One of the regular operational movements when operating Fisherton Sarum is to bring the 12t box van of spare parts and shed consumables, that has arrived from Eastliegh works, to the shed stores located in the water tower building at its own unloading platform.
Just as at Salisbury this involves a shunt across the turntable. At an exhibition this has required a 12″ to the foot scale ‘hand of god’ to uncouple the wagon from the shed pilot loco, or sometimes the ash wagon, until now…
With the simple addition of a short piece of iron wire fixed to the dropper of the tension lock coupling hook, and the installation of a ‘Dingham’ electromagnet kindly provided by fellow High Wycombe and District MRS member and regular Fisherton Sarum operator Mark Riddoch the process is now totally hands free!
The bolt of the Dingham electromagnet has been simply self threaded into an interference hole drilled into the baseboard below so that the end of the bolt does not quite come though the ballast keeping it totally invisible from view, whilst firmly holding the coil in place under the board. A simple push to make switch on the control panel provides the required 12v DC for the magnet to operate that pulls down the iron wire dropper that lifts the hook for uncoupling.
This latest addition to Fisherton Sarum can be viewed in action during its next exhibition appearance at the Hornby Magazine Live Exhibition at the Hartlepool College of Further Education on the 13th / 14th July 2013.
The brief video below also shows the uncoupling in action.
4 thoughts on “Controlling interests #6 uncoupling the box van”