A familiar sight to residents of the town of Battleford will be back up and running soon.
Work is ongoing to get the clock in the tower of the old Battleford post office building operational again.
The new owners of the building, Cassandra Germsheid and Jesse Crozier of Fieldstone Holdings Corp., have been busy studying up on the clock and how it works, and testing it to make sure it works. Â Â
The clock had not been functioning since around 1992, but the new owners want to put the clock back into active duty as early as a few days from now. They plan to spend some time this weekend working on the clock so it is ready for action again.
According to Germsheid, “We can actually get it running and on time just as it is right now,” she said.
To keep it working, they would have to wind it every six days, she said. They also plan to go up and oil the clock with new oil they have acquired.  Â
Germsheid admits that it is a learning experience for them to figure out all the technical terms and so on.
“We’re both trying to learn as quickly as we can so we can look after it ourselves instead of having someone come in from out east, or even from London.”
She knows that other clock towers have required people to come in all the way from London, England to offer their expertise.
The clock itself was put in the tower in 1913 and is made by W.S. Evans of Birmingham, England.
There aren’t many clock towers similar to this one that Evans has done. They do know of one similar tower in Greenfield, B.C., and Germsheid said that the person who looks after that clock has offered to come and take a look at it.
They are confident they can get the clock running regularly again. They did a test run earlier this spring to get it working again for the first time in years, but “it hadn’t been oiled with the new oil that we’ve got.”
With the test run, it was decided it does function and does keep time; now they want to ensure it is maintained properly.
 “It should be fine once we oil it and get it synchronized,” said Germsheid.Â
There might be gears that need fixing, she said, so those might need to be cleaned to “get the old oils out of there that’s kind of been gunked up, and get it all shiny. But it’s all original brass. Everything on it is original, so it needs a good cleaning and a new oil and it should be good.”
The clock is not the only thing in the building they want to get working again; they also want to get the bell in the clock tower ringing again at regular intervals at noon and 5 p.m. Getting the bell set up and working again is expected to take a little longer.
The new owners are also planning to rehabilitate the second and third floors of the building, with Canada Post expected to return to the main floor location by December of this year.
