April 2023

By Pete Maddicks and Tony Howard

We are making steady progress on the loco, but it doesn’t look so rapid as we are now doing a lot of the small fitting jobs. As you can see from this update, Tony H. has done the honors again. We are getting six to eight volunteers on most of the working days. We did not do any work on the Saturday of the open house weekend, the shed was open we had a lot people coming to see the loco and have a chat. We also received some good feedback and donations. We also did no work of the Saturday of the steam gala, well there was a lot of distractions! Over to Tony for this month’s update.

1st & 2nd April
Open house weekend, so no work as the shed and workshop were open to the general public. We had a lot of interest in the loco, and share applications were handed out, and donations were received.

3rd April.
Bob L, Charles L, Dave Mc, Phil H, Steve T. Tony H.
Work continues on the vertical vacuum pipe from the brake valve to the train pipe. It was wasted at the brake valve end, so it was decided to cut around six inches off and weld a new piece in. We also looked at the main steam pipes to see what was needed to push the job forward. The last of the rivets that were needed in the bunker were done earlier in the week by the boilershop staff.

8th, 10th & 15th April.
No work because of Easter holidays and Spring steam Gala.

17th April.
Bob L, Charles L, Dave Mc, Peter M, Phil H, Steve T, Tony H
Our first job was to assist in moving our cab roof from the Paint shop to the outside of the paintshop roller shutter doors. We then assisted with the moving of the roof of the class 14 Teddy Bear from the paintshop. Finally we moved our Smokebox door to the loco ready to fit.
A big thank you to Dave Howell for driving the JCB and the Crane. The Smokebox door was fitted along with the Lance Cock. The new parts of the vacuum pipe were tack welded together and trial fitted. More work was done on the drop grate operating mechanism.

Saturday 22nd April.
Peter M, Simon B, Steve M, Tony H.
Simon and Tony welded up the joints on the vacuum pipe, and also the hole that was in the wrong place on the cover over the large bearing of the ponytruck. Steve was scraping the paint off the center of all the wheels in readiness for the upcoming ultrasound test.
Simon and Tony fitted the vacuum pipe. When the flanges were bolted together it pulled the pipe out of upright. This will be looked at on Monday to find the best way of rectifying this.

Monday 24th April.
Bob L, Charles L, Dave Mc, Peter M, Phil H, Si B, Steve T, Tony H.
The vacuum pipe was sorted out, just needs the top bit welded on and the clamp that holds it against the stretcher plate modifying. More parts have been made for the drop grate operating mechanism, also blanking plates for the superheater header in readiness for its hydraulic test.
A start has been made putting the crinolines on the boiler. These were all marked up when they were removed at Bewdley. Despite this some head scratching was going on. Luckily Tony has photos of the crinolines in place at Bewdley on his laptop.