Issue 125 Autumn 2005  Project Kharzi

At the start of 2005 the old Strowger telephone exchanges were de-powered, the calls being handled by them was negligible; this had been achieved by reducing the number of circuits between stations to the bare minimum so a user could experience congestion and be forced to use the new system and users actually discovering these new fangled phones gave a superior service. Different variants of Strowger exchanges had been in continuous service on the railway since the 1970s. The building department were approached regarding when they wanted to start work on the new disabled toilet at Ropley; we were given a deadline of having the room empty by Easter.

Let’s get moving

Plans now had to be made to move the Norstar exchange, this was called “Cunning plan A”.
What seemed the most daunting part of the job was diverting all the telephone cables from the old to new exchange. Originally this was going to be done in the external joint box outside the telephone exchange during the winter as it involved moving cables containing signalling circuits; Howard had even volunteered to do the outside work in the cold, stout fellow. On discovering there was to be no closed period this year after Christmas with trains running every weekend through the winter, “Cunning plan B” was implemented, only the cables containing telephone circuits were to be diverted, this could be done internally in the old exchange and followed the well proven method of moving one cable at a time and it would be a lot warmer. A new 100 pair cable had been run between the two exchanges plus a temporary tie cable, all that needed to be done was to take one cable at a time in the old exchange room and connect it to the 100 pair cable, at the other end in the new exchange the individual circuits were then connected back down the temporary cable to its original equipment in the old exchange, simple.
In total a couple of days were spent diverting the cables, this resulted in all the internal and external circuits being terminated in the new exchange and the working equipment in the old one all via lots of temporary flying jumpers. Jumpers - a telephone term for a pair of wires connecting 2 locations at a connection point. On change over day all that was needed was to alter the jumpering, removing the jumper from the temporary tie cable and connecting it to the new exchange equipment.
A new Norstar exchange was programmed ready; all it needed was a date but when? Early in March was a steam gala and later in the month a Thomas event. It was either before March or after that month, February 24th was chosen, a Friday this allowed a couple of days over the weekend to sort things out if it all went wrong. O ye of little faith...

It’s broken.

Prior to change over day an e-mail had been sent to interested parties stating the date concerned and service that might be disrupted for a short period early in the day.
Come the great day and an early start was made, first the external exchange lines were swapped from one exchange to the other, although previously tested if there was a problem with them now the job couldn’t go ahead. Being ok the next step was to move the circuits connecting to the Alresford and Medstead Norstar exchanges; this being successfully done it was time to start moving the extensions. This was when there was an interruption, a phone call on the mobile from a person at Alresford “all the phones are off at Ropley, X has just reported it”, explaining that the exchange was being transferred and X had been informed previously it was decided to go and see X “oh yes, now I remember, you had sent an e-mail”. End of non crisis situation. At that point the exchange lines and links to other stations were working fine on one exchange and all the extensions working fine on the other, they were just not connected to one another at that instance. One by one the extensions were shifted; all phones that one could gain access to were tested. A successful morning’s work. The old Norstar exchange was recovered for further use elsewhere on the railway; this involves another cunning plan.
The old exchange room was devoid of working telephone equipment for the first time in over 25 years. We had completed work within the deadline and if we had had a budget would have been inside that as well.

Out with the old

First to go was the old Strowger equipment at Alresford, a day’s work saw that scrapped. Despite best attempts it has not been possible to eliminate the humble PO 3000 type relay from the railway; various remaining miscellaneous circuits had to be consolidated onto one rack. One such piece of equipment to be moved was the signal post telephones, here the easiest solution to retain service while moving the equipment was to install a temporary system. The Norstar switch recovered from Ropley was used; simple to install and programme it was in use for the 3 weeks it took to install a new rack and move the relay based technology.
Expecting howls of protest about introducing this modern new fangled SPT equipment there were none, or at least I never got to hear of any. Thoughts are now being given on using something similar when the new Alton signalling scheme goes live, as mentioned before it is easy to install, it could be used as a stop gap awaiting a relay installation if one is required and someone found to make it.

By now we have come quite good at scrapping exchanges Ropley took less 4 hours to turn from a working exchange into pile of scrap metal. The picture in the last issue shows the ex BBC ringer rack departing for its new home in darkest Sussex, in the van were the remains of Ropley exchange.
Alton will soon be going to the big telephone exchange in the sky, as the space is not required at present this job is low priority.

On its own

The first busy time for the Norstar exchanges as the sole telephone system was the Easter Thomas event and it preformed well apart from one circuit from Alton giving problems, here we unfortunately have to still use the life expired old cable with the problems that causes.

