more and more of the railway 'off limits' without line blockages it isn't easy to do.

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3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Unfortunately what with the railway getting busier by the year, plus the safety bods putting more and more of the railway 'off limits' without line blockages it isn't easy to do.

 

I had a phone call some years ago from the safety bods saying that they wanted to declare all three tracks of the mainline red zone prohibited for a couple of miles, for poor sighting. When I enquired for some more detail the problem was actually with two short stretches of the Fast lines over a couple of hundred yards each. When I asked why they were including the slow line, and the mile and a half of OK track between. The answer was to keep the paperwork neat and tidy, and is that a problem? I said that yes it was and that the maintainers had a hard enough job without someone making it harder for them than necessary in the pursuit of tidy paperwork, and that the Red Zone Prohibitions should only include the two short lengths of the Fasts where sighting was a problem.

 

Strangely they never came back to ask me for my thoughts on any other proposed new red zone prohibited areas.

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8 hours ago, uax6 said:

I think the insulators in that joint probably need changing....

 

Andy G

 

Do you know the 57/XXXXX catalogue number for a replacement set of that type?

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7 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

It's quite a while since I last saw one of those!

 

Not sure how old they are but thinking about it I have only ever seen them on ex-LNWR lines. Although that may say more about where I worked than the joints themselves as I mainly worked on ex-LNWR lines with only a limited amount of time spent working on the West London Junction to Penzance and Mitre Bridge to Derby Branches.

 

For those of you who would like to see one but who are not allowed to wander about the track. There was one up at least until a couple of years ago near the buffers in one of the short bay platforms under the southern footbridge at Crewe.

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2 hours ago, Trog said:

 

For those of you who would like to see one but who are not allowed to wander about the track. There was one up at least until a couple of years ago near the buffers in one of the short bay platforms under the southern footbridge at Crewe.

This I assume:

https://goo.gl/maps/PnjqrWi7eHUERhBM6

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46 minutes ago, melmerby said:

 

That's the one I had in mind. There is or at least was another (the one in my original photo) towards the north end of the siding beside the City Goods Lines where Willesden PSB used to be. The other place there were a pair of them was in the LNWR sidings south of Cambridge until they were lifted.

 

No doubt there are more of them about but those three places were the only ones I ever noticed.

Edited by Trog
Tidy
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7 minutes ago, Trog said:

 

That's the one I had in mind. There is or at least was another (the one in my original photo) towards the north end of the siding beside the City Goods Lines where Willesden PSB used to be. The other place there were a pair of them was in the LNWR sidings south of Cambridge until they were lifted.

 

No doubt there are more of them about but those three places were the only ones I ever noticed.

 

Is this one to isolate the buffer stop? I assume bolting a big lump of rail across the tracks would upset the track circuiting 

 

Richard

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On ‎07‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 10:15, melmerby said:

Thanks guys, plenty of info there.

The joint is where the middle roads between platforms 3 & 4, which still seem to be well used by the look of the rail head, are connected to the down line at the end of platform 3.

Here (bottom RH) is where that new FB is welded to the bullhead middle roads near this catch point:

2032558603_catchpoint.jpg.07c4ff501841bd148e6329a73d0cedb0.jpg

 

As a comparison at the other end of the station the line running in to platform 3 from the south has a standard 4 hole joiner which is definitely loose, with noticeable dipping as a train runs over it.

fishplate1.jpg.678ae1b804ed9360a9e7b2f59a754d7e.jpg

 

That is an embarrassment to the PW section looking after it .................

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17 hours ago, Trog said:

 

Not sure how old they are but thinking about it I have only ever seen them on ex-LNWR lines. Although that may say more about where I worked than the joints themselves as I mainly worked on ex-LNWR lines with only a limited amount of time spent working on the West London Junction to Penzance and Mitre Bridge to Derby Branches.

 

For those of you who would like to see one but who are not allowed to wander about the track. There was one up at least until a couple of years ago near the buffers in one of the short bay platforms under the southern footbridge at Crewe.

Also used on the Midland side of the LMS, I remember one at Kings Heath pre-Saltley PSB. 

There were several in the platforms at Manchester Piccadilly up to the late 1990s as well.

They were a Sykes product IIRC. I have a picture of them dating from the 1920s in a book.

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1 hour ago, ElectroSoldier said:

Its not a fish plate its an insulated block joint.

 

I think that depends on whether you are employed by the S&T, or work for the P-Way.

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So you would call the item in question a fishplate and leave it at that would you?

Or an insulated joint... insulated joint fishplate or an insulated block joint fishplate. Or maybe an Insulated block joint?

 

Its like me saying all dogs are creatures but not all creatures are dogs!
Well yeah, but you wouldnt just say "its an creature" would you.

 

Yes of course it is a form of fishplate. My words were to point out the fact its not simply a fishplate.

 

Ex track inspector ;-)

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On 26/07/2019 at 22:50, ElectroSoldier said:

So you would call the item in question a fishplate and leave it at that would you?

Or an insulated joint... insulated joint fishplate or an insulated block joint fishplate. Or maybe an Insulated block joint?

 

Its like me saying all dogs are creatures but not all creatures are dogs!
Well yeah, but you wouldnt just say "its an creature" would you.

 

Yes of course it is a form of fishplate. My words were to point out the fact its not simply a fishplate.

 

Ex track inspector ;-)

'This is not a fishplate - it's an S&T fishplate'?

 

With apologies to Marks and Sparks

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