July

Since changes to the railway web site there is no longer any mention of telecom activities there or even a link to this site.

Work still continues, the latest activity being a damaged cable.

The picture above shows the remains of a 30 pair joint on the cable between Alresford to Ropley, a passing loco set fire to the grass. All that remained of the casing of the joint were the metal bolts.  The post was used as a connection for a plug in phone point, now no longer used. 

After repairs had been made. The troughing protects two new joints as the damaged cable was not long enough to rejoin directly.

Nigel loads the Wickham trolley for a trip to Alresford for some testing and a cup of tea.

Sunday saw the Building Department fixing the new Alresford platform bell, an old back board was removed showing the old wall fixings, the hand gives an indication of size.

Another job being to install older style platform bells at Alton and Alresford.

Bell for Alresford above and Alton below.

June

The Aton train arriving indication has been well received, I only know this from third hand information, not been told officially.

It seems the circuit provided for the WoTL event was not used. While there isn't a great deal of work that needs doing at present I have better things to do with my time than waste it providing a circuit that was not required. A pity someone didn't have the courtesy to say so before the job was started.

A new circuit has been provided at Alton to indicate the arrival of an up train, this replaces the old Butts Junction indicator. 

Known as "The noise", when the signalling is in the automatic mode a train approaching Butts operating the treadle to instigate the signalling also causes buzzers to sound in the station shop and the office.  

A down train has no effect.

As part of the War On The Line event a circuit was requested between two points on the railway for the purposes of aircraft tracking.

Reporting restrictions prevent disclosure of these two locations but suffice to say they are somewhere in Southern England.

May

When The Alton colour light signalling was place in service 2 ground frames and an external phone were recovered.

A new home has been found for the phone and associated box in the yard at Medstead.

This is for use of the Wagon Group, there is also an extension from this line into their workshop located in the green wagon.

While providing this line a general tidying up of the external cabling was undertaken, existing joints were replaced by a modern version and all cable from the distribution point near the S and T building to the Up Home signal is now of the armoured type. 

Recent work has seen the upgrade of CressNet between stations and the provision of internet access to the new boiler workshop at Ropley.

Between stations we are using HDSL units, 3 units located at Alton are shown below. The unit on the right is the link to Medstead, the other 2 units now form a link from the telephone exchange to the station. The distance is too far for a cat5 LAN connection.

Although early days the Alresford to Ropley link is running 12 times faster than the existing circuit.

To connect the boiler and carriage workshops at Ropley to CressNet VDSL technology is used.

Shown below is the remote equipment located in the shed, on the left is a Netgear FS105 5 port switch and a SMC VDSL remote unit on the right.

Installed in the box shown below.

The comment below about the ceasing of the Butts Junction treadle circuit and no complaints, a little premature maybe. Early May and there are mutterings of some form of replacement circuit wanted by the Alton Station staff. The subject was raised several times during a visit to install the station HDSL link. It wasn't me who wanted it to be taken out in the first place.

Developments are afoot, watch this space. 

April

Something to do as a fault was reported, the phone in the Station Inspectors office at Alresford had a sticking memory key, the phone was swapped and the faulty one taken to the workshop at Medstead for repair. The rubber membrane behind the keys was sticky so was cleaned in soapy water, a fairly common problem with Norstar phones.

Last month saw the introduction of the Alton colour light signalling installation.

Withdrawn from service was the Butts Junction treadle circuit to Medstead, surprisingly the expected complaints about loss of this service didn't happen.

March

A picture of a locomotive for a change, Tornado at Alton 5th March.

Work has been completed in the carriage and boiler works except for the IT part. The original plan for providing service was changed when we were offered more modern equipment, this has not yet arrived on site.

February

The current job is to provide a cable at Ropley from the new carriage and boiler workshops back to the telephone exchange, a distance of around 250 metres. This cable is for telephone and IT services.

Unfortunately on the day the cable ran out about 60 metres short, more has since been ordered, this left time to run the internal cables through the building, another 80 metres.

Thanks go to the Sunday PW gang and a couple from the Building Group for their very welcome assistance, no one stopped working even when it snowed heavily.

Five years ago this month the Norstar exchange at Ropley was moved to its current home in the station building, how time flies.

Recent activities have been to sort out some cable problems for the S and T to enable testing of the Alton to Medstead token machines and checking the new SPTs at Alton.

January 2010

It has not been possible to visit the railway due to the adverse weather so here is a nice picture of global warming.

Recently discovered picture of mole ploughing two 10 pair cables between Alton and Medstead using the 08 shunter - dated 21st April 1985.

Top management visit Medstead exchange

December 

For disposal - tester 43 dial speed tester , for a picture and 2 telephones 250 mark 1, linesman portable phone. One is circa 1965 and appears never to have been used, still in its original box. 

October

Work has started to provice phone and IT connections to the new boiler/ carriage workshops at Ropley. The cable has been ordered and is now on site.

Other work is at Alton providing cables for the signal post telephones, this was undertaken by the S and T department. Connection of the phones back to the equipment has started, most of this work has been completed which is just as well as the weather is turning decidedly chilly.

For a recent job at Medstead a cable dispenser was needed, as nothing suitable was available lateral thinking was used.

This was to provide a connection from CressNet, the internal IT network, to the station booking office.

August

Thanks to assistance from Brian, Dave and John - the Sunday PW gang, the new cables were installed between the telephone exchange and the station building and signal box.

Both new cables are now in service.

July 

One current job is to replace the cables at Medstead that go from the telephone exchange to the station office and signal box. This needed a duct to be buried across the yard outside the S and T building, the PW manger was asked around 08:30 if this could be done some time in the future but it was not urgent. By mid-day the duct had been installed, excellent service.

The new cable has been partly funded by sales of surplus equipment.