SPTs

The alterations to the Alresford equipment resulted in a spare electronic ring tone generator, this has been installed at Ropley replacing the cheap and cheerful tone generator (issue 123) so now all 3 installations give the same tones.
The Medstead equipment seems to suffering located in its external cabinet, some thoughts of moving it into the exchange room, maybe.

Swipes

Line for swipes have been popular recently, a request for a second swipe line in the Ropley booking office for the Thomas event created a lot of work, to cut a long story short it involved digging up the car park to install a new cable. This kept Frank Twine and I amused for the best part of a morning but it turned out to be a waste of time as there is no evidence that the second swipe was ever used.
One new swipe line that has been used is the one installed in the buffet, Howard getting the best part of the job, that’s what he was told clambering through the loft was. Our reward being a cup of tea and bacon bun, one each I hasten to add not one between two.
I am reliably informed that it is best to purchase ones tea with a credit card, if one is not entirely satisfied with the product the matter can be then be taken up with the credit card company for a refund, section 75 or something. Complain to the management and all you get is a look that would stun a rhino at 300 yards.

Was it worth it?

Instead of 8 exchanges, 2 per station, one for internal calls the other for external ones we now have 4 exchanges doing everything. I personally think the new arrangements are better and one or two have commented in a similar vane. The old equipment if properly attended to could be labour intensive, few people remain who are trained and have worked on it whereas the Meridian Norstar exchange is a current system. It was the intention at the start of the changes to make myself redundant and this has nearly been achieved, I think a future in catering beckons.

Issue 126 Winter 2005/6 There be Dragons

Occasionally we leave the hallowed shores of Alresford and the excellent company of Mr Twining and Earl Grey heading for more exotic foreign fields. One day we partook of a day’s labour at the small rural backwater of Medstead. The job was to sort out the telephone wiring in the signal box locking room, another one of those jobs that kept being put off and once started one remembered why.
About 10 years ago, when the now redundant Strowger exchange at the station was installed, new cables for the phones were run to the signal box. Instructions were then given not to do anything permanent as the box was going to be rewired shortly; our bits would be in the way and have to be moved. So, the phone distribution connection box was left on top of the power unit, where it remained for a decade until work was started by S and T earlier this year.
The job was made difficult, as existing working equipment and cables were in the way of where the new had to go, and one had to try and keep things working as there was a train service in operation at the time. One cable continually got in the way for the entire job; only at the end of the task was it discovered that, although terminated, it did not have any circuits connected to it and could have been disposed of hours previously. Hopefully, the next visit would have been in another 10 years.
Unfortunately, another visit was needed a couple of months later as a newly installed cable had become faulty or so it was thought. A nasty buzzing on the code phone telephone was traced to one of these new cables and it was duly replaced. The buzzing went, only to return a short while later. Further investigation revealed it was due to the base station of a cordless phone. If the code phone was close, buzzing, move it away, nice and quiet.

Team H visits Alton

We called in the services of Howard and Hall, telephone exchange wreckers to the aristocracy”, to dismantle the old equipment. In their usual efficient way they spent several hours on site; all the cables were removed and the jack-in equipment taken out and placed in a large heap ready for the attentions of the brute force and ignorance team. (Sorry, that last piece was a typing error — I should have put the ever helpful Sunday PWay gang.) My thanks go to, in alphabetical order, (might save any squabbling as to who is first in the list but very doubtful) Brian, Chris, Dave and John for shifting the racks outside ready for removal off site. It never ceases to amaze me the number of times one can con this august body into helping shift very heavy and awkward items. If I were them and I turned up and asked for a hand, “it will only take 10 minutes”, I would make my excuses and rapidly leave. This is the third Strowger exchange this year to be dismantled and they have helped each time. Removal from Alton was by Twine’s Transport Services, a class 33 diesel and Atlas crane, there being no suitable road access at this site.
This particular exchange is going to a new home in the Thames Estuary. “Surely,” you say, “wouldn’t it have been easier and closer to have thrown it into Alton pond if you wanted it to go to a watery grave?” The new home is going to be on Redsand Fort, a WW2 anti-aircraft installation off the Kent coast; see www.project-redsand .com for more details.

IT bits

When we first started putting computer equipment in the exchange room at Airesford it was basically one PC. How things have grown and grown and filled up the then available space. With the old exchange
removed, we suddenly had plenty of space and have now installed a computer cabinet for all these bits. Three of us spent one Saturday moving everything around. A second hand UPS had new batteries fitted and now runs the phone system. The UPS that ran both the phone and computer equipment now only powers the IT items.
An early start was made as it involved shutting down the phone service for a short time while its power supply was moved. The existing UPS then moved into the computer rack along with the IT bits. New cables were installed and, at the end of a long day, all was working again, much to my surprise. We have also installed a workbench and some shelving and some one has run off with all the empty space as the room is somewhat congested again.

