Question for cleaners

Re: Qurstion for cleaners

Was that before or after the towel had gone over the bufferbeam?[/quote:3o19750a]
The reason for covering the buffer beam is simple, when emptying the smoke box it stops char from sticking to the buffers and shackle,
thus saving you the job of having to clean them every time. Plus if you cover the buffer beam you aren't treading char into the paint work
and scratching it.
I don't know if you have noticed, but when we visit Didcot and the engine is on the ash pit having it's smoke box emptied we also cover the buffer beam. It's not being pernickity, just taking care and pride in the engine.
If you think that is being silly well........

 

Fair point, but a bit different to a loco that's working 100+ miles per day!

 

Re: Qurstion for cleaners

 

Re: Qurstion for cleaners

You could be right there, thinking back, it never seems to crop up in accounts from the pre-grouping era. I've seen whale oil referred to once or twice... mind you, I think Greenpeace might have something to say about that today!

I think that depends on the condition of the platework. If you have a nice flat expanse that's been carefully filled, maybe it's not such a problem, but when you're dealing with an old tank that's had 10,000 rivets hammered in by some p!ss artist, it can become a bit of a pain.

4965 may still be in great condition, but then it's had the benefit of proper storage in a stable environment. 5051 was only ever cleaned with polish, yet weathering over the years has left the top of the boiler looking as rough as a badger's backside. You simply can't bring that back with polish, unless you have a go at re-varnishing it first!

As far as I'm concerned, as long as there's no crap left on the running plate, job's a good 'un! But then our place doesn't have the benefit of a bunch of loyal supporters following each of our engines around... so we tend to just accept that by their nature, steam engines will get dirty, and leave it at that.

 

Re: Qurstion for cleaners

You could be right there, thinking back, it never seems to crop up in accounts from the pre-grouping era. I've seen whale oil referred to once or twice... mind you, I think Greenpeace might have something to say about that today![/quote:34y31fjg]
I've seen petroleum jelly referred to as well in pre-WW2 account.

 

Yeah it's funny you should say that, I remember someone once telling me the same, although I thought it a bit far fetched at the time.

Course if you go back far enough, you get to put all sorts of squiggly lines on with animal fat. I quite fancy having a go at that on Fire Fly!

 

Got to say, I'm not sure I'd let some people near a steam loco with a pot of Vaseline, you'd probably end up with a few squiggly lines with that as well... 8-[

 

Polishing loco's can be all well and good if used correctly, many a time have I seen paintwork deteriorate due to the lack of preparation before a locomotive is actually polished, on some occasions, just flicking the dust off with a soft rag will suffice, but when a thick layer of ash is present after a vigorous ash-pan dropping, then other action may be required, so many times I have told cleaners not to polish dirty paintwork, as you literally just scratch it to Buggary, check out the paintwork on 5764, polished up until recently, but there's no varnish left on it, and scratching is certainly evident, so the Valley have decided to grant us permission to use Oil and Paraffin, which has seemed to bring back some of the gloss, albeit temporarily...
You see the thing is, polish a loco, all over from top to bottom, properly, wash it beforehand, or if its extremely soiled, use some white spirit/neat paraffin, and she'll look super, not only that, the wax protects the paint from the weather, and in some cases, dusting off/washing down is the only cleaning necessary for a number of weeks afterwords (you don't polish your car every day do you?), whereas, clean a loco in Oil and Paraffin, and yes, she'll look great, but will need doing again the day after, and the day after and the day after as the layer of oil seems unstable and can be easily marked/washed off, 46443 for example needs doing every day it runs, as the tender has a tendency to overflow, leaving marks of un-glossy streaks down the tender body. Whereas on the other hand, 5164 was last polished 4 weeks ago, and is still looking splendid after just a quick dusting off.
As for the life span of the Paintwork, on a valley engine, it is expected to get a shine out of Wax polish for the majority of its ticket, 42968 still looks great after a thorough waxing, and that has been running 6 Years, although 46443 has recently been changed to an Oil and Paraffin engine, due to the fact that the Paint has become slightly work-worn, but not beyond the point of no return (as 45110 did) so It still shines up well after cleaning!

 

Heres a new one for ya all i bet .

Washing the backhead down with the pep pipe to bring up a shine.

what ive been told to do is get a lil bit of parafin , steam oil and lub oil mixed in a bucket ( all ya need is less then an inch in the bottom really) slop it all over the back head , pipes , guages the lot , give it 5 mins then wash it off with the pep pipe and then give it a buff over to dry it off with a rag and the slightest bit of lub oil on it .

Brought up the A4 on sunday like a dream .

Has anyone else tried this?

 

Just pour the steam oil over the top of the backhead straight out of the can and let it run down as it warms up, then a quick splash with the slacker pipe is all you need. No need to use a rag or anything. It used to be a common thing on the NYMR 25-30 years ago but it's a long time since I saw a fireman do it when cleaning the cab. Possibly an LNE trick as we used to have a lot of ex BR NE footplate crews. It died out when the Midland mafia got a grip!

 

Either way round it does seem to do a brilliant jobs . i might consider doing it more offten depending on how much time i have while on shed .

 

It's a shortcut which saves a lot of time when cleaning the backhead. Only takes a minute or two.

 

Littlenobby wrote

Never mind the paintwork, ash and smokebox char make great grinding paste when attracted to motion and axleboxes. The ashpan should be throroughly soaked using a hosepipe before emptying, taking care to keep the cold water jet away from the foundation ring and firebars. If fitted, using the ashpan drencher during the turn will also help. Done correctly it is possible to empty an ashpan without creating any dust at all.

