The Electrical Volunteers Report Sunday 31-7-2011.

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On Saturday Jonathan came into our workshop to carry on stripping and repainting carriage shells which we had recovered a few weeks ago.

Sunday saw practically a full team out with just Len missing, he is still looking after is wife after a period in hospital.

Jonathan and myself checked out the fire alarm call points first in The Booking Hall and then The Trackside Pub/Cafe, all was well and we recorded our findings in the fire alarm log book.

John and Clive joined us and after a quick brew we decided on a plan of action for the day. Clive and John carried on with jobs at Ramsbottom Station, namely the replacement of D type lights in the toilets and repairs to the water flushing equipment in the Gents toilets.
Two D type lights were changed in the Ladies toilets and a spare light left with the Station staff as a spare.
John had sourced some replacement fuses for the automatic electronically controlled water flushing equipment in the gents toilets, this was then tested to make sure it was working correctly, we will leave you to guess how?

Jonathan and myself decided to carry on with the work on the carriage which is required for the Santa train, the one which is down at the C & W on trestles. This carriage was worked on last week replacing iffy wiring in the corridors and central gangway.
The ETH wiring is still to be tackled when we get the appropriate wire.

On reaching the C & W we found carriage W9356 which had been outshopped with a new paint job, this still had the original carriage plug leads on so we had a word with the C & W people to see if it was OK to change them for refurbished ones, agreement was reached so we set about removing the four plug leads.
After removing all four leads we made our way back to our workshop for a spot of lunch.
The adjacent carriage M4866 was also sporting old plugs so if we had enough time to change these we would bring back an extra four refurbished plugs.

We took down to thw C & W some black paint and a brush, eight refurbished plug leads and four cleaned up and painted carriage terminal covers which John had taken home two weeks ago, to remove layers of paint from many years using Nitromors paint remover.

Replacing the leads on W9356 was done quite easily the new leads fitted along with repainted covers, we then touched up the carriage patress's and surrounds with black paint.
New chains holding the plug leads were then fitted to the correct lengths.

We then set to on carriage M4866 which had old plug leads fitted, the north facing end was no problem, the leads were changeg OK, we then started on the south end of the carriage.
We took off the terminal cover one of the terminal screws had sheared off, the terminal block is held onto the patress by two long screws, one came out easily the other one proved to be stubborn to remove and will have to be drilled out next week.
The other side of the south carriage was also proving to be difficult, the metal work on the carriage was well corroded with a round rusty piece of metal trying to reinforce the fabric of the carriage.
Next week a new pattress and terminal block will be fitted and the circular piece of metal ditched.
We scraped all the carriage metalwork down and painted it black ready for finishing off next week or the week after depending on if we are required to help out on Thomas event.

The time was creeping on so we made our way back to our workshop to meet up with Clive and John who had just got back from checking out all the Station lights.
Ramsbottom, Rawtenstall and Heywood Stations were visited by Clive and John to check out and record which lights were not illuminating and to check which acess covers require repairing.
They returned with a comprensive list of items which will require our attention before the darker nights are with us.

The Ray Butcher clock surround was recovered from the joiners shop after repairs by the joiners to the woodwork, this is another ongoing job that will eventually end up as the Works clock in the steam engine shed.

After a quick brew we called it a day, with a lot accomplished, so much by so few!