SPTs

The alterations to the Alresford equipment resulted in a spare electronic ring tone generator becoming available. This has been installed at Ropley, replacing the cheap and cheerful tone generator (issue 123), so now all three installations give the same tones.
The Medstead equipment seems to suffering, located in its external cabinet. More faulty relay coils have been changed here than at Alresford, which has twice as many circuits. Despite a heater, bits are going rusty. There are some thoughts of moving the equipment into the exchange room; maybe, I am hoping I will grow out of that idea.
It had been planned to replace the remaining old style SPTs with the new type successfully introduced recently. Although it is alleged that money was in the budget for these, it was never forthcoming, so the phones could not be ordered. The job has now been abandoned as a lost cause. In one respect this is unfortunate as the large heap of old phones in various states of disrepair have been disposed of and now we have no spares. Anyway, I hated those phones, vicious brutes, good riddance.

Was it all worth it?

Instead of eight exchanges, two per station, one for internal calls, the other for external ones, we now have four exchanges doing everything. I personally think the new arrangements are better and one or two individuals have even commented in a similar vein — thank you.
The old equipment, if properly attended to, was labour intensive, took up a lot of space with limited facilities, had slow connection times compared with modern systems and the bonus of noisy calls. There are fewer people remaining who are trained and have worked on it, whereas the Meridian Norstar exchange is a current system. When it was installed all those years ago it worked at the same speed as the public network. Since then, things have progressed and, these days, most users, not all, expect ME phones, little post-dialling delay and calls free from noise. Keep step by step selectors near to steam engines and one soon suffers from dirty banks.
It was the intention at the start of these changes to make myself redundant and this has nearly been achieved. I think a future in catering beckons.

Issue 127 Spring 2006 A load of rubbish

A job for those strong in mind is sorting out the stores; I have been dragged struggling and screaming to the task of throwing things away. Last year, Howard got me cornered in one of our stores and said it was now a good time for things to be sorted, stacked and, if necessary, thrown out if not required. “Excellent idea” I said, “let’s get started.” After some token rearrangement of items on my part, with nothing being disposed of, I suggested a cup of tea in the always welcoming, and now even larger West Country Buffet. Having to make a moral decision, tea or stores. H decided on the tea and the grand clear up was promptly abandoned — phew, what a relief! The subject has not been raised since so I hope it has been forgotten.

Several categories had been devised:
1. Items needed for day to day operations and needed to be easily accessible — phones, sockets, cable, screws;
2. Items required to allow us to be self sufficient in the future — relays, power units, anything I can find some excuse, however feeble, to keep;
3. Stuff we didn’t want but might be useful to someone else that we could sell and make some money;
4. Items of no use to man nor beast, junk that could be safely thrown away without the comment “we need XXX, oh yes I remember we threw it away last week”. This would be by far the smallest category, if in fact it existed.

Swipe machines

About four hours before a special event starts there is a cry “the swipe machines are not working”. This event is so predictable. Needless to say, at the August Thomas event, history repeated itself; the swipe machines at Ropley did not work. Granted, it was slightly different this time, as I was told after the event had started that there were problems. Difficulties had been experienced since the introduction of the chip and pin at the Railway. Basically, they may or may not work but there was no logical explanation why or why not. With chip and pin machines connected to identical exchange equipment at Alresford, it was found some would work with no trouble and the others would not work at all.
It was found by trial and error that, by connecting a swipe machine to a different older type of exchange equipment, it appeared to solve the problem. A swipe machine that would not work in the marquee at Ropley was connected via the older equipment for the duration of the Thomas event and gave no further problems. I have been informed the transactions are quicker, which has the advantage the Railway gets the money in faster.
There were then considerable efforts in getting enough of the alternative equipment to alter all the lines swipe machines were connected to. For reasons uncertain, there are eight locations where swipe machines can be used on the Railway, not at the same time I hasten to add. One disadvantage is that this type of equipment needs its own 240 volt supply and, usually where located, there are not sufficient mains sockets. With the other, newer equipment, the exchange powers the unit. Still none the wiser as to the reason why it now works, but the main thing is that it works.

