Rearranging the Furniture

My lottery numbers have yet again conspicuously failed to turn up and I am consequently still a wage slave.  This is a busy time of year from the earning an honest crust point of view and your humble blogger will be highly dependent on reports from others for the next few months at least.  Nevertheless, I am able to report that the new weighing scales have been calibrated by the manufacturer.  instructions for use are being composed and the scales will not be available for general use until those have been ratified.

In the picture below is just some of the team who helped to do the installation, Roger, Martin, Mike and Richard. Not pictured, but part of the team, is Mark (designed the steel frame that the scales sit in and the indoor pit) & Nigel (wiring).  

The new weighing scales & a diesel wheel set being used as a test load. (photo courtesy of John Cruxon)

Having said that I am now in a very busy work period, I have to confess that I took last weekend off to go and play with the 2 surviving Beattie well tanks down in Cornwall, so I know little of what happened then.  On Tuesday, I received a large number of photos from a correspondent who would prefer to remain anonymous who was present when a crane was hired in to "Rearrange the furniture" in the yard.

The crane arriving

The new rail for the Broadway extension was sitting on wagons on the unloading road, along with a BR 20 ton brake van.  I'm informed that the brake van was a gift to the GWSR and will shortly be heading down to Carriage & Wagon for some tender loving care. I'm sure that they'll have it looking as good as new and in use on our heritage freight train. The proliferation of vegetation poking out of it in various places made a few people wonder if it was the GWSR's entry for the Chelsea flower show.

Many thanks to the generous donor

Not just flowers and trees growing on the brake van, there were strawberries too:

It must be having an identity crisis and think that it's a Fruit D.

Foremarke Hall, crewed by Jeff (our oldest driver) and Tom (our youngest fireman) was pressed into service to shunt the rail out of the way to make way for the crane.

Bryan, cleaning Foremarke Hall

The new rail

Foremarke Hall shunting the new rail

Foremarke Hall shunting the rail onto road 8.

It was all change for the containers in the yard.  The three smaller ones were temporarily lifted out of the way:

Shifting the small containers

Once the three smaller containers had been moved, a small team of people set about levelling the ground and placing concrete sleepers to act as foundations in order to put them back down again.  They would return to roughly the same location, but rotated round through 90 degrees and will eventually have a covered walkway between two of them. 

The small container team, about to start work

 This is where the covered walkway between two containers will be

Mike demonstrates his shovel leaning technique, finely honed after many years of practice

 Meanwhile, the large container team prepared to shift the three large containers onto the previously built foundations.

Chris does some final concreting

Then the crane gently lifted each one and placed it on the foundations.  The task was made slightly more difficult as all three of the existing forty foot containers needed rotating by 180 degrees.  A new container arrived during the morning as well, so now there are four of them.

Container in flight

The four, forty foot containers in their final resting place.

Excellent job

Perhaps a little surprisingly, some of the containers weighed nearly 15 tons, yet didn't need to be emptied before lifting (which would have been a major undertaking in some cases). 

The concrete sleeper foundations for the three smaller containers took quite a lot of work to get positioned level, in the right place and at the correct height.  

Clive (l) and John positioning a concrete sleeper

Sleepers finally in place, the containers started landing in position:

One...

...two...

...three

 Job done, it was time for a brew

Tea time!

Apparently an inspection pit received some minor damage during the operations, fingers were pointed, but the identity of the guilty party wasn't established.

Finger pointing!

The day's work however wasn't entirely finished, yes, the containers had all been moved, but there was one more task to perform.

A bit of a clue to the remaining task could be found by the erection of a stack of sleepers next to 3850's boiler:

Ian and Roger creating a sleeper stack.

 All was revealed, when 2874 was shunted out of the shed and up to the crane.

2874 emerges into the sunlight

Arriving next to the crane

Apparently 2874's boiler hadn't been off the frames since the year that I was born (so that would be 21 years ago then) and it had pretty much rusted in place.  It had been freed up a bit by means of jacks a few months ago, but still there was plenty of rust holding it in place.  It didn't come completely free without a bit of a struggle.

Ready to start lifting

Starting to free up (photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

Free at last (photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

The now boiler less chassis of 2874 is shunted out of the way

Ash pans live a hard life and don't tend to survive for very long before needing replacement.  The one on 2874 was no exception to this, it was so badly corroded, it was barely still attached in some places. Ian put it out of its misery!

Ian applies some gas-axe therapy to the ash pan.

The mortal remains of the ash pan (photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

All that remained to do was lift the newly freed up boiler over the recently rearranged containers and land it on the stack of sleepers

Checked at the signals

Coming in to land

Job done, the boiler on the sleeper stack.

With the boiler in place on the sleeper stack, there was still just enough room for the crane to get out.