The Electrical Volunteers Report Sunday 26-9-2010.

[asbibby]

On Saturday Jonathan reported in to strip off all the old paint and grunge off some of the carriage plugs, these are stripped down to bare metal before being painted black.

On Sunday a full team turned up again, consisting of Clive, Len, Jonathan, John and myself, first job as usual was to check out the fire alarm call points at BBS and the Trackside Pub/Cafe, Jonathan and Len completed this task and recorded their findings in the log book.

Clive had sourced some imperial to metric conduit, conversion components ready for us to replace a section of corroded conduit on the A end of carriage 1833 some of the ETH wiring goes through this section of conduit.
We collected up all our tools and test equipment and made our way down to the carriage & wagon workshop.

Once down at the C & W we managed to remove all the old corroded conduit and their connectors and decided it would be best if we could weld a 20 mm conduit connector onto the existing reducer, luckily one of the volunteers working on The Bubble car trailer was able to help us out by doing the welding.
We then fitted the new length of conduit, threaded the ETH wiring through it before fastening a piece of metal flexible conduit to connect up to the ETH socket, this was then secured to the carriage body work to prevent any vibration.

All the conduit and fittings were then given a coat of paint to prevent any further corrosion, after doing all the electrical tests last week this carriage should be ready for service shortly.

We then made our way back to our work shop at BBS for lunch and a brew.

After lunch we made our way back to the C & W to do the electrical maintenance tests on carriage 35452, after Simon had given us all some training last week on how to do the various tests, we obtained a previous test sheet done earlier by Simon to give us an idea of the types of result we should expect.

We recorded all the tests and only one defect was found, a braided copper strap in the dynamo is a bit too short putting strain on the strap, this needs to be replaced by a longer piece.
There are about twenty different tests to do on a carriage from the lighting circuits to the ETH wiring circuits, as well as visual inspections of all the visible electrical/mechanical components. These test should be done every 60 weeks and recorded on paper and now we will put them on our own Excel computer database in the work shop.

Clive is going to do a word document has an aide memoir when we have to do these electrical tests, we found out it is easier to do them in a certain order, so it will be helpful in future to use the document as a help sheet.

[rmb]

Well done you Bibby Boys. If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well.

RMB

[mouldyjamontoast]

Well done you Bibby Boys. If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well.

RMB

Couldn't agree more, Don!

[mike-smashing]

Well done you Bibby Boys. If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well.

Sounds good to me - lots of progress being made to more servicable stock by the sound of it.

Mike

[rmb]

Precisely Mike,
I believe that as that becomes the norm the railway will have a fleet of stock to be proud of.

RMB

[ThyristorPerfection]

Hello, just wondering if i could join the Electrical Department? were are you located on the ELR

[JonnyGT]

Well done chaps

[asbibby]

Hello, just wondering if i could join the Electrical Department? were are you located on the ELR

Yes you can join the department, but first you need to be a member of the ELRPS for insurance purposes.
If you are not a member yet, it would be an advantage to go on one of the Tours organised by the railway each month. See the ELR web site for details.
If you are a member we meet every Sunday in our workshop underneath the stairs at Bury Bolton Street at around 09:00 hrs. close to the 26B model railway shop.
Alan S. Bibby.

[ThyristorPerfection]

ok cheers, i got my membership the other weekv so im all set

[rmb]

The Bibbyboys get a new recruit! Fame and fortune will surely follow.

RMB

[ThyristorPerfection]

haha cool, what i can do is, spend saturday down in the steam dept and sunday up in the electrical dept

[mouldyjamontoast]

[Moderator Comment - Mouldyjamontoast]

Just as a note of caution before this goes any further.

You have to attend a Basic Safety Course, before you will be issued a Working Members ID card and will be able to work as a volunteer.

You are not insured by the company (and therefore cannot work for ANY department on the railway) until you have attended this course and an ID card has been issued to you.

Attending a site tour will be the start of this process for you.
You will be asked which department you wish to join as your PRIMARY department.

The head of that department will then begin the proceedings of getting you booked on the next Basic Safety Course.

You are allowed to join as many departments as you wish (or your time permits), however you must have a primary department listed on your permanent records.

Also, you should be aware that the some of the operating departments, require you to carry out the duty you have been passed out for at least once within a set period, to maintain competency.
As an example, if you were to become a Guard, once training is completed, you have to make yourself available for at least 1 rostered diagram every 6 weeks.