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Just me and John in on Sunday to help out on the Thomas train at Bury Bolton Street.
We met up in the workshop before signing on in the booking office and reporting for duty down on platform four.
The first Thomas train left about 10:00 and continued backward and forwards down to Buckley Wells crossing which had become Sodor for the day.
The weather was a lot better than forecast, it being quite warm when the sun was out, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, especially the grown ups.

We managed a break for some lunch around 12:30 till 13:00, John was then asked to see if we could have a look at the Thomas film show has it had stopped working, this was diagnosed as a fault with the television set.
The fault was reported to a higher authority and a new set was obtained.

It was then back to the Thomas train for the remainder of the afternoon, the last train leaving at around 16:30 hours.

Next week we are back to our usual jobs in the electrical department.

Before I forget, If you get time to have a look. Ladies toilets on platform three. The right hand hand dryer doesnt appear to have a fuse in it for some reason. the carrier has been sitting there on top of the fusebox for some time now. I thought it had been reported a while back but apparently not.

MarkMc wrote:Before I forget, If you get time to have a look. Ladies toilets on platform three. The right hand hand dryer doesnt appear to have a fuse in it for some reason. the carrier has been sitting there on top of the fusebox for some time now. I thought it had been reported a while back but apparently not.

The general manager decided that the all the electrical hand dryers that we had repaired and fitted previously, were to be taken down and replaced by new ones fitted and maintained by contractors.
Why I do not know, we now have a load of servicable hand dryers spare which are perfectly OK and were maintained by us the electrical department at negligible cost to the railway.
So the answer to your question is they are b----r all to do with us.
Another case of a waste of money, they are not even maintained as that particular hand dryer as been faulty for months, Margaret the Station Master is aware of the situation.

Alan,

As with most things, there are 2 sides to every story and the 'new' dryers run at a considerable cost saving to the railway. This is certainly not 'another waste of money'.
However, they are of no use if they are not working and we are not aware of that fact. Will be resolved shortly.

I find that quite an eye-opener; that the cost of the sub-contract is met (and exceeded) by the saving in electricity. The newer dryers must use very little electricity. It would be interesting to see the figures for this.

Older hand dryers are designed around a stream of warm air to dry the hands, as opposed to airflow, and have quite substantial heating elements in as a result.

More modern, energy efficient dryers use the speed of the air to accelerate the evaporation of the water from the hands, as opposed to heat, and can therefore have a much smaller element.

A more powerful fan uses less energy than a heating element, and tricks like further accelerating the airstream using the venturi effect also help save energy in the latest designs of hand dryers.

Cheers,
Mike