Covering the running board and buffer beam when emptying the smokebox serves the same purpose. However, just taking a little more time and care will also reduce the amout of dust and char flying about. Don't fling the stuff off the shovel, lower it gently towards the ground or into a wet barrow!

Why make more work for yourself?

Kerosene Castle wrote

[-X I disagree that we should just "leave it at that"....some time and effort during each turn will ensure that preserved locos remain in the best condition possible; it is not just the cleaners responsibility and it doesn't need an army of loyal supporters! Turning out a smart loco, removing excess oil when oiling round, wiping down framing and leaving the footplate clean and tidy for the next crew is all part of the job.

I'm also a fan of leaving the ashpan and smokebox to the next day, rather than at the end of the turn; the boiler is cooler and this helps to reduce the cold air drawn into the firebox and onto the tubeplates.

 

Re: Qurstion for cleaners

 

Re: Qurstion for cleaners

In the 'good old days', the engine cleaners of the M.N.A. used to use whatever materials were available. For the filthier locos (and most of what was cleaned started out in that particular category), ideally, a thin oil, such as paraffin (or diesel fuel - as was conveniently available at Lostock Hall - where more of it went onto Black Fives than into Class 25s!) was used initially to dilute thickly-caked crud sufficiently enough for this to be wiped or scraped off. Often, this coating could be up to half an inch thick in places.

For engines with first-class paintwork underneath (apart from the odd Holbeck 5X or Ferryhill Pacific, very, very rare beasts indeed!), just a wiping down with a lightly-oiled soft cloth would suffice ... although still not often providing the gleam that an ex-shops loco might possess.

To provide that extra shine, however and essentially for that day's photting only, boilers, tenders and cabs were usually then wiped-down with the thinnest possible coating of thicker oil, this sometimes being diluted a little further with paraffin. The real secret, of course, lay in using spotlessly clean cloths (where available) between each application.

Some of the Regions had their own special preparations for cleaning locos. At St. Margaret’s MPD this was a milky-white solution that the storemen called "Micky". I used this foul concoction to clean B1 61278 for its final trip over the Waverley Route ... only to find, at the onset of daylight, that it was absolutely useless!! (But, then again, 61278 wasn't in the best of condition before we started on it!)

For the very worst of the worst, i.e. where paint no longer existed under decades of shot-blasted grime, cylinder lube-oil was sometimes used, but only as an extreme last resort ... or where the store-men were particularly miserly so-and-sos and we couldn't cadge or steal anything else. As I can confirm from personal experience, this DID produce a gleam for the shot ... and, doubtless, it was ultimately also of considerable benefit in staving off the onset of rust, but the day after and once all the grit and muck started to cover the loco again, it needed the efforts of the whole team in an all-night session merely to get back to square one again! (NOT a pleasant experience!)

Those today who might throw their hands up in protest at such drastic measures have to be reminded that even 'deliberately dirtied' preserved engines in no way approach the deplorable conditions that 99.9% of steam motive power found itself in at the end of steam. The sheer apathy displayed in the 1960s towards steam motive power exhibited itself nowhere more clearly than in the abysmal quality of paintwork on overhauled engines exiting the workshops - Crewe in particular! (Certainly, Fairy Liquid, Wax Polish and the like, never found themselves onto the shelves of the stores of any motive power depot that I know of!)

For those who may have enjoyed the various tales concerning the clandestine exploits of the M.N.A. during the course of the various 40th Anniversary commemorative features both in the railway press and also in that eminently fine publication "Steam-The Grand Finale", it may be of interest to learn that a major book devoted entirely to the exploits of that particular group of enthusiasts is currently in the course of being written. Further details will be announced in due course, but, be warned, with some of the best steam action photography of the 1960s about to be seen for the very first time, it won’t be cheap!!

 

Re: Qurstion for cleaners

Looking forward to it!

 

When you've just spent the best part of 20 minutes emptying the smokebox by throwing it into a wheelbarrow you aren't going to double that time by gently lowering each shovelful into it, especially when youre going to spend at least as long, emptying the ashpan. The platform is going to be covered in hot char in any case as the best part of a barrow load will fall out when you open the door. It's an easy enough job to swill it all down with the hose, though. It takes between 1-1½ hours for us to properly dispose of a loco, depending on which one and when we're in our twelfth or thirteenth hour of the turn time becomes of the essence. As for leaving it till the next morning, I'm sure that our steam raisers would love to come on duty early to swill out the pan and empty the smokebox before lighting up. With three, sometimes four locos to deal with he'd be starting at about 03.00!!

 

I would tend to agree, I'm all for keeping engines clean, but tell it to those who operate them. Personally I have better things to be getting on with, ie making them go in the first place. Getting all fussy over the cleanliness of a bufferbeam seems rather trivial in comparison, especially when your place has 24 engines, and 'Cleaner' isn't a recognised grade.

I also know a few people who are fans of this... I mean, why go to all that trouble, when you can just sod off to the pub, knowing that someone else will have to deal with it at silly o'clock in the morning?

 

Whatever the cleaning product, they all work much better when combined with elbow grease. Rather than just shloshing oil/ paraffin mix over everything.

 

I still use this method on engines with cluttered backheads, ie LNE & GW, and suggest it to others. I've never had any objections from any of the Midland Maffia. It's obvious to most, but also a good idea to shut the gauge frames off first too.

Biggest problem I've seen with backhead cleaning is that some of our firemen seem to have started to regard it as an optional activity.

Not a good idea on engines with hopper ashpans, as any hot fire left in it will cause distortion, and then you really will get cold air in your firebox. Surely a fundamental part of using any machine, is that when you've finished with it, you leave it in a fit state for the next operator.