Don’t touch what you don’t understand

A number of years ago we acquired several modern power units complete with batteries. At three sites we had no problem installing them in the telephone exchanges but at Ropley there was no space. There was physically no way it would go into the exchange room. Not wanting to miss the opportunity of this equipment, it was installed in the small booking office; no one was consulted on this, it was just done. If we went down the formal path of consulting we would no doubt still be discussing it today and nothing would have been done. The booking office was hardly used and, if it was used for a special event, there was still room for the clerks, assuming they were slim. As the air vents are on top of the unit, a note was affixed stating nothing was to be stood on top of the unit. Items were later found on the top, the sign being ignored. This was a portent of things to come.
The unit sat happily in its little cubby hole until the house alterations took place and the booking office was dismantled from around it. The unit now sat in full public gaze and potential fiddling. After about nine months with no problems I decided I had better put a note on the 13 amp plug “Do not switch off or unplug”. Only a week later, while at Medstead, I noticed that all did not appear well with the telephone circuits to Ropley. To cut a long story short, a site visit was made to discover some clown had switched the power unit off. After running on batteries for some time, everything then tends to fail. An additional audible mains fail alarm has now been fitted on top of the unit but, knowing our luck, it will be an audibly challenged person next time who switches it off.

The price is right

In line with the current trend of charging people for using something that has been previously free, we are proposing our own telephone charges. We can now easily identify extensions making calls and when, so we propose to charge them for using the system at busy times of the day. Also, anyone not using their phone will be charged as they have valuable equipment at their disposal that is not being put to good use. I think this scheme will prove to be very popular.

Coming soon

After reading some articles in a recent Mid-Hants News, I thought I would combine ideas from several of these and write in the next issue on something useful to make at home during those dark winter evenings. First thoughts were how to make an authentic model of Bodmin using a plastic washing up bottle and some sticky backed plastic but thought that sounded like something out of Blue Peter, so have decided on rot proof garden trellis constructed from old telephone exchange metal work. A must see project.


Issue 128 Summer 2006 You will be hearing from my solicitors

By the time this is read I could be serving time at in Her Majesty’s pleasure. It seems that H, or Howard for short, has taken offence at a piece written in a previous article when I implied that he liked to spend a lot of time drinking tea. He intends to take me to the highest courts in the land for besmirching his good name. I don’t want to prejudice the case, but we are talking of someone who was a competitor in the 1937 world tea drinking championship and won medals.

A close-run thing

The new cable between Alton and Medstead was installed during November and December last year by members of both PWay gangs and the S & T department.
We had the easier but at times rather chilly job of jointing and testing it. For those up to date, here are a couple of links, www.watercressline.co.uk/sig-tel.htm and www.watercressline.co.uk/telecom.htm
A bit like the Battle of Waterloo, it was a close run thing as far as the cable ducting was concerned, It appears that individuals had been removing the duct from the stockpile reserved for the Alton job and using it for non-telecom work all over the Railway. No one bothered to ask if there was any surplus duct, they just took it. When it came to completing the Alton section, it was by means of searching around, using any odd pieces that came to hand — and some pieces were very odd. Two other jobs that needed duct have had to be abandoned as there is none remaining.
The new cable was put into service on December 28th, for telephone traffic. I understand the token machines have now been connected for testing purposes.

Another disaster

One Wednesday in January I got a message from Phil Mousley saying he couldn’t access the call logger at Alton from home and it looked like the link had failed the previous day. I called the main station number and, instead of the Norstar exchange answering as expected, the line continued to ring. I had been notified several days before that some electrical work had taken place the previous Sunday but, as no problems had been reported, had assumed all was OK. However, it now seemed that all was not OK.
The first opportunity to visit the site was the following Saturday; first, a visit was made via Alresford out of curiosity’s sake to see if an alarm for Alton was present there, there was.
On arrival at Alton, batteries were down to about five volts, normally 52 volts. The main electrical trip was reset and service restored in a few minutes. However, due to their depleted level, a low volt alarm remained while recharging took place. This unfortunately masked a second fault later in the day, totally unrelated to the first, when a defective switch disconnected the supply to the power unit. Later I was informed that the
station knew there was an alarm on the Sunday but chose to ignore it. Such is life.

All gone

Last December saw the recovery of our fourth and last Strowger exchange for its trip to the big telephone exchange in the sky. Originally, the idea was to keep this exchange as an exhibit to show how exchanges used to be in days gone by and display it to the public. The only problem was that when open it would need someone to be there. After some thought, Muggins decided that it was not such a good idea after all, as he would be the one ending up doing it, which he didn’t want to do. So, the exchange was quickly recovered and sent on its way. Again, the Sunday PWay gang did all the hard work; they have helped every time we have junked an exchange. I am afraid their services are no longer required. I like to think they enjoyed struggling with large heavy awkward items over the years. I ought to make clear I refer to exchange racks not a member of their team.
The equipment has been put into storage, as someone had the thought of putting it somewhere at Ropley and displaying it for educational purposes. I think the likelihood of this happening is very remote as it involves someone connecting it back together again. Gone are the days of a room full of large electromechanical equipment on the railway. Strowger equipment certainly had a longer lifespan than its successors; electronic exchanges lasted around 20 years. The digital ones introduced in the 1980s have their replacements starting to be installed this year.

