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The WSR Signal Engineer Kevin Weston explains...

On 7-8 June, the S&T Department were able to carry the first phase of a renewals programme on the point rodding at Blue Anchor. This is a two part programme to re-align the rodding and replace worn and damaged equipment. Our work for the first phase involved replacing all the old nuts and bolts on the point and facing point lock rodding. It is believed that some of the bolts may not have been moved since the crossing loop was lengthened in the 1930's by the GWR. There is certainly no record that any work was carried out on the point rodding at the same time as the level crossing gates were renewed in 1955.

On Saturday the points and protecting signals were disconnected, all trains from Minehead had to be handsignalled as the points were clipped. The S&T staff slowly worked along the rodding removing all the old bolts and fitting new ones and during this process, any hollow rodding was replaced with solid rodding. To help with removing the nuts, they had been soaked in diesel each week for the last three weeks. Even with this, some still refused to move and it was necessary to use a nut splitter and cold chisels. At the end of the day, the rodding was re-connected tested and handed back to the operating department to allow the evening trains to be signalled normally.

On Sunday we again disconnected the points and protecting signals. This time, we were to replace all the broken roller blocks and "stools". The roller blocks are the castings with wheels that support the rodding. The "stools" are the concrete blocks that normally are buried in the ground to which the blocks are mounted. Most of the "stools" at Blue Anchor have not be "dug in" due to the nature of the ground. In total we replaced 6 sets of blocks, each one taking up an hour depending on the size and how much of the rodding we had to dismantle.

A further four day exercise is planned to re-align the rodding into a straight line and to replace worn out cranks and other components.

This work could not have been carried out without the help of the signalmen who volunteered to be the handsignalmen. While they had the pleasure of the sun on Saturday, they also got wet on Sunday.

Kevin Weston also took the pictures...

Click on the thumbnail below for a bigger picture.