The little magic box, which controls the revs on the big digger… it seems to be fine. However, the electrical supply to it isn’t.
Lots of exciting time spent testing and checking, confirmed the issue is somewhere between the brains of the digger and that box! Where it should have a voltage range of around 20v, it’s only got a range of 3v… which isn’t enough to make the little DC motor kick into life and rev up the engine! It’s a poor connection somewhere along that long path, which goes from the CPU up into the cab, then back out to the CPU and into the control box, thankfully there’s only about 10 connections along that path to check, all in spectacularly awkward locations! It’ll just take another few hours tomorrow, and hopefully we’ll have it.
The telehander issue was quite similar, however much more easily fixed, drilling a hole to allow accumulated water to get out and replacing the fuses has done the trick, unfortunately the fuse holders aren’t in the best of health, so we’ll order another couple and replace them too, however we are fairly confident that’s the source of our troubles.
In unrelated matters, we’ve had a very frustrating experience over the past week at Muckleford. We, along with the local CFA and several properties, have been the victims of vandalism and theft.
We’ve had around 10t of scrap steel sleepers plates and some other very minor scrap items stolen, along with vandalism to both station building, goods shed and signal wire.
The main items stolen are these sleeper plates, the 3 types, they’re very unique and unlikely to have come from elsewhere, if you come across them on marketplace, gumtree or at the pub, please let the police know and indicate it’s related to the thefts at Muckleford Railway Station.
It’s very much the focus of an ongoing police investigation, however it has the potential to be extremely helpful if anyone was to photograph anything that could be deemed suspicious activity around the Muckleford station area, particularly that involving a truck. The truck in question has around a 5.4m wheelbase, with dual wheels at the rear and likely having a crane. However, we’re aware that at least one 4wd has been involved also. All incidents appear to have occurred in the early hours of the morning (over multiple days).
We’re in the process of getting cameras installed, however that’ll still take a few days and in the meantime, we’re trying to make the site very inaccessible, however that is hard with our equipment out of action!
One of today’s tasks involved repairing the signal wire where the track had been driven over at Muckleford, breaking the wire.
We’ve come up with a solution to prevent this, with a rail fence, consisting of 50 rails spaced at 1.5m intervals at the location where access can be gained over the track to prevent this reoccurring, we used a contractor to bore the holes today and we’ll stand the rails ASAP. This has been an issue off and on for several years. A solution was needed. Interestingly, the latest theives have not cut the chains on the gates. Rather, they’ve chosen the hardest way to gain access.
Our good mates, who not only stole from us, the local fire brigade and many others, have decided that that wasn’t enough of a thrill, they’ve also attempted to take their truck over the timber bridge at Muckleford, all in the dead of night. Thankfully for us, they did chicken out of crossing the bridge and didn’t damage it in any way, however they have vandalised the bike track somewhat cutting chains and padlocks as an alternative route (quite bizarre given a perfectly good access track is on the other side of the line – we don’t think intelligence is a trait of these people!).
Their behaviour is appalling, and we’re trying to do what we can to stop it. We could really use all the eyes and ears of the district to help put a stop to it.
As the situation continues we’ll keep you posted, in the mean time, if you see anything suspicious, it probably is. If you’re not certain or comfortable going to the police, then please contact Will.
Tomorrow, like today, won’t be a formal workday, we’ll try to do what we can to get the big digger up and running and barricade Muckleford Yard. Meeting at Maldon at 8am for anyone who would still like to help out.
VGR Civil Blog 