Loggers

A worthwhile thing to do when at the Railway is to look at the call logger output to see if all seems OK. However, the next bit is pretty sad so I will not mention a nameless person who, with the wonders of modern technology, a static IP address (whatever that is) and CessNet, watches them from home. I know some nights the TV output is dire, but as bad as seeing the time the train goes over Butts treadle or watching what someone dials from the Medstead mess room?
We now have some proper software installed and all sorts of useful and less worthy information can be produced. It is possible to see how much traffic (calls) is going in and out. Instead of saying, oh, that looks busy”, one can now tell how busy or not as the case may be and believe me it can be very busy.

Oh, how we laughed

Great amusement was generated by a bit in the last issue’s crane section about how a mild zephyr had blown down an overhead cable at Ropley. When we put up overhead wires they are not blown down by any old passing breeze. As someone once said, “publish and be dammed”, all will now be revealed and the guilty shamed — the wire was knocked down by the author of the aforesaid mentioned article and his steam crane — he told me himself.
The wire concerned was the phone line to the boiler workshop. Being only telephone stuff there was absolutely no interest about how service was going to be supplied to this isolated site. In the real world a trench would have been dug and an underground service provided, but this is the Mid-Hants. The next idea was to run the cable in duct on the surface but, as mentioned earlier, someone had nicked it, so the wire went overhead before its early sad demise. It now runs on the surface unprotected and we all know how long that is likely to last.

Issue 129 Autumn 2006 Lemon? Sad? Alarming!

Things can go wrong as we have found out the hard way over the years; our thoughts have been why have your own personal disaster when you can share it with all and sundry.
Hence the attempts to get equipment alarms to a wide an audience as possible on the remote chance someone might act on it.

In the era PN, pre Norstar, an alarm system was built out of electro-mechanical bits that dialled numbers to distant stations when there was a fault and caused an alarm meaning something was not quite right.
Once the Norstar was in service and the Strowger exchanges departed for pastures new there were no longer racks for cans of relays so something new was needed and a system was designed that used CessNet, the inter station computer links.
This was a wonderful system, alarms would be sent back to Alresford from the other 3 sites, it didn’t need any new links between stations just an interface between the local computer and the exchange alarms. It could even send a text message when something went wrong, if someone up the line stole the cable it could even cope with that.
For some strange reason, nothing to do with me I hasten to add, the system was called Lemon, the reason why escapes me. This day most thing have to have an “e” prefix so for marketing purposes it was known as eAlarm, ( ever so good alarm?) as there were thoughts at the time of interesting the S and T department in its services. The only problem was it needed some software written and other technical bits made and so far it hasn’t happened.
The new exchange alarms have been built with an interface for the eAlarm ready; a alarm is also given at several locations at the local station, this bit works as in the recent case at Alton “Oh we knew there was an alarm but ignored it” 3 days later all the phones failed. Hopefully with time the message will get through – telephone system alarm, phones could have stopped working or may shortly, hope springs eternal.
An alarm system was still needed and so bAlarm; this continued the name theme and meant basic alarm despite what anyone may think. This was very simple and used a few relays; yes back to them again, if there was a fault the Norstar could dial a pre-programmed number and use the existing phone circuits to raise an alarm, no additional circuits between stations were needed.
Someone may have spotted the fundamental flaw with this method, if the exchange packs up how is it going to report itself as faulty or if the cable is cut, it was better than nothing but was only used at 2 stations before it was replaced by iAlarm, intermediate alarm. This had the disadvantage the other 2 systems overcame; it needed a pair of wires from each station back to Alresford, other changes taking place would allow for the pairs needed to make this possible, it could also detect if the line was disconnected.
This could be called SAD, (simple alarm device) a bit like this article. Maybe one day Lemon will replace Sad and all will be Happy, no idea what that is the acronym for.

The problem with the alarms is that something can totally fail and you get no indication apart from loss of service or something trivial will give an alarm that does not need urgent attention, a fine line needs to be drawn otherwise you end up with an alarm system being monitored by another alarm system, ad infinitum.

My kind of book

I recently looked at the new book “Over the Alps”, lots of interesting pictures, I even thought of buying a copy but after laying down in a darken room for a while overcame the urge.
What I found of particular interest is that in a couple of photos taken in 1977 between Alresford and Ropley some of our original overhead wiring can be viewed, shame a steam loco in the picture prevents more of it being seen, move on the mid 1980’s pictures of the same area it is noticeable all the telephone poles have gone due to the installation of underground cables.
Part of the original overhead route still exists, unused 30 years on, obviously a steam crane has not passed by otherwise it would have long since been knocked down.

