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27,28 & 29 January 07 - Tyseley Loco Works
Another good turnout this weekend continuing with our winter maintenance program. Final preparations for Monday's cold boiler exam included cleaning out the last of the scale deposits and also emptying and cleaning out the ash pans. Parts of the valve gear have started to go back onto the loco after having new bushes fitted. Also the left hand outside crosshead has been re-metalled and refitted.
Saturday night was the working party Christmas do (earlier than usual this year). A great time was had by all and embarassing photo's are available.
On Monday the loco sucessfully passed it's cold bolier exam. Here's a couple of pictures... Picture 1and Picture 2
13 January 07 - Tyseley Loco Works
With no fewer than 14 working party members onsite today, the toughest job probably fell to stand in chef Keith who was like a whirling dervish in the galley. For the rest of us, it was down to the business at hand in the shed. Last Sunday more of the inside valve gear has been removed for overhaul and also the fireman's side connecting rod and crosshead were removed. The crosshead will have some remetalling on the top face while the big end bearing on the con rod was found to be in excellent condition. Also the tender and loco had been split. Back to today and Roger & Roger camped themselves in the smokebox removing the spark arrestor cage, blower piping and the blastpipe caps. The cage was given a brush down and a new coat of paint. This is all in prepartion for the removal of the superheater elements. The tender also got a good tidy up with the Taunton lads sorting out the coal, removing the rear toolboxes, cleaning up the fire irons and generally giving the tender a good tidy up. The tender and loco also had all their brake blocks replaced. All the valve covers were given a good clean by Keith (not the chef Keith, or the local Keith) and the final job of the day was to remove all 4 valves for inspection and a clean up.
You can see from the dates on the left that this year's railtour schedule is coming together nicely which more confirmed dates been added. Latest of these is "The Yeovil Betrothal", a special train for the wedding of members Shirley Turner and Nick Parry. They are promoting this train with Past Time Rail acting as their booking agents, so tickets are available for the public to join them on this special train as well as have a great day out behind 6024. Check out the links on the left for more details. There's still a few provisional dates being worked on and those will be released as soon as they are confirmed.
Finally, our resident photographer was missing today (playing on the West Somerset Railway) so apologies for the lack of pictures. But he did make it on Sunday, so here's a couple of pictures... Picture 1and Picture 2
7 January 07 - Happy New Year
December 30th saw the loco move back to Tyseley Loco Works from London ready for our winter maintenance programme which kicked off in earnest today. Before we get to that though, here are a couple of shots from the 30th. Picture 1, Picture 2 and Picture 3.
First job was to empty and clean the insides of both the smokebox and firebox. There was not much to remove since the loco was only in light steam for the light engine move, but a good clean was required in preparation for the boiler inspection. While this was carried out Martyn worked on the boiler washout, giving him the latest indication of the effects of the water treatment regime the loco is using. Martyn's report will follow shortly no doubt, but in the meantime everything is observed to be progressing as expected. Work has also started on removing part of the loco's valve gear which will be having some bushes replaced.
Clive Hanley, one of our members, was at Tyseley as a guest of the Pitchford Hall Group. He took some pictures of 6024 (as well as 4953), check them out here.. Pictures