The Electrical Volunteers Report Sunday 14-8-2011.

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Jonathan came in again on Saturday to carry on with the RCH carriage plug/leads refurbishment program.
Old leads recovered previously were stripped down to their component parts and some carriage covers painted.

On Sunday we had a full team out, I arrived first followed by Jonathan we tested out the fire alarm call points, first in the booking hall and then Trackside pub/cafe.
All was well and the results were recorded in the log book.

Len, John and Clive arrived and after a brew we decided on a plan of action, Jonathan, Len and myself would go down to the carriage & wagon shed to carry on with work on the Santa carriage, which we had been working on the previous weeks.
Clive and John would carry on with work on the Ray Butcher clock.

We had picked up the wooden clock surround a few weeks ago after it had been repaired in the joiners shop and brought it back to our workshop.
Clive had brought from home his jig saw to cut out a new front cover from a sheet of perspex we had been given by Ray, this perspex would replace the missing original glass cover protecting the clock face.
Once cut and hand finished the perspex was fixed into the external bezel with a silicone sealant gun, obtained for them by Simon the full time electrician who was with us today to help out on the Santa carriage.

Simon, Len, Jonathan and myself collected up our tools and test equipment and made our way down to the C & W shed to reinstall the centre fluorescent light fittings in the Santa carriage.
Most of the inverters required reterminating since they had previously been replaced by BR, who had left them lying on the ceiling covers, so that when someone came to replace a faulty inverter it would snap the wires and drop on your head.
Not much regard to Health & Safety in the sixties.

Simon offered to go back to our workshop to pick up our battery drill which was needed. We noticed that the LMS brake/stove vehicle was outside the C & W this is the privately owned vehicle that we had previously worked on, some panelling had been removed by the owner allowing us to access the RCH wiring whose insulation required fitting with some heat shrink sleeving. Red, blue and yellow heat shrink was fitted on the north end wiring and we will do the same on the south end next week. The south end pattress terminals were also removed for renovation, two new wooden pattress's were left for the owner to fit on the south end of the vehicle next week.

We made our way back to our workshop for some lunch and to see how the other team of Clive and John had progressed on the clock.

Clive and John made a few adjustments to the wooden clock surround and manufactured some fixing brackets that will eventually hold the clock to the wall in Baron Street Works.
The clock face was fastened back into the wooden clock surround and the brackets screwed to the back of the clock surround.
The clock was then reconnected up to the electronics and put on test again.

Len, Jonathan and myself made our way back to the C & W shed to carry on testing and refitting the light covers, once this had been done we fitted two refurbished RCH carriage plug leads and covers to the Santa carriage. The south end was fitted with new plugs and leads a few weeks ago, which just left the north end to do, this was finished satisfactory so we headed off back to the workshop for a brew.

That was it for another week in the lives of the electrical volunteers, what is in store next week, more Santa carriage work no doubt, we have more work to do on the carriage.