On the subject of poles seeing the square telephone pole in the last issue reminded me that in the days before the track was lifted west of Alresford we took a trolley towards Itchen Abbas and recovered one of these poles, it was used for a limit of shunt sign at Ropley but has long since gone. Happy days.

Consign Strowger to the skip

One interesting ongoing job at present is the “Consign Strowger to the skip” campaign, this entails getting Strowger bits and throwing them in the skip, thought it best to explain what was involved.
We have managed to offload some items for re-use elsewhere but cometh the day cometh a huge pile being dumped, no point in getting sentimental and keeping it for the sake of it..

Other fun activities

Not a great deal else has taken place, the Norstar exchange at Alton has been replaced by a newer version; this has the advantage in reducing the number of items needing mains power units. If a location didn’t have a Norstar digital phone and just used an ordinary analogue phone, for example a platform phone, it needed an adaptor which was mains powered. Now one unit in the exchange can do the job of 8 of the adaptors.
The exchange at Medstead also has a later model Norstar switch installed, hopefully it should be in service by the time this is read. This means all 4 exchanges on the railway will be of the same type.
At the time of writing major changes are planned for the inter station telephone links which should be implemented during the summer, this will either be a huge success and mentioned in the next issue in great detail or if the article comprises mostly of H and his tea drinking activities you can draw your own conclusions.
At the end of last year it was decided the Medstead SPT equipment wouldn’t last another winter in its external cabinet, after giving serious thought it was found the only suitable location the equipment could be moved to was under the desk in the signal box, a similar arrangement as exists at Ropley.
Work started with the plan for the job to be completed in time for the Santa trains.
Soon from an informed source I heard a whispering campaign had started about the location chosen, the railway excel in these, e-mails fly back and forth but the person who is the subject is never informed so it is not possible to explain why the decision was taken, deciding I couldn’t be bothered with these antics the work was abandoned.

A request answered

Following a request in the last issue this article has been written completely in Imperial measurements also no animals were hurt during its creation.

Imitation – the sincerest form of flattery.

Iain’s PW article usually finishes with a quiz so what’s good for them.

Assume we have to transport the PLC and MHRPS board members who have shown an interest in the telecoms department work on the railway what capacity vehicle would we need?

This is a multi choice question.

A – Bulgy the bus, capable of holding over twenty persons.

B – a sedan chair, capable of holding one person.

C - none of the above, as no interest has been shown.

Issue 130 Winter/Spring 2006/7

Although an article was submitted the editors forgot to include it, it appeared in issue 131

Issue 131 Spring 2007 A big disappointment

Those looking forward to the article on H’s tea drinking activities, promised in
the issue No.129 should the new circuit plan fail, are in for a disappointment. The digital trunk network was put into regular service at the beginning of July and worked! This is just as well as there are no tea stories: H has gone decidedly continental and started drinking coffee.

Right place at the right time

It was one of those chance offers of “did we want some items that were being thrown out?” Having, at the time, a vague idea of what they did, no idea what use they could be put to and unable to think of any possible use at the time, a difficult decision. After about three seconds thought the answer was “Yes please”. Basically, they convert an analogue signal into a digital one. In the highest traditions of acquired items, we had no documentation, so a couple were taken away connected together to see what could be done. There were vague thoughts of using them for the alarm system but there were few advantages so interest waned. One thing this unit could do was convert a 4-wire circuit at the local end into a 2-wire circuit to the distant unit, which would then convert it back to 4-wire circuit.
One disadvantage of the Norstar system is that each circuit connecting to a second Norstar at another station needs two pairs of wires. The speech from station A to station B goes up one pair and the speech from station B to station A comes down the other, transmit and receive. This allows you to have amplifiers in the circuit, not that we have any. One disadvantage is one pair of wires going faulty stops the circuit working. However, only one exchange knows this and the other will still try and connect calls which fail; plus, a circuit needs twice the number of pairs compared with the old Strowger network.
If you have lots of cable pairs there is nothing wrong with having 4-wire circuits. Unfortunately, we have a bottleneck between Ropley and Medstead due to the limited number of pairs between these two stations. This prevented us directly connecting one exchange to the other three, the ideal situation; some calls had to go via a second exchange, tandem working.

