Siphon progress

 The siphon G restoration is progressing.

 

This is the good restored bit. In the left foreground is one of the racks removed from the good end, underneath another rack which is still in position. It is acting as ballast for a plastic table which is filling the hole where a door was removed. The door next to it is finished except for painting and some metal fittings. Beyond that are some panels off the removed door and various other things to screen off the area below the restored louvres. The end of the carriage needs some more horizontal panels at the bottom. Wood has arrived for these vacant areas and has been cut to length, painted with two coats of primer/undercoat and are ready to be fitted - then no bodywork gaps - hooray its cold in here at present.

 

 

This is standing back from picture 1 and shows the condition of most of the internal paintwork. Luckily we will be replacing the side panelling of the carriage. The louvres above the panelling will be cleaned up and rejuvenated with linseed oil before repainting.

This picture is taken from about the same position as picture 2 but looking the other way. More racks to restore! Note the ceiling which is very flaky now but hopefully will clean up. In the middle foreground is our only means of warmth.

This is a workbench we made. On it, on blocks, is the removed door with panels off and the bottom member removed. The lump of hardwood perched on the door is marked up ready for cutting to make a new bottom. Note the GWR transfers for the sides when we finish them. The old bottom piece is on the foreground together with one painted horizontal panel for the carriage end.

Maintenance Progress

The locomotive is now out of service for winter maintenance.  Here No. 2807 is seen inside the shed at Toddington.

On Friday 4th January, the safety valves were tested and the springs removed.














On Saturday, the valve spindles were removed.  This requires removal of some of the running plates, and then disconnection of the operating rods.  This has to be carried out in a confined space, as is often the case.  The photo shows the left hand side being dismantled.










Then the valve cylinder front cover has to be removed and the valve spindle extracted from the front.  The photo shows the right hand side valve cylinder with the front cover removed.













The valve spindles were then measured to check for wear.

Steaming days

The total number of steaming days for 2012 was 65, with a total mileage of 3609 miles.

How heavy is the tender?

The short answer is around 36 tons when empty.  But it is important that the weight is evenly distributed around the six wheels so that the tender rides properly behind the locomotive (or sometimes in front of it).  To achieve this, the weight on each wheel has to be measured, and adjustments made to give an even distribution. Fortunately there is a device that is owned by the railway that allows us to make this measurement.

The device consists of a frame with two hydraulic pistons attached.  The pistons are connected by pipes to a hydraulic pump.  With the tender positioned over a pit, the frame is placed under each wheel in turn.  Due to the magic of hydraulics, the device allows a person to operate the pump by hand and produce enough force to lift the tender wheel.  The pressure is then read from a gauge on the pump.

Gilbert operating the hydraulic pump

This is a two man job.  One person operates the pump, while a second person is down in the pit below the tender.  While the pump is operated, the person in the pit uses feeler gauges to determine when the wheel has just started to lift from the track.  The pressure is recorded, and the processs is repeated for the other five wheels.

Geof in the pit checks for the wheel to lift

With readings from each wheel it can be determined whether the weights are even, and if not the spring hangers can be adjusted to alter the weight on the wheel.  Frequently adjusting the weight on one wheel will change the weight on the others.  The weighing, adjusting, weighing, adjusting process is repeated until all of the wheels are even.  This can take some time!

Looking for trouble

We're a daft lot, those of us who volunteer to maintain steam locos. You quickly learn that complaining about things going wrong is waste of breath and simply invites comments such as " Ha, ha, that's steam locos for you!" and others less printable. But it is all done in good humour and when the chips are down most everyone will muck in and help you get the problem sorted. And it can be very mucky work!

A good starting point is that "if nothing looks wrong then you're not looking hard enough" closely followed by "if something can go wrong then it will sooner or later" With that in mind and having a few weeks before the loco is needed for Santa Specials duty, I asked the question "When was the last time we looked the tender axle boxes?" "Er, not recently" was eventually tracked down to mean not since the tender had come back from restoration work at Tyseley - 20 years ago. "Ah" I said and set off for some spanners hoping for inspiration about exactly how one strips down a tender axle box and thinking it couldn't be too different from doing the driving wheel axle boxes which I had done before.

So to work, with the blind (Gilbert) leading the blind (me!) or maybe it was the other way round. Starting with what we knew, we removed the LHS leading axle box cover to expose the brass plate that is white metaled on the face sitting on the axle journal. We inserted 2 bolts into the holes at the end of the plate to draw it out later when had removed the underkeep and lowered the axle Then we removed the nuts on the underkeep bolts.  At which point the bolts should be turned lifted and the underkeep withdrawn.  3 behaved perfectly. The 4th just would not be lifted - typical. After quite a few failed attempts and a cuppa we resorted to plan B.  Remove the horn guide tie bar below the underkeep and lower the underkeep from its retaining bolts. Easy job.

Next we replaced the tie bar and made a couple of spacers to hold the axle box in place relative to the tie bar.  Then we jacked up the end of the tender to allow the axle to drop and free the brass  to the point where it could be with drawn through the hole where the cover plate had been removed. Success comes those who persevere!

The white metaling on the brass was found to be in excellent condition.  So we got out the new steam pressure washer  and cleaned the brass and the axle box underkeep. The brass went in easily enough. Fitting the underkeep should have been straightforward enough except the bolts kept turning and dropping off the locating lugs in the axle boxes as we tried to turn the nuts at the end of the bolts.   It was one of those jobs best done by an octopus; we needed more hands. Fortunately Fred turned up in the nick of time and although protesting that he had just cleaned his hands, he saved the day and the battle was won. Job was soon wrapped up after that. SO just another 5 to do...only another 30 hours of work then!

Maintenance Progress

Bruce, Steve and Howard continued work painting areas of the tender with bitumastic paint.

A coat of bituminastic paint was applied to the rear deck area of the tender and the area under the footplate.  A second coat was applied to the coal space.

Geof and Gilbert continued with the tender axleboxes.

Maintenance Progress

Bruce, Steve and Ingo painted the tender coal space with bitumastic paint.

The coal space was brushed down and vacuumed to remove all loose debris. This area was painted while the drawbox and footplate areas were cleaned.

The back deck was cleared of wood and debris. Localised patches of damp were cleaned up and dried with the hot air gun. Loose and cracked paint was wirebrushed and chipped as appropriate. The entire deck area was vacuumed to remove loose debris.
 
  

Tender Coal Space

 

By the end of the day the entire coal space had received one coat of bitumastic paint and requires at least 24 hours drying time before a second coat is applied. The rear deck and under the footplate are ready to start painting.

Meanwhile Gilbert and Geof were working on the tender axleboxes. See later post on this blog.