34081 overhaul progress

We do have some younger volunteers but as they are of working age rather than retiring age, their appearances on mid week work parties are not so often. Having said that, the oldies do outnumber the younguns.

 

Good progress on the fitting out of the boiler back head.

 

Looks smashing!

 

Cheers. She'll look even better in a few weeks' time.

 

I bet someone had "fun" sorting out those small pipes, I guess its part of the lubrication system?

 

Yes. The pipes take oil from the trays and feed it to all manner of places around the chassis.
It is indeed fun but luckily we've one guy who has a gift for this. We did our best to tag every one as to where it belonged but a few years of storage and subsequent cleaning rather thwarted that idea as many tags went missing and some were then replaced on the wrong pipe.

 

Front end progress. New smokebox door fitted and front end panelling now in place.

 

More progress on the boiler back head. The Ajax fire door apparatus is quite prominent. We plan to plumb it in so it will be steam treadle worked this time round. This will be in memory of one of our sadly departed members who was taken from us too soon. He was a fireman on the NVR and always fancied a go with steam operated doors. At the front end the first of the four main steam pipes went in today.

 

I went on a NZR Ja class that had working AJAX doors (but operated by compressed air, not steam) and it was a wonder to behold the confidence of the fireman has he stepped on the treadle and the doors opened just at the moment the swing of his shovel reached the right point.

That said - weren't they somewhat unpopular in Britain? I think a lot of fireman worried about the doors closing unexpectedly, particularly when firing to the back corners which involved putting the shovel right into the firebox. Were they less reliable when steam powered, or was it just unfamiliarity that led people to distrust them?

Tom

 

There was a knack and if we find people having trouble with them, we can always revert to manual operation. Seen them at work on a QJ in China. Fascinating to watch.

 

I had a go with 34092 and its doors when it was at the NYMR and found them to be no problem to operate once the valves and linkage had been adjusted to give a smooth opening and closing.

 

Were there examples of firemen getting hands trapped and burnt by them or was it just the fear that it could happen?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

To be honest, you wouldn't want to get your hands too close even if it was manually operated...

 

From what I've been told it was more a problem of co-ordination. Too slow in opening the doors and you end up with the coal on the cab floor, too quick in closing them and the shovel gets trapped between them.

 

The risk (whether real or perceived) was that the doors would shut while you still had your shovel in the firebox, particularly if your foot slipped off the treadle. With manual operation, there is a series of hooks that the operating lever will latch under and no danger that the doors will shut unexpectedly, but at the expense of being a less fluent motion, i.e. you have to open the doors, fire a round, close the doors.

I do wonder whether the concern over the doors in Britain was because the steam-operated doors were less reliable than those operated using compressed air, or whether it was just unfamiliarity breeding mistrust. As I recall, the rebuilt locos had the steam operating mechanism removed, which suggests it wasn't entirely satisfactory in practice.

Tom

 

For interest, a few seconds of such doors in action (on a 'packet) about 1'35" into this film:



Tom

 

34081 outside in the sunshine for a while yesterday to allow Thomas to get his boiler back.


Once back inside, we started lagging the smokebox. Different material to that used on the rest of the boiler.

 

Your group seems to have turned her around in double quick time, how long from withdrawal to testing starting do you estimate???

Great Job by the way.

Love the Silver Livery.......

 

Isn't recycled cardboard a bit of a fire risk in that area?


Keith

 

She was withdrawn in April 2008 but no work was done until she returned to Wansford two years later so the duration of the overhaul will be 6 years by the time we start test runs in June*
*Usual caveats apply.