A Eureka moment

It was one of those flashes of inspiration, the sudden thought “why not connect our trunk circuits via these units?” It would halve the number of cable pairs needed; also, if the pair went faulty, both ends of the circuit would be taken out of service.
We set up a trial circuit between Alton and Medstead and were impressed with the quality of transmission; speech, in simple terms, was louder than the existing circuits. Without mentioning our, possibly biased, opinions we asked staff at the two stations to try the new circuit and let us know if they thought it better, no different or worse. We left the circuit in service for over a month but only one person bothered to give any feed back, who thought it was better, the answer we were looking for. Thank you David.

Yet another cunning plan

The plan was to provide a complete new digital trunk network, DTN, connecting the four stations using the new equipment. It was also necessary to keep the existing analogue system in service while this work took place.
Now that only one pair of wires per circuit is required it is possible to have more direct circuits between exchanges. With the new scheme, Ropley and Medstead exchanges are each directly connected to the other three exchanges while Alresford and Alton are each connected to two other exchanges. Unfortunately, the distance does not allow direct circuits between these two stations. Calls originating at Alresford to Alton go via the Ropley switch while Alton to Airesford calls go via Medstead; this is to stop total loss of service should one intermediate exchange fail. Although it was possible to make test calls, actual service conditions were required and some of the new circuits were put into service for a few hours on the route between Medstead and Ropley.
The first live call was made on 29th May from Medstead signal box to Ropley box at 11:10am. After several hours of use, the circuits were then taken out of service while the remaining circuits were installed. At the beginning of July all intra-railway calls, with the exception of those originating or terminating at Medstead, were connected via the DTN. At the time, although the new Medstead exchange didn’t have any working extensions, it was being used as a tandem exchange switching calls between Alresford and Alton using the digital trunk circuits. At
the end of July the new exchange at Medstead was placed in service. All inter- station calls were then routed via the DTN and the analogue circuits recovered, freeing equipment and cable pairs.

A not very technical bit

Keeping it simple, if you double the length of an analogue circuit you halve the level of speech. With a digital circuit it either works or it doesn’t. This means our 6-mile circuits have speech levels as good as the 3-mile ones. Try for 10 miles and the digital units will not work, full stop.

Wot’s up

Mention was made some time ago about Acme Publications forthcoming book “Loft spaces of the Mid-Hants Railway, a pictorial guide” and several times recently the question has been asked when this much sought after book was due. One thing about the Acme group of companies is they come cheap, very cheap, and is the reason we use them. No doubt, for a bigger financial outlay on our part they could have employed a competent photographer who remembered to take the lens cap off. Being given a preview of the draft copy of this weighty tome it was noticeable that picture 1 —Alresford loft, above accounts office looking east, was very similar to picture 2 — Ropley loft, above shop looking south west if not identical and so it went on for all 108 pictures. This project is on hold at the moment.

Moving time

Part of putting the new Medstead exchange into service involved moving the new switch into the position where the old one was, while keeping everything in service. This solo effort took 10 minutes including a stop for a cup of tea mid job. I think back to the old days when it would have taken far longer trying to convince the Sunday PWay gang to even think about considering helping.

Issue 132 Summer 2007 The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

We start with a quote from Mark Twain, with the literary section over and done with the rest of the article will sink to its usual depths.
One apparent bonus of the Norstar telephone system, to me at least, is its reliability, well almost but more on this later, accordingly the system can be left for weeks even months with no attention.
Having some spare time and finding a bit of enthusiasm resulted in work starting again on some signal post telephone jobs so this meant making visits to the railway when the trains were running, various remarks were made “thought you had been abducted by aliens”, “so you haven’t emigrated”. No, just keeping out of the way, things work better with that approach.

WPF

For those in the trade this means “working party fault”, in simple terms “an own goal”, by working on some equipment you inadvertently cause a fault or problem that didn’t exist before, unfortunately there were several of these during the installation of the Norstar system, one disadvantage of making alterations or changes on a live system. Experience has shown that the railway phone system works best if those responsible for its upkeep are at least 15 miles away from the equipment and remain there.

Enter stage left

Now is a good time to mention our secret weapon, one problem with a railway that is busy using the phones seven days a week and the department maintaining it is run by volunteers who have to do boring things like go to work is if something goes wrong, I have received the 08:30 Monday morning phone call at work to be informed some fairly important telephone item has decided to misbehave. You cannot expect people to suffer until the weekend so the railway now has the services of Bernie Salter, a semi gentleman of leisure who can attend at short notice the deal with the weekday disasters.
Bernie’s connections go back to the very early days of the railway and he gave considerable assistance with the original overhead wires between Alresford and Ropley. When approached to see if he was interested in the day to day trouble shooting role he was assured that not much went wrong, which at the time was true and he believed it. Unfortunately there have been problems of late; his baptism of fire was no service at Ropley.

