Friday 4th - Maintenance

Report by Graham

The usual suspects back at Toddington for continuation of Type-A internal and external exams on the rake in P2.

Anthony and Martin were also taking their PTS (Personal Trackside Safety) refresher exams to prove they remain suitably competent and allowed trackside.

The railway has a handy guide on the subject…

…and everyone working trackside needs to have studied and absorbed the content, and taken and passed the relevant exam. There is a regular refresher exam too. The guide is full of useful guidance and terminology to help keep yourself and colleagues safe whilst trackside…

…and similar related to things like switches(points), signals, etc.

In the morning as well as the PTS exams the internal checks and 2/3 of the underside checks were completed. In the afternoon just two carriages remained to complete of the underside checks.

All similar stuff to that covered in previous weeks, but some gloop was applied to linkages whilst down there…

…and also to spring “hangers” whilst walking the platform…

We found some rather oily axle boxes on one carriage and made a note for attention next time it visits the workshop. We prefer the oil to stay on the inside of the axle box rather than getting everywhere else…on us, on the track, on the wheels! Still plenty in the axle boxes, but you don’t want it working its way down the wheels and ending up on the tyres and reducing braking effect.

We also found some brake blocks that were starting to overlap the chamfer at the edge of their wheel. Plenty of thickness left, and not too far out, but once they start to go they only drift further out as they wear. These will need changing, and possibly the rigging adjusting to make sure the replacement blocks centre better on the wheel.

As usual John was there to mark the paperwork at the end of the day…

…he did smile AFTER the picture was taken, honest!

Taking in the scotches(chocks) and taking down and putting away the NOT-TO-BE-MOVED board and locking the rake are also part of the end of day routine…

I couldn’t get the bugle player in the picture at the same time unfortunately.

Occasionally we see other toys-with-wheels taken out of the toy box and being played with…

There was an issue with one of the phone cables across to the station building that was being dealt with.