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LTM.
Jun 16, 2015 23:27:54 GMT
Post by railtechnician on Jun 16, 2015 23:27:54 GMT
That looks great, I haven't seen one of those working since we took out Wood Green signal cabin in 1979. One vital piece of the RSTD seems to be missing, obviously not vital to your demo or to the operation of the equipment but somewhat vital for a lineman who needed to work on one in the confines ofa cramped TD room!
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LTM.
Jun 17, 2015 17:54:57 GMT
Post by Vernon on Jun 17, 2015 17:54:57 GMT
That looks great, I haven't seen one of those working since we took out Wood Green signal cabin in 1979. One vital piece of the RSTD seems to be missing, obviously not vital to your demo or to the operation of the equipment but somewhat vital for a lineman who needed to work on one in the confines ofa cramped TD room! We have a lineman in the team who has worked on these. Have you any drawings or pictures of one in service that you can post on here to use with our display? Thanks. Would the missing piece be a device to enable it to be moved?
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LTM.
Jun 18, 2015 8:05:43 GMT
Post by railtechnician on Jun 18, 2015 8:05:43 GMT
That looks great, I haven't seen one of those working since we took out Wood Green signal cabin in 1979. One vital piece of the RSTD seems to be missing, obviously not vital to your demo or to the operation of the equipment but somewhat vital for a lineman who needed to work on one in the confines ofa cramped TD room! We have a lineman in the team who has worked on these. Have you any drawings or pictures of one in service that you can post on here to use with our display? Thanks. Would the missing piece be a device to enable it to be moved?
Unfortunately I have no drawings or pictures of RSTD equipment although I might've expected to find some online, that said the most likely source would be the LTM photo archive. However, having had a quick look I find it unbelievable that searching for ribbon storage or RSTD produces no results, searching for train describer only gives images of platform equipment and search for relay room produces just seven images while a search for relay produces nothing at all. I cannot believe that amongst the thousands of images in the LTM archive there are none of RSTD equipment or images of TD rooms, signal cabin relay rooms etc. Indeed I know that I have come across images of some of these items by chance while searching for other images in the archive in the past. The problem is I suspect lack of detailed classification of the images most likely due to those who titled the images not having any form of detailed engineering knowledge. Perhaps LTM should be looking again at its collection from an engineering standpoint! My recollection of RSTD units in service was that they sat on a single tubular leg in the very cramped end of platform TD rooms on the east end of the Picc tube sites. I cannot recall if this allowed them some horizontal movement but it was my impression that it did. The missing equipment that I was referring to was the ceiling mounted pulley, cord and counterbalance weight which was attached to the cover handle and allowed it to be lifted easily and remain above the RTSD unit while it was being worked upon. It is now 11 years since I was last in one of those Picc TD rooms, however, at least one of them still had the cord, pulley and counterweight in situ, probably long forgotten and possibly a source of mystery and wonderment for the present day linemen who wouldn't have a clue what it was for, if indeed any remains in situ. As for moving RSTD equipment I have no personal experience of that but I will say that in my earliest years with LT everything was done manually, there was nothing that could not be carried by hand as long as there were enough hands. I have no doubt that many engineering staff these days would be absolutely gobsmacked at the amount of graft involved in the same and similar tasks years ago in which H&S standards of today were not entertained at all!
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Post by hellocontrol on Jun 20, 2015 6:26:22 GMT
There are thousands and thousands of drawings at Acton the only trouble they need to be sorted but most of the volunteers would rather wash a bus.
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LTM.
Jun 20, 2015 10:47:54 GMT
Post by railtechnician on Jun 20, 2015 10:47:54 GMT
There are thousands and thousands of drawings at Acton the only trouble they need to be sorted but most of the volunteers would rather wash a bus. I'm sure there are hundreds that aren't there! Back in the early 1980s the Comms DO at Telstar House transferred most current drawings to microfiche and binned hundreds of obsolete paper drawings.
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LTM.
Jun 20, 2015 12:53:36 GMT
Post by hellocontrol on Jun 20, 2015 12:53:36 GMT
There are thousands and thousands of drawings at Acton the only trouble they need to be sorted but most of the volunteers would rather wash a bus. I'm sure there are hundreds that aren't there! Back in the early 1980s the Comms DO at Telstar House transferred most current drawings to microfiche and binned hundreds of obsolete paper drawings. RT, believe me there are a hell of a lot, I'm not saying they have everything. They have a microfiche viewer as well.
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LTM.
Jun 20, 2015 16:41:45 GMT
Post by railtechnician on Jun 20, 2015 16:41:45 GMT
I'm sure there are hundreds that aren't there! Back in the early 1980s the Comms DO at Telstar House transferred most current drawings to microfiche and binned hundreds of obsolete paper drawings. RT, believe me there are a hell of a lot, I'm not saying they have everything. They have a microfiche viewer as well. I'm sure they do have a hell of a lot, my point was that it became custom and practice in the 1980s to make room in the design office print cabinets by transferring drawings to microfiche and destroying the paper copies. I suspect the master tracings for most things survived but I am also in no doubt that some original drawings were simply binned because they were obsolete. To reinforce the suggestion that many old drawings presumed obsolete were lost forever I can only say that I undertook many large survey projects in the later years of my time in the comms department and required drawings for all sorts of assets, some long thought to have been superseded by new equipment but still in services and drawings for such were pure unobtainium. That said I would be more than happy to learn that nothing was binned and all that was outed actually ended up with LTM. As for microfiche for anything preserved using that system the original draughsmen's tracings probably were destroyed so although the history may be preserved the originlal artifacts no longer exist. Some food for thought. In time to save museum space one might envisage some of the larger exhibits such as rolling stock and vehicles being saved as holograms so that the rusting aged hulks can be recycled into new products, thereby preserving the history in detail without preserving the artifacts themselves. Sacrilege I hear you cry and I would agree but I expect that as the collection of preserved items continues to grow, decisions will be made about the methods of preserving the past set against the costs of doing so in ways which hitherto have not been considered. Just imagine the saving to be made if only one train space was required to display all the rolling stock in the collection by simply selecting a different set of holograms at the flick of a switch. It would be an easier task with buses which require much less space and of course at a pinch I expect the technology exists to project not only full size images but also half full size or indeed any required fractional size to fit an available display space! Returning to drawings you could waste the lot by turning them into pdf files and I expect that something similar will occur to allow whole objects to be saved as a multiple hologram file that any standard computer can display. Just imagine having 'access' to every single part of a 'preserved' whole train in full detail on your PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
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