Quintinshill accident

To mark the 100th anniversary of one of the worst rail accidents in the UK, the BBC have created a documentary to show what went wrong and tells of the sad death of hundreds of troops who were destined for the fount line in world war 1.

This is the link to the BBC Iplayer where the documentary is available until Sunday, 21st of June

BBC Iplayer link - Romsey signal box is not responsible for the content of the linked website or the videos found there.

Be sure to bring your sun glasses

A quick update on Cowley bridge signal box (our miniature signal box):

The block bells had to be re plated because they had been damaged (yes, even polishing with brasso didn't solve the issue). We have just received word that they have arrived back from the process and look brand new and extremely shiny. So be sure to bring your sun glasses when we re-open!



 

We look forward to welcoming Cowley bridge signal box back to Romsey in the near future.

 

Thank-you Alan Johnston for all the hard work you're doing and for these pictures.

More work

Dick Hewett spent some time over the signal box this week and completed some key tasks.

Firstly the guttering was altered to route all of the rain water to the soak away.

Then the soak away was covered up with soil

Once competed, Dick moved on to cement broken pieces of slab to the base of the new building, this is to stop the more fragile parts of the foundation being washed away and also help protect it, once we level the path to the new building.

MAY WORKING SUNDAY PROGRESS

Sunday the 3rd of May saw several of us at the signal box, despite the unpromising start to the weather.

Soak away filled with rubble

I cracked on with fitting out the Cowley Bridge building (more in a minute).
Ben put some more paint on the level crossing gates.


Colin relaying the slabs

Jamie dug the soak away pit for the new building and collected gravel and rocks etc from around the site. Tom broke up the larger pieces with a sledge hammer (and now has larger muscles!).
Neil did various gardening things and spent time clearing out more rotten wood/rubble from the old crossing gate post holes.
Colin continued his work on replacing the paving slabs to the rear of the box and has now got around the corner.  It's looking good Colin!
Gavin tidied the large shed which is use to store tools and artefacts waiting for restoration. James helped various people throughout the day, including me inside the new building.

During the morning it dried up and the sun appeared, which even made it quite warm.

Tom took advantage of this and cut the grass.

Things are progressing inside the Cowley Bridge building, as you can see by the following photos...

Two of the windows have had "hockey stick" edging fitted around the reveals.  This covers the edges of the ply wood and gives a very neat finish.

Not all the work shown above was carried out today (I'm not that fast!).  To date the two uprights have been installed. These are to create a division between the Southern and GWR parts of the building.  All the dado rail has been fitted.

About 80% of the tongue and groove boarding has been installed, as has about 80% of the skirting boards.  I need to buy a little more T&G boarding to finish off (I never was any good at estimating!).

The next visit should see all the initial fitting out completed.  T&G boarding, window edging, skirting and corner quadrants should all be completed.  This means that the priming of all the wood can be finished.  It's then on with the colours, which will make a big difference.

Dave