The Electrical Volunteers report Sunday 30-01-2022.

[asbibby]

Today it was the same team as last Sunday, Jonathan, John, Colin, Clive and myself. After a swift brew and an almond slice, we asked one of Bury Bolton Street Station staff to open the roller shutter doors to staircases platform two & three/four.
Simon was good as his word and provided us with new LED tubes that we asked for last Sunday.
The mobile tower scaffold was brought back into use and erected on staircase platform two. Three double light fittings illuminate the staircases and the project is to equip the lights with emergency LED strip lighting and replace the six foot fluorescent tubes with LED tubes.
All the overbridge light fittings have now been completed with emergency LED strips, new batteries and new LED six foot tubes.
New batteries have been fitted in the lighting units and the internal wiring re-jigged, we replaced the centre light fitting with a converted fitting and took down the old unit, for modification by Clive in our workshop.
Simon the full time ELR electrian had been in touch regarding the faulty Station clock at Rawtenstall, scaffold had been erected so access could be made to the mechanism, Simon picked up Colin and Clive and took them up to Rawtenstall, to effect repairs.
John, Jonathan and myself carried on with the lighting on the staircases.
Lunch was then taken with Clive and Colin who had returned from Rawtenstall, we had another brew and some chocolate muffins given to us by Sue Sue.
On staircase three/four there is a hand rail running down the centre of the staircase so we had to dismantle the mobile tower scaffold to enable us to use the scaffold to access the centre light fitting. This we managed and took down the old fitting to be modified by Clive again, the two fittings we took down today will be ready for us to re-install next week before the railway re-opens.
This will leave us with just one fitting at the bottom of staircase platform two to figure out how to access it, as it is in a difficult position.
We had a final brew and a cake before calling it a day, back next week for more enlightening stories.

[marflow]

What we did at Rawtenstall.
You may have noticed that the four clocks in the turret had stopped.
So we got Simon to get a scaffold so we could get up to it.
It had been refurbished in 2003 by a firm from Hampshire darn sarth.
The power supply, battery back-up and controller were installed behind the clock faces. No surprise, the battery had failed after 19 years and blew up the power unit. Nobody would be willing to erect scaffolding regularly to change the battery. Even if they knew it was there.
So Colin went up and we rewired power supply and battery to down in the foyer. Where it can easily be serviced.
It may be an idea to move the whole controller down too. Only 6 wires so cat5 would do. Instead of 2 wires for just the power supply unit.
The 4 clocks are showing 2 minutes slower than the controller which is locked to MSF (Rugby in the old days) so. If we can get keys and ladders there, we'll fix the error and the lighting in the tower that back-lights the clock faces.