LMS Patriot Project Updates

The outside cylinders to drawing D27-10777 were fitted to 132 locos. As far as I am aware there were no problems with them. What is this mysterious modification that is not on the drawing? Has someone decided that an item fitted in the top of the steam chests on the Lizzies and Duchesses should be fitted to 45551? Why? Over to you, Patriot team.
Can someone tell me at what stage of a frame build at Crewe Works was the mill scale removed?

 

Steel plate is normally delivered with a coating of mill scale, which must be removed immediately prior to application of primer coats. The current 'normal', certainly in the marine industry, is blasting to Sa 2.5 standard. If you paint over the mill scale it's asking for trouble. I do know of one other new-build group who have disregarded this advice. I presume that in the 'old' days this preparation was accomplished by the use of an abrasive disc.

Bob.

 

Is mill scale enemies by acid pickling?

Sent from my SM-A105FN using Tapatalk

 

The frame plates were delivered to Llangollen Railway works in the Summer of 2009. The contract was for the railway to assemble the locomotive as the Patriot Project supplied the parts and this raises questions concerning the contract. The cottage industry nature of the preservation movement has been questioned before and this looks like another case where the way we do things sometimes brings about unfortunate outcomes. And we learn on this page that there is another new build project that hasn't carried out adequate surface preparation. Maybe we need a written code for new build individuals and organisations in order to make it close to certain that best practice is followed at all times so that this state of affairs is never reached again.

 

To be accurate, we learn on this page an allegation that there is another project ... it would be unfair on other projects to react too strongly without proof

 

A lesson that anyone who has worked in pharmaceutical research will have learned. Most research projects are doomed to failure and even those that actually make it through to clinical trials in humans have a success ratee of about 5%. None of which is relevant to the Patriot, of course, where the Patriot group would appear to have committed two cardinal sins: they trusted the contractors to know how to do a good job and carry it out, and they failed to carry out adequate inspection of the work actually done. We should look on the bright side: the collapse of Llangollen Engineering has at least resulted in the deficiencies being uncovered before the loco started running and being found to be a complete bag of spanners. Hopefully, also, anyone who has taken on a fitter with Llangollen Engineering on their CV be monitoring their work very closely indeed to make sure that they were not amongst those responsible for this mess.

 

A point well made although given the number of locomotives with newly laid / built frames or part-replaced frames, it seems strange that the process to manage the surface preparation of the steel was missed for 5551? Llangollen also held new frames for 4709 and the Sandringham when I was last on site to view progress on 6880 and 5551 (May 2018). I'm not casting any accusation here, just wondering how one set of frames were missed and others not and not just at Llangollen?

 

What did the contract actually state? did it have the requirement to de scale in writing, was the person/ persons who drew up the contract aware of the need to descale new plate work before applying primer, but an experienced engineer should have known and at least queried did they want this work done?

 

You can provide a full schedule of works to be carried in great detail, but if the person in charge at the works then neglected
to issue it to the shop floor!

 

Questions that I can't answer which is why I'm neither accusing nor speculating but raising the point that shouldn't such practice be fairly well established given the amount of projects that have gone before?

If I wanted to get my car resprayed for instance, the chosen contractor would know that top coat follows primer and under-coat which I wouldn't expect to have to specify specifically since I've contracted someone who should know best practices. Possibly a poor example chosen here but I'm sure you get the point I'm raising. My thoughts are with those involved with this build who will doubtlessly be so frustrated given the need for so much rework.

 

Deleted.

 

It is too late now but they could probably have got the supplier of the steel to just supply it already with the black scale removed and maybe even with a coat of primer already applied rather than try and do it later to save themselves the job. Often steel is sold as bright or with the black scale still on depending on what is ordered.

 

Right, but I get the sense that the vintage loco 'community' is much better connected internally now than it was 10 years ago, which is apparently roughly when some of the major mistakes in early rebuild projects happened. (ISTR another major one scrapping a set of frames at the start, some years back.) So the knowledge couldn't flow as freely as would have been optimal - and probably the need for such interchange wasn't as obvious to all back then as it is now, in the wake of a that series of major problems. And there's just a lot more knowledge/capability out there now - it's a truism that repairs that were 'unthinkable' 20 years ago are now 'routine'.

I know a bit about the RB211's recovery - I've read Hooker's excellent book (recommended to all, BTW) - but I wasn't trying to say it's an exact parallel; more just an example (quickly, off the top of my head) of how many (most?/all?) big projects have issues, and if one takes a grip and works the issues, one can still succeed - provided the time and money are available. (Some other examples from the aerospace world include the Saturn second stage, and the Boeing 787.)

Yes, having to take the whole thing apart to clean the frames, and then re-assemble it, is a major pain, but when measured against the scale of 'building an entire high-speed passenger loco completely from scratch', it's a lot smaller; that level of disassembly seems to be quite common in major overhauls.

Yes; exactly. That's related to the point I was trying to make, in saying that people have to look at the details of an issue, to understand how big a blow any given issue is, and what the likely consequences are (from just a schedule hit, to a major expense, to abandonment of the project). The need to disassemble is unfortunate, but it's almost certainly considerably less of an issue than having to create an entire new set of driving wheels.

Noel

 

Who was responsible for machining the wheels and then pressing them onto the axles? that must have been an outside contractor, as there are very few workshops that have the ability to press wheels onto, or off of axles, would the cracking have been noticeable when the rough castings were machined?
Llangollen I heard under quoted for much of its work, and that must have had an impact, did it mean cutting costs, only doing exactly what the contract stated, getting stuff out of the door to get some cash flow? even if its later found to have not been done right, needing more work to remedy shortcomings in the quality of the work? Morayshire for example,

 

well yes......

I won't have seen this video at the time but it may answer the question of what the supplier supplied??

 

Please can you ask that exact question to chairman@lms-patriot.org.uk

 

Interesting. So the frames were cut, machined and drilled prior to arriving at Llangollen. No further comment.

 

the RB211 turned out OK in the end for RR.
not so for many sub contractors.
my FIL firm took on a load of work for RR , including the engine casings . with the benefit of hindsight they over committed - but RR? there couldn't be a problem there , could there ?.
as we know , there could be - and there was , and an old established firm went to the wall , having no work or means to pay the few hundred men they employed. they soldiered on for a relatively short time but failed to attract enough new business.

it wasn't all about RR -they got the bailout . others didn't.