2007 was a year in which most of the telecom time was spent in repairing damaged cables.

We suffered from vandalism. The vandals mostly had a go at the lineside cabinets which the DFR uses for Distribution Points (DPs). Covers were wrenched off, wires were cut and in one extreme case the concrete posts supporting the cabinet were broken to leave the cabinet on the ground. The last case seemed to satisfy the vandals as they never did cut the wires in the cabinet. In another case they may well have suffered, as there was a wasp nest in the cabinet. I know, I managed to get stung and have a week of discomfort.

We have also had a group of offenders on community service clearing lineside vegetation. They really managed to put obscure faults on the cable which was only a few inches below ground. At the end of the year we still have outstanding faults waiting to be found and cleared. Luckily the essential operational circuits have been connected using the pairs in the cable core and have missed most of the damage.

Even where we thought we were safely tucked away in four inch duct we have had massive trouble from rats. They have been in the duct chewing away the complete insulation and leaving the conductors bare and of course faulty. If only we could put 500 volts on a pair or two.

The year was not a complete write off. Parkend exchange was installed and brought into service. It has a very small role at present, just serving a few lines around the station and signal box complex. We await the arrival of the cable from Norchard before we can interconnect the two exchanges in a linked numbering scheme. The cable has arrived at Whitecroft and serves a telephone there for use by the gatekeepers. Thanks here go to Bob Hawker for the invaluable help he has given towards this cable project. I well remember the day when we pushed two large cable drums on trolleys up to Whitecroft and laid out the cables in the rain. Ugh! However, the Parkend junctions now route up to Whitecroft and then loop back to Norchard so that we can keep an electrical eye on the cable. Cabling has started with the most awkward length leaving Parkend exchange and running south toward Whitecroft. Parkend exchange is proving to be quite reliable despite having been constructed from bits and pieces mostly obtained from the Mid Hants Railway. Chris Barlow from the Churnet Valley Railway came for a day and spent it overhauling and checking the Parkend selectors. This was a real boon as we have found it difficult to find time for such routine strowger maintenance. Thanks Chris, your visit was really welcome, useful and helpful.

We have also provided an interim fire warning system which works when 222 is dialled on the Norchard exchange. A music channel has been added to the PA system so that our Father Christmas customers can be entertained whilst waiting for the train.

The worst day for us in 2007 was when we lost Bernard Wade. He had come in the day before he died and said that he was going to do some real maintenance on the Norchard equipment. He had a lovely day, doing the job he was best at. He had been a Technical Officer in charge of exchange maintenance in Gloucester exchange before he joined the DFR. We miss him and his expertise.

We are the "The Electrical and Telecom Group" and as such at least half of our effort goes on electrical matters around the railway. This has been a big year for the electrical side of the group as we lost John Hatton, our top man, to retirement from the railway and have had to adapt to the current regulations which require work to be tested and accepted by qualified staff only. Consequently most large jobs now go to contract and small jobs go to them for acceptance. PAT testing never seems to stop though and only occasionally do the electricians get to assist on telecom works.

Lately, we have been joined by Mike Sewell who is splitting his time between telecoms and electrical. He has also joined the Board and covers security matters, which may well involve us in both telecom and electrical work in the future.

For 2008 we look forward to laying duct beside Lydney Park and getting new cable installed over about a kilometre to bypass the existing sadly mangled cable now mostly laying on the surface. Jason Shirley and Rauffe with their gang made a start on the duct laying just before Christmas.

Cable should also be laid between Whitecroft and Parkend and the two exchanges should then be linked in a three digit numbering scheme.

January 2008
A wet month preventing us from getting much done outside. Martin and I did manage to get duct laid to the Chairman's wagon in readiness for supplying him with telephone service. That was hard digging in the ballast and the duct is only just under the ground, but we did provide a duct within the duct for extra strength. During the digging, Martin and I went off to lunch to come back to find that the trench fairies had been at work finishing off the digging. Thanks, Ian and David.

The DFR got a big BT bill this month. It included two occasions when BT repaired reported faults and then charged us for work on our equipment. We have to get this sorted so that it does not happen again.

February 2008
The Chairman's phones are now working in his wagon.
The duct along the park has now been laid and we await authority to buy the necessary cable. The existing cable is now above ground and has been cut twice more by the duct laying activities. The cable to Whitecroft has also been cut twice by the gang clearing the undergrowth back to the fence line. This may be a blessing in disguise as we look as though we may get the opportunity to tie the cable back on the fence and thereby keep it out of the way of future tidying activities.

We seem to be losing Mike Sewell who is moving away from the area. We are advertising for more volunteers to help out with the Electrical and Telecom Group.

