The Electrical Volunteers Report Sunday 5-12-2010.

[asbibby]

John. Jonathan, Clive and myself showed up on Sunday, first job we were asked to do was to check the no supply to the central plug sockets on platform 3/4, these sockets provide the power to the Christmas tree and surrounding colour lights.

The fault was traced back to a fuse problem in the ancient distribution box high above the Tardis, Station Masters office, because the box is very old we deemed it not safe to do any work on the box without the power to the box being switched off.

A job for Simon on Monday me thinks.

John had found a thermostat/switch at home for Roger's hot water boiler this was fitted and tested out satisfactory by Clive and returned to Roger.

We then tested out the fire alarm call points at BBS and The Trackside pub/cafe, Clive had made some labels for the BBS call points so these were fitted at the same time.

The tunnel pedestrian lights and Christmas lights were reported as not working, we investigated and found that they were tripping the circuit breaker in Bob Johnson's workshop. Fortunately Roger Holdsworth had a key so we managed to isolate the fault to a 13 Amp plug which was contaminated with dirt and moisture. We cleaned the cable and fitted a new 13 Amp plug, tunnel Christmas lights then worked OK.

A sub station that supplies the power to BBS had been consumed by fire during the week causing havoc, UU must have done a good job to restore power A.S.A.P. so we then needed to reset all the time clocks in and around BBS.

The tower scaffold was then assembled after the 10:00 Santa train had left and erected on platform three so we could change the double flurescent station canopy light fitting, this unit is above the Tardis had been inoperative for the last few weeks.

The fitting was exchanged for a spare unit and the old one stripped down, the electronic unit was found to be faulty, so a new flurescent unit was installed in the canopy light fitting, the outside of the unit will be repainted before it is returned to our store.

Lunch was then taken to get warm and have a warm brew up, some of the lamps on the Christmas lights outside of the Trackside needed replacing, this was soon rectified.

We had another brew after sourcing some tea bags, John had dissapeared and returned with said tea bags. After the brew up the carriage plug renovation saga continued. Clive had bought from R.S. Components some small diameter glue filled heat shrink tubing, this will prevent the ingress of water into the plugs.
More of the renovated plug shells were then worked on new wiring fitted and the various drilled out holes being tapped out.

Clive and myself went up to Heywood on Bubble & Squeak. we needed to check out what could be done to have the Christmas lights on, seeing that the railway can't find any volunteers to man the Station and switch the lights on and off manually.

As we waited for the DMU to return to BBS, Deltic Royal Scots Grey came passed us on the loop line and then to our surprise backed up to the front of Bubble and Squeak, coupled up and pulled us back to BBS, apparently RSG was returning from a tour on the big railway.

An unusual end to the day after a varied number of jobs on the railway.