Today's plan was to tackle one of the big logistical chores of our tidying-up programme: Moving a few tonnes of cast-iron signalling gear into long term storage, from its present hiding place in Ruddington yard. As it turned out though, we had underestimated the prodigious turn-out over in the model engineering department. The road into the yard was blocked by a bookstall, a number of trailers, and scale model showman's engine. The latter being beautifully turned-out, but not yet in steam, so hardly mobile. Instead of struggling with hand-carts, we decided to postpone the tidy-up, and get on with something a bit more efficient.
That meant continuing with the steel door from the north side of Hotchley Hill's operating floor. Some soot had landed on it during the week (A pitfall of working in a steam shed, coincidentally next to a literal pit!). The soot was soon cleaned-off, and we turned the door over, to prime the other side. The work of moments with two broad brushes.
While that was drying, we turned our attention to cutting the closure plates for the hole where the lock once was. So far as we can tell, the door originally had a large rectangular brass panel lock, as was common to Crittall doors of the time. Both of these locks are long lost, and we hold out little hope of finding replacements. (Do get in touch if you know where we can find some!)
Some time long ago, it seems someone made a rather inelegant retro-fitment of a standard mortise lock. We found one of these, quite rusted-out, in the other, mirror-image door to the South. Though it isn't an ideal fit, the idea is to source and install two more mortise-locks, with new rectangular plates to fit in the hole on either side.
Before that, though, we had to fix yet another bend in the door. You thought we'd straightened them all out, didn't you? Not quite! By means unknown, someone had managed to pinch the edge of the door, such that no lock would actually fit in. The ingenious idea was suggested that we insert a nut and bolt into the gap, and forcibly unscrew the nut from the bolt, pushing the two strips of steel apart. This worked beautifully, and made it easy to hammer-out the remaining high-spots.
Meanwhile, we scrounged some galvanised steel from the scrap bin, and cut it into four rectangular plates, to fit the hole. A mortise lock of the wrong type (but the right thickness) was found, and we began the puzzle of how to fit the whole lot together. The door was definitely not designed for these locks, and the previous fitment does not appear to have been a good one. Most of the holes that would be appropriate for attachment are now blind and inaccessible, after the door's original riveted assembly in the 40s. We now have a plan, but frustratingly, it may mean having to recut-those plates out of ever-so-slightly thinner material. Oh well...
On the other side of the shed, work is progressing with the framework destined for the big gantry on the approach to Ruddington Fields. Eventually, we'd like a grand array of semaphores up there, one for each of the numerous possible routes. However, installing that many semaphores is a non-trivial task, and we'd also like a working system before the youngest members of the team retire! To that end, we're putting together a set of colour-lights and route-indicator boxes. We welded-together the frame, today, to hold the main RI above the corresponding two-aspect signal. A length of U-channel steel was fetched from the yard, marked-up and cut to length. This will allow us to preassemble the whole signal group on the ground, and make sure it fits together before we're all balancing atop ladders!
To end this last S&T update of 2019, I do have some cheering news regarding Hotchley Hill. We have received an extremely generous donation of £1,000 from Mike Lang, which we will be using to kickstart a fund for bringing mains power to the building. An expensive subproject, for which estimates are currently being sought. This contribution shows a humbling degree of faith in the team, which we can hardly have earnt! Many thanks, Mike, from all of us.
With that, it only remains to wish everyone on and around the Greater Greater Central a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. Let's make the new decade a good one!