March 2008
Not a good month, Mike Sewell has left the area and then we lost Norman Alder from the Electrical and Telecoms Group. Norman has been poorly for some time and has only appeared on odd occasions, but in the end he succumbed to cancer and died on the 17th March. At least Martin Lunn and I were able to visit him a few days before he went. There will be a short obituary in the News Sheet.

The group is now down to Martin Lunn, myself and Tony Macey who helps when he can. We have not been able to tackle telecom jobs as we have been completely tied up with sorting the electrics out in the cafe coach for the new occupants. We are still involved in the provision as the month ends. If any spare time appears we have used it to sort our store, the "Caboosh". The contents have grown hugely and we cannot move in there, so we are being strict and getting rid of stuff for which we cannot see a use. We may make some money for the railway with the scrap metal we are accumulating.

April 2008
Electrical work, sorting our store and holidays meant that virtually no telecom work was undertaken. However I went to the Avoncroft Telecom Swapmeet and bought various items to keep us going and whilst there met Ian Jolly. We were talking about the cabling difficulties in getting junctions between Norchard and Parkend when he dropped a small bomb in front of me and told me that it is now possible to interconnect Strowger exchanges via the net. I need a computer running Linux, a programme called Asterisk to turn it into a tandem exchange and bits and pieces to interconnect it to the Strowgers ( and a phone at home apparently). I will also need to have broadband installed at Parkend. Wow!!!

May 2008
Back from holiday means that I can start thinking seriously about Asterisk and can start on the minor works necessary at Norchard to get an Asterisk installed there.
Rick Gillingham, ex BT, popped in to see us. We hope he will stay and become a regular on the Electrical and Telecoms Group.
We have started to get a section of the Whitecroft cable pulled back and cable tied to the fence. However even this one section was too much for a full gang of four to cope with more than a couple of hours pulling on what seemed to be a ton of cable.

June 2008
Mostly a month of wet Wednesdays so the cabling at Whitecroft has not been finished. The cable is back along the fence but the fixing to the fencing needs to be completed along with the installation of a new piece where the cable is now too short to reach.
We did install CAT 5 cables from our BT router to the exchange room in readiness for an Asterisk installation and the junctions to the Asterisk are jumpered up and taken to a DP at the proposed Asterisk location. Similar work has started at Parkend but is in its early stages at present.
We did manage to help out with electrical work in the cafe installing new fly zapper circuits.
Rick has stayed with us and now has a set of keys to the electrical world. He has made a start on checking and lubricating our Norchard selectors. Welcome aboard.

July 2008
Ian Jolly visited bringing an Asterisk exchange with him. However although the Asterisk talks to the exchange, it will not be accepted by the BT router. It may be that the router will not talk to a Linux machine.
The work at Parkend to connect the exchange to the Asterisk system is now well ahead, though we have found that we need to modify all the finals so that the P wire testing battery resistance is lowered to operate to the UAX13 group selectors we are using as incoming selectors from the Asterisk.
We have attached all the cable we can to the fence line south of Whitecroft and we have surveyed the rest of the route for damage. We now know that we have three joints to make plus the retermination of the cable in one of the DPs. Not too bad.
Chris Hall from the Mid Hants dropped off some MDF bits for which we have been scouting around . Thanks Chris.

August 2008
Our Asterisk is still not talking to the BT router we have but Ian Jolly is returning shortly with fresh ideas. We have finished the exchange work at Parkend. In the end we did not modify the PABX4 finals, we changed the HX relays in the UAX13 incoming group selectors to hi speed types. They work a treat. We have also managed to make the three joints on the damaged cable south of Whitecroft, though at the cost of losing a mobile phone in the undergrowth. We still have to reterminate one length of cable in its DP.
We had arranged for cable to be delivered to Parkend for the Whitecroft-Parkend section. It was to be laid along the trackside. However we now have an offer to get it trenched and ducted if we wait for the winter when the lineside vegetation reduces. In the end a much better solution.
At the same time we have nine spans of aerial cable that need to come down as the trees along the route and the banking are going to be removed to allow the railway to double its track over that section.

September/October 2008
A time for holidays and not too much work got done on the telecoms side. We have managed some UAX13 maintenance and the replacement of a damaged length of cable at Norchard. We also finished the jointing of the cable to Whitecroft and the phone there is now back on line with a louder bell.
The Asterisk has not made any real progress as we debate how to get it to talk to our BT router. However the BT router will not talk to a new Vista machine so it may get changed for something more versatile in any case. At the moment we wait to see what happens, if not we will need to have a separate broadband connection on one of our other lines, not the most cost effective solution.

We did manage to get a group photo at the end of October. The members are Tony Macey, John Bathgate, Martin Lunn and Rick Gillingham. John and Rick concentrate on telecom work as they are both ex PO/BT.

Page provided by John Bathgate This page was last updated on 23rd October 2008