Engineering notes

By Tony Massau

The cab side windows have all been assembled in the pattern shop and a trial fit has taken place. The pockets for the firebox cladding around the washout plugs have been shaped and work is proceeding welding them to the main sections of cladding.

In the machine shop, work continues on various pins for the motion and shims for the slide bars. Machining of blanks into pipe flanges is in progress.

More components have been temporarily fitted to the loco, such as the main steam manifold and the carriage warming reducing valve. This is to aid the preparation of pipe runs between various components with the aim of building up a stock of labelled and ready-to-quickly-assemble pipes once the boiler has passed a steam test and is certified for use. All these pipes are of different shapes and sizes and it is not a quick job.

The mountings for some of the cab gauges have been fitted, again with the intention of pipe connections to the gauges being made.

For those of you who intend to travel on the special train to Bridgnorth after the AGM to view 82045 may we politely ask that you wear sensible footwear please. Despite the current hot weather, bare feet in sandals are not appropriate footwear to walk around an engineering environment.