There are two confirmed dates for next year, both private charters. On the 5th July, 6024 will be hauling the VSOE British Pullman from London Paddington to Bristol (and return) as part of the Brunel 200 Celebrations. On the 9th Sept, the loco will retrace those steps, this time with the Northern Belle stock for The Betjamin Society.
Many thanks to Martyn Bane & Colin Henderson for the report and pictures of this Saturday's activities at Tyseley. 14 folks in attendance probably meant Angie had her hands full feeding the multitide.! The neverending list of jobs (so it seems) continued, with Salter's Senior & Junior woking on cleaning out the tubes. Here (click here) John is at the smokebox end while Leon (click here) gets the firebox end. Colin Henderson spent some time working on the guage frame (click here) overhauling the unit and refitting it to the backhead. Various places on the loco are in need of their paintwork touching up. These few pictures show a couple of those spots (click here and here) including Keith Clarke (click here) working on the tender buffer beam. The tender sump door was removed and the tender tank give a good clean out (I know there was at least two lumps of coal in there as I knocked them in). Here (click here) Roger Fox and one of Keith Line's arms put the door back in place. During the week and also on the weekend the timing on the valves was being set, hence the odd looking attachment fitted to one of the inside valve covers in this picture (click here). The boiler has been washed out and the mudhole doors and washout plugs all refitted. The bolier was refilled and a new water treatment programme started by our resident expert Martyn Bane. Martyn also worked on a treatment for the tender while still in its dry condition prior to refilling. Inbetween all that, Martyn completed a multitude of jobs on the coach, including checking & topping up the batteries, cleaning the sole bars and draining the toliet tank incase of inclement weather. The smokebox saddle bolts were all re-checked of tightness and a minor repair to the deflector plate on the smokebox door was completed. Also the smokebox door crossbar was adjusted as it had become overtight. The blastpipe nozzles were given a cleanup too by Richard Corser. Here's a picture of his handywork (click here). As you can see, a lot of things to do and that's not including all the cleaning jobs that get done. I'm worn out just writing about it all.!
The railtour to Gloucester planned for the 29th October has been postponed until December 30th.
Many thanks to Wendy Turner for a report and pictures of this Sunday's working party at Tyseley. The big job of the day was the refitting of the inside valves. In this series of four pictures you can see the process. Picture 1 (click here) shows Steve Underhill and Stuart Nelhams oiling the piston rings ready for fitting. They then manoeurve the valve to the engine (click here), no easy task when someone's parked a tank engine up to our shed door.! The valve is then inserted back into the port (click here) and pushed into position (click here). Congratulations also to Shirley & her new fiancé who got engaged today.
Many thanks to Martyn Bane for a report and picture of this Saturday's working party at Tyseley. Many of the jobs are nearing completion as you can see from the pictures. The inside valves are just about ready to be refitted as you can see in this picture (click here). Also, the repair to the frame has been completed. It now looks much better and only awaits painting (click here). A repair to the tender side has also been completed (apart from painting). A small crack had appeared due to stress placed on the tender side owing to a poor repair to an internal support in BR days (click here). The smokebox is about ready have it's floor re-sealed with concreate. The loco passed its cold exam with flying colours, also exams on the support coach and water wagon passed without issue. The water wagon can be seen here (click here) on it's way down the yard. It should be making it's first appearance on the mainline in the near future.
I've added the timing logs from the Bristol - Paddington - Bristol run that took place in December last year to the performance logs section of this website. Many thanks to Richard Corser for the log.
Another weekend of working party duties at Tyseley Loco Works with plenty of jobs to keep us all busy. In this picture (click here) Colin Springthorpe works on getting the old brake block from the one of the rear driving wheels. All the old blocks were removed and five replaced before the day was out, the last one requiring a new pin. The repair to the firemans side frame has progressed, the broken section having been removed and the new piece tacked into place. This picture (click here) shows the clean section with the new insert resting on top. Kevin Blake was back in the smokebox removing the old concrete floor (click here), a job he really loves.! The inside valves continue to be worked on, with new rings being made. Here's one of the cleaned up unit's awaits re-assembly (click here).
Lots of jobs on the go at the moment, with attention on the valves, frames, tender, firebox and smokebox to name but a few. The inside valves have been stripped down and cleaned ready for the rings to be replaced. On the frames, a repair to a weld is being worked on. Some maintenance to the inside of the tender is also underway, all the water was drained out in preparation for this to continue. The firebox has had a good clean out ready for it's inspection as part of the 12 monthly exam. In the smokbox, the concrete floor is being taken up to be replaced. I have one or two pictures which I'll post at the end of the week. The big event of the weekend was of course Angie's secret Birthday party. A good time was had by all and hopefully I will get some pictures to post. That's all for now, Ciao from Italy.!
News from September has now been moved to the News Archive section of this website.
