Hopes for the coming year :


1) Finally get the Asterisk computer up and running on the internet and get some home phones connected to the internal phone system.

2) Complete the replacement of the PA system at Norchard.

3) Fit the ex-PA rack in the office to enable a 50 volt supply to be available for maintenance purposes.

4) Introduce a recorded preventative maintenance system for all apparatus to bring us into compliance with the latest IRSE Guidelines.

5) Update the safety and risk features of all lineside apparatus.

6) Reintroduce the training programme for the benefit of our new colleagues and for revision for our established staff.

7) Design and build a level 456 relay set to give Asterisk and Lydney Junction access at Parkend.

8) Design and start the build of a 22 line exchange at Lydney Junction. Get one final selector and associated junction into use to prove the concept.

January 2012

2 January : We decided to start the year with an easy visit to the railway, so Jean and I became visitors for the day and rode the Mince Pie Special. An excellent run in the sun and exactly to time. Welcome to 2012.

4 January : Ray and Peter got on with the cabling to the PA equipment and by the end of the day had it virtually complete. Next week we start on testing and then jumpering. I updated our computer and then borrowed the railway's video projector to see how it worked should we use it for training. Excellent. It is definitely worth my organising the training material into Powerpoint slides. Martin and I then had a go at a faulty dehumidifier from the running set. In the end after taking it almost completely to pieces we found that the underside of a printed circuit board was subject to water damage and corrosion. A little ironic, a dehumidifier that was destroyed by high humidity! The item is to go to the dump. We have also been asked to test the fire alarm regularly. We did a couple of tests, the first did not work well, but after that all was OK. We think a dirty bank contact on the PA linefinder was the problem. In future, tests will be made on the first Wednesday in the month.

7 January : No one went to the DFR today so I got down to getting some traing material turned into PowerPoint presentations. The first seven training modules are available on this website.

11 January : Tony and Rick had a go at a reported fault on lights in our hallway. However it was RWT, (right when tested). Ray and myself started to test the new equipment for the PA but quickly got bogged down in wiring errors between the rack and the IDF. Rick and Ray spent the rest of the day sorting it out. Tony fitted a mains socket in our office for use by Peter and his Norstar which he is installing simply for use as a tester for wiped up phones.

14 January : One of our very friendly railway robins. (pic by Paul Seward).

Peter had come in to get his Norstar unit wired to the desk for use as a telephone tester.

Pics of crossing equipment by Paul Seward. Paul had found that the phone from the bypass crossing was a simple CB type and did not have the modification that the documentation covered. It was faulty though so he had sorted out another CB phone for the crossing. Paul, Ian and I went to the Junction to install the phone and to fit a varistor in the main unit. It worked. Nice to get the job completed though S and T are still to provide another CB phone for the other bypass island post.

Paul went off home. Peter, Ian and I met Jean for lunch at Kaplan's. During the afternoon, Ian and I got on with testing the new PA equipment. We found the fused battery supplies reversed and a wire whisker shorting on the back of the relay set jack. After giving the jacks a good look over we made excellent progress in testing the set up. We got so far as getting some output from the exchange room speaker. This leaves us in good shape for starting the change over to the new PA next Wednesday.

18 January : Martin and Tony had a good day. They shifted a power socket in the office while Paul installed a large blackboard for training purposes. They also did PAT testing at short notice and changed out one the large lights over the yard. Rick and Peter went to Parkend to shift a D phone in the ground frame hut so that the token machine could be installed. They also checked that we could get into the meter cabinet at the bypass crossing now that the lock has been changed. Ray and I spent an entire day shifting one PA access phone in the main building. Probably we would have got the sack at BT for such poor performance. In the end we had to recable the phone via the loft. This got Rick removing all the tools we had in boxes in the loft so that he could make up some maintenance kits. Quite a busy day. We should now be in a position to rapidly start changing over circuits to the new PA equipment.

Then Michael Portillo was on the DFR auto coach on TV during the evening.

21 January : Ian and Paul spent the morning checking the CAT5 cables around the site and changing out the switching hub for an improved one. Then they made calls over the net between the Asterisk and a home ATA, monitoring the data traffic and finally getting calls made between the internal phones and a soft phone at Ian's house. They must be getting close to a resolution of our Asterisk problem. I made a start on changing over the access tele lines to the new PA but was stopped on the first one due to a fault on the relay set. In the end it looks as though the audio switching relays mounted on a strip board have a contact somewhere in the board's soldering. I will have to take the set home so that I can inspect the board with a good magnifier.

23 January : I took the relay board to pieces to find a metal hair shorting two veroboard strips under the relay bodies. I rebuilt the relays onto plain veroboard. This ended up much tidier and fault free. I took the set back to Norchard to test. It seemed fine.

25 January : We started the day with a heated discussion about the latest requirements to reveal health status to the railway's Medical Officer. This left several questions regarding the need for the information, the seeming requirement to provide a medical history starting from the day you were born, the confidentiality of the information if it is given etc, most of which were answered to some extent by enquiries made during the day. We finally decided it was time to do some work only to find that our stores had been incorrectly locked by the sharing group. We had to cut a link in the chain to gain access. Martin and Tony proceeded with some electrical work. Peter did odd jobs to help Rick and Ray who continued to change over telephone circuits from the old to the new PA equipment. We now have all the phones tested and working very well. The speech quality from the phones to the PA seems to be excellent. A pleasing result.

26 January : Jean and I went to check the relative volumes of the direct access PA phones and those which access via 595. We found that 595 calls were much louder. I brought the relay set home and made a small modification so that the 595 volume could be adjusted easily.

