Società Veneta Ferrovie.

Thread drift forgiven, this is an "SVF oriented" page because I volunteer in SVF. My apologies for the delay in the reply and thank you for the picture and , Tirano is a very interesting place when talking about railways, you have a fully operational standard gauge railway, preservation activities and an UNESCO-awarded narrow gauge railway. Several years ago I was involved in an EU founded international project and guess what, every time the work shift was abroad, we (my wife always followed me) always returned to Italy through the Bernina pass line .

About your question. Luckily I have access to authoritative sources and they confirm that 880.051 is running post-overhaul testing and will be return in service soon. The other engines are inactive.

About SVF, mandatory update. August means holidays. For some the most fun is... preserve trains and signalling!

Let's start with trains. While the usual "gardening", with Giovanni taking a lot of fun on his GT supercar!



The truth is that this device greatly improved grass mowing! Too bad that the house in the background is out of our reach. To be honest, we still have to complete the restoration of the main station building. Waiting for the required re$ources...

And while our "Nuvolari" fixes the grass length, other members works on one of the Fb (British loading gauge) van doors, that was damaged by weather and maybe a defect in painting.



(new wood)



(and new paint job)

And now the progress in Cabina A signal box, where our hackers[1]. First of all we needed better labels for the relais in the signal box. George challenged the problem, designed and 3D printed the new ones, and he's already thinking about how to improve the solution in the picture:



Another goal of our restoration team is to achieve full simulation of the station in the state before AV/AC line (AV/AC is Alta Velocità/Alta Capacutà - Hugh Speed / High Capacity) was built and the computer-controlled signalling was activated. The lost signal boxes B and C will be completely computer-simulated while the preserved stationmaster switchboard will be restored to make it fully operational. The switches on that switchboard where the mean the stationmaster issued order to the signal boxes. To do so, old switches damaged beyond repair must be replaced preserving the knobs whenever possible. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce a short video of the 3D printed replacement for switch with a preserved knob ! Again great job George!

https://youtube.com/shorts/OQsdTJp9ULo?feature=share

And should a knob become unrecoverable, George has already a 3D-print replacement available!

https://youtube.com/shorts/U8djQiHK5SU?feature=share

And last, another part of the signal box diagram returns to life. The short video shows a signal changing aspect once the corresponding lever is operated.

https://youtube.com/shorts/1J0S3hHE-r0?feature=share

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Again, I give to the word "hacker" a positive meaning i fear it has lost. An hacker is

• A person who enjoys learning: A hacker likes to learn how systems work.

• A master of programming: A hacker writes code fast and well.

• An expert fixer: A hacker loves to solve hard puzzles in smart ways.

People who break into systems are "crackers," not hackers. [

 

Thanks for the update and good to see the progress.

 

A Signal Box has a ACE lever frame (ACE stands for Apparato Centrale Elettrico - Electric Centralized Apparatus, the electro-mechanic interlocking frame) and two small ACEI, Apparato Centrale Elettrico a Itinerari where "a Itinerari" means that a single operation checks an creates an itinerary setting and locking all the switches involved - and locks out all conflicting paths. When the Signal Box was decommissioned the two ACEI were left as empty cabinet with all the useful stuff remoted and we are re-creating the circuits required to reactivate them. One, the smaller one, was already re-activated, today the lights of the screen on the larger one blinked again after years. When the Singal Box was in service, the smaller apparatus controlled the Montà junction just west of Padua station, the larger one was meant to simply monitor the line between Padova and Grisignano stations.







These are the new circuits used to reactivate the ACEI device



And if you wandered what's below the metal tiles of the raised floor, here it is: