Keeping my nose to the grindstone

There were no trains running on Saturday, but there was still plenty to be getting on with on the list of winter maintenance tasks.  To start with, there was quite a lot of activity taking place on Foremarke Hall.  The feed pipes from the injectors to the clack valves are about to be replaced with new copper ones.  The flanges from the existing ones will be recycled though, so Paul was cleaning them up:

Paul fettles the flanges

Meanwhile the nuts and bolts that join the sections of pipes together needed a bit of cleaning up too:

A different Paul hard at work

Meanwhile the top of Foremarke Hall looked like she had been raided by lead copper thieves:

No copper cap!

Close up view

It turns out that we hadn't been burgled after all, Foremarke Hall is about to get a new copper cap on her chimney. Ben was up there later on with a needle gun removing the rust.  Speaking of Foremarke Hall, the decision by the owning group as to whether or not she will run for the first day of the Christmas Cracker has not been taken yet.  It is quite possible that she will not run again in this ticket.  I'll let you know more when I know more.  

Progress has been noted on a few of our restoration projects, the 35006 gang were out in force doing trial fittings of the smoke deflectors:

It still needs a top coat or two, but it's getting there.

4270 is now looking much more complete having had her side tanks and cab fitted:

Definitely starting to look more complete now

Sometime over the last couple of weeks, Owsden Hall's boiler had disappeared off to join the rest of the loco on the Swindon & Cricklade Railway and the boiler of 44027 had been rotated through 90 degrees giving more access on all sides:

44027's boiler

 I know better than to ask when any of 44027,  35006 or 4270 will be in traffic.... one day I'll turn up and be pleasantly surprised to find that one of them is in steam.

Winter maintenance was in evidence on the 117 class DMU as well, with a number of people swarming over it:

James greases an unidentified object under one of the 117 cars

 A refresher driving lesson for one of the diesel shunters had been arranged for some of the steam loco dept.  The diesel shunter concerned is an ex industrial 0-6-0 Yorkshire, unofficially known as 'Des'.  

Des

Cliff decided that a bit of extra-curricular manual reading to remind him of how to operate Des would be in order before the refresher course started as he hadn't had call to drive her for a while:

Cliff

I decided that I'd like to help out with 2807's maintenance.  There were two tasks that were to be taken on, checking/replacing the piston valve rods and repairing the ash pan.

Piston valve rod just about visible from the front...

...and from the rear

Bruce and several others were having fun extricating the piston valve rod, which to achieve the necessary access required several other items removing.  I left them to it, preferring to work on the ash pan.  Not out of any sense of altruism you understand, but because since the hopper door had broken and been welded shut over a year ago, getting ash out of the rear hopper had become a very difficult process and I was keen to do anything I could to make the situation easier.  The first thing that needed doing before the rear hopper could be modified was to remove the welded on door. Ordinarily that wouldn't have been too tricky a process, put a cutting disk on an angle grinder and cut through the welds and Bob's your Auntie's live in lover.  Gilbert cut through the hinges on one side of the hopper door fairly quickly.  The trouble was, the other end of the rear hopper is in a very confined space and it's difficult to work in there.  At one point I managed to clobber myself in the nose with the angle grinder (literally keeping my nose to the grindstone).  It smarted for a while, but I soldiered on.  The welds as it turned out were both on the inside and the outside of the hopper door. The cutting disk couldn't reach as far as the welds on the inside. 

Hopper door from the easy to access end

The pieces of wood were a safety measure in case the hopper door decided to suddenly break free and fall.  We needn't have bothered, the last thing on the hopper door's mind was breaking free.

Andy decided that he would give it a go to see if he could shift it.

Andy seeking divine inspiration before starting

Not being able to easily get at the welded bits inside the ash pan from underneath the loco, Andy decided to try and get access through the grate:

Andy in the firebox

Only to find that a false floor had been welded in above the level of the hopper door.  That meant there would be even more work required to open up the ash pan.

Back underneath 2807, somehow Gilbert got in there with a larger angle grinder:

Gilbert brings out the big guns

Unfortunately, his efforts were still to no avail.  Eventually there was enough movement in the hopper door for me to wrench the recently hinged end down and let Andy get at the inside welds with an oxy acetylene cutter.

Andy axing with gas

Hopper door gone, Gilbert and friend inspect the false floor that will now need removing

It was starting to get dark by now, so we decided to call it a day.  The false floor can wait until next time.