28 January : Paul, Ian and I went to the Junction to pickup a uniselector mounting. Ian mounted the five uniselectors and two strip connections needed for the exchange at the Junction. He is taking them home to clean up and complete the multiple wiring etc. Paul and I refitted the PA access relay set and tested it. We now have the volumes from all the connected telephones pretty well identical. Paul also checked a CAT5 cable that was giving problems last week. It seems to test OK? I went on to the extra-ordinary general meeting at Whitecroft which agreed the reorganisation of the board and management of the railway. Out of this we will become attached to S and T. Seems sensible.

February 2012

1 February : We started our day with an explanation of the new company's structure using our new blackboard facility. We went a little further and allocated out Officer in Charge duties covering electrical maintenance and our three exchange areas. The idea of preparing proper works files for new work was adopted. Martin and Tony went to the wholesaler's for replacement items and spent the day repairing portable apparatus. Rick and Peter found a corrosion fault in DP3A (where else?). Ray and I changed over the speakers and the fire alarm to the new system. We had a little problem with high frequency feedback on the very short line access phone which we solved by the addition of a little damping to the microphone circuit. We still have the main mics and the music channel to changeover next week. When we left we could listen to Lynne calling Bob to the shop very clearly indeed, in fact we are a bit surprised that the telephones connected to the system work so well. A rather satisfactory day.

The work has been allocated as follows :

John - Telecom Manager (forward planning, works files, records, training, safety procedures, overall responsibility, tea and cakes)
Martin - Officer in charge, electrical maintenance
Rick - Officer in charge, Norchard exchange area
Ray - Officer in charge, Parkend exchange area
Ian and Paul both - Officer in charge, Lydney Junction exchange area
Tony and Peter - General technicians to assist as required.

Officers in charge will generally keep an oversight of their area, ensure that maintenance is completed, have a good knowledge of the equipment and records and that tool kits and maintenance stores are available at their exchanges.

Peter has offered to sort and maintain a selection of customer apparatus(ie telephones and associated items) as the stores backup.

All staff will undertake all duties as and when necessary to get the work done.

4 February : Our office was so cold that the kettle was just a lump of ice. We managed a cuppa eventually. I discussed the new board arrangements with Ian and Paul. Then we went to Parkend to check that the 456 relay set we are to build will actually fit the rack position.. All OK. We gave the equipment a bit of a hammering but all was well except that the contact voltmeter gave us a high volts alarm. We think the cold weather must have reduced the resistance in the circuit to give the high reading. Back at Norchard, Paul got on with giving the Asterisk a speaking clock, now working on 444. Ian and I tried to get the shop microphone working on the new PA. The switching works properly but the circuit has a quite high hum level. We spent some time trying to locate the problem but in the end gave up as the snow had turned the site quite white. Something odd is going on, but then microphone circuits are very sensitive to pick up.

5 February : Jean and I went to see Chris Hall on the Mid Hants Railway. He has given us some valuable stores which will assist mainly in altering Parkend exchange so that it can ultimately have access to the proposed Lydney junction exchange. Thanks Chris. Being brought up on the Southern, I felt I had to picture 31806, Maunsell's U class Mogul, waiting to leave Alresford with its train of Southern green carriages. Lovely.

8 February : Martin and Tony went to the wholesaler's to collect outstanding electrical stores, Tony drilled mounting holes in the cabinets proposed for lineside phones at Upper Forge and Tuft's Bridge. Bob can now get on and paint them. Tony also started to catalogue electrical stores. On the telecom side we decided to adopt plan B as we had little faith that we could solve the hum problem on the microphones today. Rick and Peter recovered the unused PA access phone from the waiting room and got it working in the station master's office. Then they fitted a PA press button in the shop office so that the shop could make announcements via 595. I made a permanent modification on the access relay set to overcome the high frequency feedback on short lines. We also changed over the music channel and got the levels adjusted. The railway can now make satisfactory PA announcements from all previous locations.

11 February : Paul and I got on and recovered the old PA access relay sets and the wiring from them and the cabling from the PA rack to the frame. This leaves the jumpering very much simplified. We recovered the power feeds to the lamps at the microphone positions as the lamps no longer signify whether or not the PA is on. We disconnected all the control wiring to the microphone points and found that the hum disappeared and that the mikes made a good quality connection to the new amplifier. We are now pretty sure that the 24 volt supply must have a high mains ripple on its output. We will find a choke and high value capacitor next week to see if some additional smoothing will help. The old PA rack can now be dismantled and perhaps sold on eBay.

17 February : Martin and I were called in as there was no electricity feed to the sidings area. We were quite unable to find the fault before getting hold of Richard the contract electrician for the site. He told us of the fuse lurking in the corner of the shop store. It was blown and we were not surpised as it was only rated at twenty amps. Naturally we did not have a spare so we went to the wholesaler's in Cinderford for replacements. They had none so it was on to Gloucester where we managed to find the spare. Overall it took two of us, four and a half hours each, to replace a fuse. We need a diagram of what cables feed where at Norchard as this particular fuse was not where one would expect it.

18 February : I was in my own so I just fitted a choke and two large smoothing capacitors to the 24 volt supply for the PA. That seems to have eliminated any mains ripple entirely.

22 February : Rick and Ray went off to Parkend to repair a non ringing telephone, the bell coil was dis. Peter altered our office phone to a wall type and recovered the PA press button facility. Martin looked at the non functioning lights in the ladies and the non working workshop water heater. Both required the contractor's touch and so he was advised of the need for the work. I was harried about the electrical jobs on the go, so rather than resign, I had a go at the mike in the shop. I got it going without any hum leaving just the Station Master's mike to be reconnected next weekend. Not our best day.

Page provided by John Bathgate This page was last updated on 22nd February 2012