Fri 9th/Thurs 8th - Maintenance

Report compiled by Graham:

Friday

Anthony, Martin, Ian, Graham …

The chocolate & cream rake was given a type C exam which involves underside checks (as mentioned/photographed 3 weeks ago) and internal checks such as working of lights, doors, general condition, fire extinguisher condition/dates, guards compartment supplies. The underside checks were completed in the morning together with some roof inspection where leaks had been noted last week. The serious leak pictured last week seemed to most likely be coming from the roof vent…

…which looks like it has had some remedial attention previously with fibreglass and paint. The top picture shows how the roof has rusted round the bottom of the vent. Ian, who took the pictures said it looked like there should have been a raised lip under the vent to prevent water running in but this has gone and it now probably acts more like a funnel! Another section of roof where water was dripping from the vestibule lights didn’t look too pretty either…

…some of it came away easily in the hand…

…we stopped after collecting the above, before the whole roof had been stripped! The guards compartment sliding door was also freed up…

…with a bit of cleaning and lubricating. The type C exam interior checks were done in the afternoon, but a lunch break was snatched in between…

…although why the guilty looking looking expressions I’m not sure. A brief rain shower brought lunch to an end and it was time to start the type C exam internal checks. As per usual with these exams we have to create a paper trail. There is a sheet for the external checks and a sheet for the internal checks…

  

We split into two groups of two with a sheet each and started from either end of the rake, meeting back up at the guard's compartment. During the door checks some tatty/flapping door seal was removed with a trimming knife, seen here photographed resting on the platform 2 bench…

…but we found nothing else on this occasion to demand any immediate remedial tidying. As always at the end of the day the paperwork has to be collated, checked, signed, etc…

Thursday

The two Richards had been asked to investigate why the control switch on the Maroon rake guard’s carriage (BSK 35308) would not operate the lights properly. They identified that the batteries were not charging and tracked it down to a blown 240V fuse. On replacing the fuse, it blew again immediately so the charger was swapped for a spare. This was one of the old types we are gradually phasing out (see Thursday 17th September) - one of the 25% yet to change…

Following on from last week’s blog, an additional battery was mounted in each of the battery boxes on the RMB 1876, and wired in parallel to the existing batteries. The battery balancer was also used to ensure the batteries receive the correct charge (see also our blog on Thursday 17th September). Interesting to note for the balancer to work correctly is the long black cable above the batteries which has to be the same length and resistance as the cable connecting the balancer to the battery from the opposite side of the carriage (6 metres long!).

Before:    

And after: