35018 British India Line

Yep...she's had her own thread for a few days....

https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/spamcans-are-female.1023672/#post-1955113

 

It's actually Stroudley's improved engine green so wrong for an unrebuilt as it hasn't been improved

 

True to form there was lots of wheel slippage in that introduction clip...

 

Been very quiet on the BIL front since she came back from York three months ago. I wonder if we will see her on any of the winter CME's?

 

Allegedly an old cylinder fracture is beyond repair so will have to be replaced one way or another. Whether that process is underway I know not.

 

that would explain the steam leak from the front firemans side then.

 

Ahhh ok, thanks, hadn't heard about that.

 

For all we know, at the time of the FTR, It may have been deemed ok, after all BR era welded repairs to cylinders are now beginning to show signs of failure in many cases and now with modern testing its found that castings are also showing signs of the metallurgy breaking down dont forget even if new cyclinders were fitted when these engines were rebuilt by BR the castings will now be near 65-70 years old and castings will eventually fail and cracks appear .

 

Well it would be easy to put 2 and 2 together using hindsight but perhaps not so simple to diagnose the root cause of the leak apparent to all onlookers.
Will a brand new cylinder be manufactured or a donor sought? There is a few dismantled classmates around .....

 

That depends on which cylinder has apparently failed and if any replacement won't have the same problems, if its the middle then 35011 may be a possible donor as the un rebuild back to air smoothed condition will need a new middle cylinder, if its an outside cylinder then 34073 may be a possibility assuming the cylinders of the Light are the same size as on the MN.

 

Believe its the RH, which seemed to tally with the observed steam leak during its various public appearances last year.
As to the light pacific cylinder I believe same stroke smaller bore but whether any other differences in the cylinder occured after rebuild I don't know.

 

Thanks for the info, if its an BR era crack, thats been welded and then re welded but has opened up again, or as a result of the weld weakening the surrounding steel casting, then its just unfortunate, but at least an outside cylinder is an easier job than a middle cylinder, at least you wont have to lift the boiler or remove the smokebox
is it the actual cylinder or the main steam pipe to that cylinder though as normally you would think NDT testing would have been done on the cylinders as part of the restoration.

 

You may know more but a fair amount of work was done during its time at MHR. Whether that included a repair to the cylinder, including a certified NDT at the time perhaps?

 

As someone who has been involved in both Dye Pen and Ultrasonic testing of a multitude of engineering components, granted, only a handful of Loco applications, I can categorically state I for one would not be happy testing a Loco cylinder, without first de mounting it from the frame, if the owner required anything less than a roughly 90% accurate result.

 

The cylinders are smaller on a light pacific:- 16 3/8" x 24" as opposed to 18" x 24" on an MN.

 

I know there are some involved with WCRC who are also involved with heritage railways with Bulleid knowledge, so maybe WCRC are just observing their usual "need to know" rules, and I guess we all don't!

 

I'm not interested in the petty politics creeping into this thread. Merely looking forward to seeing an MN up north doing her stuff on the main line. Looking forward to that day when it comes.