34053 'Sir Keith Park' Discussion thread

For those of you interested, you may like to follow the link to Southern Locomotives Ltd's fotopic site as there are some new photos showing the re-wheeling on 25th November of 34053 at Herston.
It's looking good.

http://southernlocomotivesltdphotogallery.fotopic.net/c1785387.html


Cheers,

Paul

 

Fantastic news!!

 

Superb news, it would be wonderful to get 34053 on the Bluebell and paired up with Sir Archie.

 

Or archie down at Swanage with Manston and SKP

 

and Eddie.......

 

if it meets Eddie, Eddie can say hi to its own wheels

 

Is that the technique most heritage railways use to lift the chassis to enable the wheels to be rolled under ?

 

Popped in to Herston yesterday and saw 34053 on its wheels - certainly coming along well. Great to see the restoration reach this milestone.

You can never have enough rebuilt light pacifics! :0)

 

Great news, will be great to have another Rebuilt (or is it 'modified') BoB in steam

 

wheels

Very few heritage railways have a Wheel drop. The Mid Hants have (ex Bricklayers Arms) which a very useful bit of kit. Otherwise wheel fitting must employ lifting equipment of some kind. Check out the Watercressline web site to see how a wheel drop works.
http://www.watercressline.co.uk/tw/pages/whldrop.htm

 

They do indeed - Although i have seen a chassis put on its wheelset flat, I can't say I have ever seen one gradually added diagonally like that before. But I guess its what works? And hat off to the team!

 

The free method is to raise the chassis with jacks, block up and then lift wheels into the horns with jacks and packing.

We use the free method but would love a wheel drop !.

 

Self same way as we re-wheeled 34081 all those years ago. An interesting if somewhat unnerving exercise. Well done to all concerned.

 

That is the way I have seen it done too..

 

The hard bit, when you do it like this, is actually getting the wheels under the frames. The packings invariable get in the way of rolling the wheelsets into position!

 

I seen images of the Isle of Wight O2's being lifted in a similar way, but some how the O2 lift seemed slighty more ramshackle and dangrous!!!

 

It always seems a bit off to see a loco lift like that but the shear legs used at many depots before large cranes were widely available did exactly the same thing. The NYMR has a set of shear legs, which have been used occasionally for such purposes although with the installation of a wheel drop, such use in the future is likely to be very limited.
Incidentally, are there any other shear legs still in existence and, indeed, operational?

 

Doesn't Didcot have a set of shear legs?

Regards,

Dan

 

The RPSI has a fully operational set at Whitehead.


Keith

 

This was the "normal" way of re-wheeling engines in steam days, ie by lifting one end of the loco by means of a crane or (more usually) a set of sheerlegs. Most major engine sheds had this capability. Only major workshops normally had two cranes with sufficient capacity for a straight parallel lift. Wheeldrops and jacks were rare in steam days.

David