Engineering notes

The eye catching feature this month is the installation of the fireman's side water tank on the loco just before these notes went to press. There is work to do to bolt it down before consideration turns to the driver's side tank. There is probably not enough time left to do a decent green paint job before the loco's scheduled appearance at the Warley Model Railway Exhibition at the NEC, Birmingham in November so it is a possibility the the tanks will appear in works grey primer paint. The installation of the tanks allows for further progress to be made with the vacuum system pipework which is secured to the underneath of the driver's side tank and the carriage warming pipework which is secured to the underneath of the fireman's side tank. The injector delivery pipes are also secured to the underneath of the fireman's side tank for a distance before they pass up through the tanks to the boiler non return valves (commonly known as clacks). The not inconsiderable task of manufacturing the balance pipe between the tanks can now be considered, box section with various twists and turns passing under the cab floor.

Prior to arranging to fit the first tank work on fitting the spacer or side thrust washers to the reversing shaft was completed. Our machinists are as usual hard at work with one recent job being preparing some flanges for an internal pipe within the crown space of the firebox.

Those of you who read the Severn Valley Railway News magazine will probably have been surprised to see a photo on page 19 of a boiler on a wagon with the caption claiming it to be 82045's boiler. Rather a startling leap forward of progress!! Needless to say this was an error in the detail, the boiler in the photo belongs to Stanier Mogul No. 13268 (formerly 42968). It will be quite a few more months and much more hard work before we will be able to replicate that photo with the real 82045 boiler.