Major problems

As mentioned earlier the Norstar system has proved very reliable, electrical items need a supply of electricity to function correctly or even at all and the railways Norstar exchanges are no exception, if the mains goes off things will stop working and an alarm given, however we can extend the period it continues running by using standby batteries, when these fail that’s it.
In a period of 3 months the power failed three times at Ropley and twice at Alton, on all occasions an alarm was raised and instead of a simple check or attempt locally to restore the power nothing was done allowing the batteries to fail and service to be lost. In the past if there was a mains failure I used to attend the site after work but now feel if no one else is interested why should I bother and so now look at it when convenient to me even if that is days later.
Normally the memory on a Norstar is retained by a small battery in the unit so when the power is restored all is back to normal which happened at Alton, at Ropley this battery failed so when the mains came back on the exchange didn’t know it was a telephone exchange so sat there and did nothing. All information needs to be input into the exchange which takes hours; a replacement exchange was tested and found to hold its memory for over a week with no power until it was placed in service at Ropley when it too decided to have amnesia when the power went off. New batteries are being fitted but this means the exchange needs all its data put in yet again, oh joy!

A lesser problem

One interesting report was that South West Trains had trouble calling platform 3 from their office at Alton, a Mid Hants phone was installed for their benefit some time ago and this what was reported as giving the problems. A visit was made and the conversation was begun with “I understand you are having problems with your Mid Hants phone” to which came the reply “what phone, there isn’t a phone. There jolly well used to used to be as I remember putting it in, if this is the way they treat £40 phones I don’t feel inclined to provide another and they can go without, if they need to contact platform 3 there is a perfectly adequate footbridge that can be used.

New technology

We have recently been asked to field test a new developmental telephone system being developed by Frodsham Fones. I have included a photo which I am sure will allow the reader to see the classic simple design concept of this revolutionary concept.

Several things will become instantly apparent, (assuming the picture is published) the mono mode method of linking the 2 devices, this uses common channel signalling and STRING technology, Single mode TRansmission InterfaciNG, the terminal devise known as a CUP (customer utility processor), no need for two conductors here and noticeable is the total lack of power required, ideal in this age of global warming and increasing energy costs. No worry about the mains going off with this system and its carbon footprint is minimal, food miles – it laughs at them.

We have not been able to test the system yet as it is supplied in kit form and unfortunately, according to section 5 of the operations manual, it needs an appropriate adult to make a small hole with a sharp pointy object in each of the CUPs and so far we have not found anyone suitable.
One thing we did try to discover was how indestructible the CUPs were, would it stand being thrown across an office or being sat on, so we filled one with buffet tea and it survived that for 5 minutes so we decided it would survive anything, possibly excepting nuclear holocaust, not considered likely even in Alresford.
An interesting point is raised in the section on “Telephone etiquette”, it suggests both users try and not to speak at the same time otherwise the complex speech handling algorithms cannot function correctly and it corrupts the conversation.
We have the Gold Star but it appears a white model is shortly to be made available,
Shown is the basic point to point version. A further development planned is a point to multi-point which allows switching of calls between more than 2 terminals, we have been only given very vague details of this by the developer but to keep in line with its eco-friendly operation it will work on hot air generated by the CUP, we feel this should work very well in the Alresford offices.

Poles

Not the Polish plumber variety but the telephone type, or as every time any wooden post with wires connect is mentioned by the press it is always a telegraph pole.
Just digressing when and why did a railway station become a train station as it is now referred to by the media these days. Getting back to poles, while at work one day I was in conversation with someone who said he was driving along the A31 and thought what was lacking on the railway was a line of telephone poles and that he proposed to do something about it. Because he suspects his plan will generate a huge amount of interest wants at the moment to remain anonymous until details are finalised so I will respect his wishes. Without revealing too much detail, what Robin plans to do is the installation of the definitive telephone pole route, not going out and getting any old second hand poles but using carefully selected home grown trees hand crafted into telephone poles. Latest information is that Robin has gone out to the woods to find some fir cones to grow the trees and with an estimated 200 poles required he should be busy for a while.

The two Chris’s
A little known fact is that most of the drivel written in past articles had been inspired by two people of this name no longer able to give the spark of creative genius. Chris Bitton now sadly departed to the great marshalling yard in the sky, no matter what derogatory remarks I wrote about the Sunday PW gang whenever I next asked for a hand to remove or shift something heavy and possibly dangerous assistance was always forthcoming, after the obligatory moaning of course. The other is Christine Mousley, no longer running the Alresford outstation of Porton Down; she is now directing her talents into the nationwide expansion of the Mr.T Burger Van chain.
Where is ones journalistic inspiration to come from now? It is almost enough to make one hang up ones quill.