More track has appeared in place in the last section of the David Page shed to get the concrete floor treatment. I'd like to be able to say that it was down to the blood, sweat and tears of the Wednesday gang, but examination of the PWay gang's "Broadway Extension Blog" shows that it was them that we have to thank. I can't help but think that they were a little lost, if they were supposed to be working on the Broadway extension at the time, but we're remarkably grateful anyway.
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| Track reinstated on road 6 |
The wheel sets that were in the way for them have found their way into the David Page shed on road 7 on Saturday. These are the wheels for Dinmore Manor's old tender (T1761 for anybody who is counting), fresh from being turned at the South Devon Railway, and in need of undercoating.
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| Tender wheels |
Out in the yard, and awaiting being moved into the DMLL 40' container, was five more springs for the tender (two good ones being already in stock)
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| A little late, it's Autumn now. |
Although the destination for most of the springs was correctly written, at least one spring had a curious label on it:
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| Din Moor... a loud peat bog in the north Penninnes? |
The axle journals had been protected by Denso tape, which wanted removing, and the sticky residue removing.
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| Not an easy job |
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| Richard (l) and Chey cleaning up a wheel set pior to undercoating |
Our erstwhile blogger, Donna made an appearance too
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| Donna(l) & Will painting a wheel set |
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| All in undercoat by the end of the day |
The work on the tender wasn't limited to just the wheels, underneath the tender body, a small team of people were cleaning up some of the welds for inspection. Martin was using a small powered device with a brush attachment, that sounded suspiciously like a dentist's drill.
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| Martin, about to perform root canal surgery on the tender |
The task of measuring various clearances was undertaken by Mark, who amongst other things measured the gap between the tender horn guides.
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| Mark measuring horn guide gaps. |
Other items from the tender received some TLC on Saturday as well, the footplate and support brackets were wire brushed by Nigel, before Eleanor applied some rust inhibiting primer to them:
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| Nigel, wire brushing |
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| Footplate & one bracket done... |
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| ...and Eleanor finishing off the other three brackets |
As they don't appear to be available commercially, we're in the process of manufacturing some GWR style "Not to be Moved" boards, Dan was testing out some red paint.
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| Dan prefers spray paint to brush applied. |
A packet of plain chocolate biscuits made the mistake of its life and strayed into the mess coach. The steam loco dept takes no prisoners when it comes to biscuits, chocolate or otherwise. My attempt to surreptitiously catch him in the act failed, and John swiftly hid the evidence under the table and tried his best "butter wouldn't melt" look.
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| Butter would indeed melt! |
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| Precious few left in seconds flat |
35006 is not sceduled to be in traffic for a few more weeks, so a small team of people opted to clean that. It was outside in the rain, which might go a long way towards explaining why so many people wanted to paint the tender wheels, inside the shed.
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| Ian gets to grips with cleaning the Furth-Brown wheels... |
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| ...whilst Alex tackles some of the harder to reach places. |
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| Foremarke Hall on the ash pit at the end of the day |
2807 was the other running loco on Saturday, and as its owning group was tied up with their AGM, no work was done. 2807 will be in traffic on Wednesday and on the gold footplate experience on Thursday. After that, she will be heading off to the Llangollen Railway for the remainder of the year.
Dinmore Manor's tender vacuum cylinder came in for some more disassembly towards the end of the day. It's much easier to strip it when out of the frames and replace all the seals etc when it's on the work bench, than have to do it in situ.
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| Mark (l) & Will dismantling the vac cylinder |
And finally, not satisifed with being passed out as a fireman, Eleanor demonstrates that she is also passed out on cleaning paint brushes, which turns out to be an extremely rare talent in the steam loco dept.
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| Eleanor cleaning paint brushes... |
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| ...Job done |
A very interesting blog. I am a biscuit magician too - I can make them disappear in no time at all! Especially those delightful custard creams when dunked in hot tea or hot coffee - Yum! Regards, Paul.
ReplyDeleteThe real spelling for BFB wheels is Bullied FIRTH BROWN after the Sheffield steel works where they were designed / developed. No idewa if th wheels made later were actually manufactured in Yorkshire but it would be nice to think that this MR / GCR /LNER stronghold made the distinctive parts for the SR's top express locos (you'd never guess I'm originally from Yorks would you).
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