Swanage Railway General Discussion

It has also become apparent that wheel balancing is something of a 'lost art'! We made some enquiries a year ago regarding checking the balancing of our wheelsets but it seems these days it's very much down to guess work.......unless of course someone out there knows differently!! The old railway works had machines set up for balancing but these haven't survived nor has the expertise. There are some complicated maths to supposedly work it out (which is, apparently, how the new builds have been done) but no real way of physically checking if it's right. Now if someone could develop a modern method of doing this........................

 

The Britannia class were indeed known for it, although their worst excesses were curbed by redesigning the engine-tender drawgear. As built, they had an arrangement similar to LNER practice, which worked fine for 3-cylinder classes but not so well on a 2-cylinder design with deliberately light reciprocating balance, so they were setting up resonances in the engine-tender coupling which were then transmitted into the train. Re-design of the engine-tender drawgear eliminated that oscillation.

A lot of classes that suffer badly on preserved lines have the common factor of lots of tractive effort for their weight - mineral tank engines being a classic example - large cylinders and heavy motion with a relatively small boiler. The magnitude of reciprocating imbalance forces (and any reverse torque due to excessive lead for speed) is therefore quite high compared to the weight of the loco. They also have relatively small wheels, so their rotational frequency can be in a range that causes resonance with the couplings at preserved line speeds.

Extra loco mass helps to make the oscillation of the loco as a whole less energetic; some US designs aimed to make the engine-tender coupling very solid longitudinally, such that the engine and tender effectively behaved as a single mass in response to reciprocating imbalance; this is relevant to the case of the Britannias but quite a long way from a tank engine designed to drag heavy loads between closely spaced watering facilities.

 

The Swanage webcam is part of the RailCam (railcam.uk) network and can be viewed by logging on to their site.

 

The Swanage webcam is part of the RailCam (http://www.railcam.uk) network and can be seen by logging into their site.

Swanage Railway is very grateful to the team at RailCam for working to bring the liside to your armchair.

Peter

 

I used to do this on Coaching stock wheelsets at York BREL Repair Lift shop, back in the 80s between 85 and 87 as relief for Sickness or Holiday.
To me it meant I got paid Cat 3 instead of Cat 2 pay rate.

Wheel set arrived at my position rolled in onto rollers, attached a Shaft drive from an electric motor, with a coupling using the 4 bolt holes in the end of the axle.
If no holes then I had to Drill and Tap new ones.
Old weights removed.
Set the wheelset turning and noted the Position and amount of new weights required to be attached to the disc Just inside the Tyre ring.
These were made up of a combination of Bolt, Nut and various spacers or in cases that required a greater weight, 2 bolts, nuts and a plate.
Balance rechecked and adjusted if needed.
Probably did about 20 - 25 wheelsets per day, usually dependant on how much was going through the Wheel lathe or some just needed balance checking.
Work was mainly on wheelsets from Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 stock.
Usually it was only wheelsets with tyres that were done.
Disc only wheels not as common and done elsewhere possibly Derby.

My stand in role was a change from my usual work of Refurbishing Bogie Brake gear and suspension items.
Normally comprising of rebushing work on a press.
Stepping up to Wheel Balancing, Wheel Lathe, Axle lathe, Disc press and Retyring work on the furnace all made a change and a bigger increase in the pay packet.
As I said Balancing was Cat 3 but the other jobs were better still at Cat 4.

As to how the wheel balancer arrived at its position and weight amount I have no idea, sorry.
However I seem to remember it was manufactured by a business involved with Commercial vehicles.

 

http://www.swanagerailway.co.uk/new...restigious-queens-award-for-voluntary-service

 

More good new for Swanage...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-40132508

 

Swanage closure.jpg

 

The first Swanage Railway train to arrive at Wareham bathed in beautiful sunshine

 

Great to see it finally happen after all the hard work, its a shame 47270 didn't make the party hopefully later in the summer if the rumour is true and the Traction motors get sorted,
A crank question is there a plan subject to issues on what locos are going to do the shuttle each day or a page on a website with a roster for it, or just a case of sucking it and seeing and hopefully not getting bowled out by the EE device. TIA

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-40248316

 

For those forumites not able to receive local news from 'down here':
BBC South Today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... -13062017# [starts at 14 minutes in] Only available until 14:00 tomorrow (14th) apparently.
ITV News Meridian: http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/update ... h-swanage/
You Tube videos are also starting to be uploaded.
Great weather completed a perfect day and, fortunately, all trains were either on time or early http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/SGE/2017/06/13/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

 

Freedom of the Line ticket for £20 gives unlimited travel, breaks of journey for the whole day for all stations between Swanage and Wareham.......Yes a Day rover ticket for £20....bargin

 

My humble offerings from a trip to the Railway yesterday. Congratulations for everybody involved in making this a regular sight for the Summer months! Rather surreal to see the Swanage services pop up on the information boards at Wareham.

Featuring 37518, D6515 and 80104 (Running as 80146).

Enjoy!

 

Congratulations Swanage railway, a very historic week, not intentional, I suppose, but i do like the colour coded trains, blood/custard dining, green steam service, maroon diesel, should help the generally public board the right train! Bit of blue/grey and we all be happy!

 

Thousands of wo/man hours, miles of paperwork, millions of pounds... and the most important thing is apparently the colour of the rust-prevention. Who'd be a railway preservationist, eh?

 

Rather sad news here.

Good that no one was hurt. Very unfortunate coming at the start of the peak season. Hopefully the damage to 34070 and 80104 isn't going to take too long to repair as this will leave the line very tight for motive power.

 

+1 for that and great credit to the SR for the prompt and candid communication.

 

Reported in the local paper that one loco isn't too badly damaged, and will be back in use in a few days.

The other will apparently need to go into Works for bent buffer beam to repaired.