Maintenance Update

The "shall we stay or shall we go" saga over the Great Central (Ruddington) was a bit of a farce.  As far as I can make out, the 9F failed so GC asked both (at the same time) Wadebridge and 2807.  They went for Wadebridge.  Then GC had a derailment, which left them a loco short (again), so they asked for 2807 (again).  However, the cost of transport (about £5k) when they'd just had to fork out similar for Wadebridge, was too much.  As a result, they backed out and GC (Loughboro') provided a substitute.

Weds:
Gil & Fred worked on the siphon restoration.
Geof decided to investigate a possible cause of our horn guides wearing out rather sooner than expected.  With assistance from Mike (whose surname I don't remember) they removed the lubrication pipes from pots to each axle and blew through.  All pipes appear to be free-flowing.  However, the RHS trailing axle did seem to leak oil out of the delivery.
John (soldier that he is) got stuck in to cleaning rail chairs (again) and prepared 8 by close of play. 
I spent most of the day painting chairs.
We'd have a prob with our (one working) needle gun.  It kept running out of breath!  So, Gil had bought a new one - which John was using.  I decided to strip down the old one to see if the cause was evident.  With an array of pieces on the bench, I cleaned and assembled the puffy bit, and borrowed John's air line ... I seemed to have made matters worse!  Back to the bench (in lieu of drawing board), I worked out the mechanism, and saw that a rubber bung (essentially the on/off tap attached to the trigger) had a bit of a hole in it.  So, I bunged up the hole with a 1/16th inch length of screw thread, and - Hey Presto! - it works again!

Thurs:
Steve found this video of Rory Bremner chuffing along our line:
https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/rory-bremner-s-great-british-views/series-1/episode-10-cotswolds
There's 14 minutes of GWSR footage at the beginning of the program.  Ideal for those of you who live too far away to keep popping down for your fix!
(available until the end of May)

Fri:
7 of us were shovelling concrete at Toddington this morning - extending the coal bunker and flooring a new ash bunker.

Saturday:
David welded up some corner pieces for Fred in his restoration of the siphon van.
Gil was doing something between the frames ... not sure what.  Then he cleaned the spark arrester.  All it needs now is a couple of coats of heat-resistant paint.
Steve arrived and did some tidying up of FLA sales items.
I finished off a couple of boot scrapers (John T. - yours are ready, on the bench).

After lunch there was a Board Meeting (yawn!).  It has been decided to change the safety valve springs at the next washout, after the gala at the end of May.  Ingo has 3-D printed some components of the new regulator slide valve.  He's doing this in spare time, and we will have the valve cast when all of the components are completed.

Some new piston valve spindles are on order, and should arrive this month.  The existing ones are worn down to their limits

Service:
2807 is next in service on Friday for a Fire & Drive (it is Tony's favourite loco for doing F&D!).  Then she's in use on the Saturday and Sunday.

Roger