Mid Hants Railway Operational Matters

Home from another productive day at Alton, with the old North side doors now removed from 870067, metalwork cleaned and coated in red oxide, and the new doors hung. More bolts still to do, but she looks good again. The door fittings have all been cleaned and are at either red oxide or first undercoat stage. The two screw link couplings have been cleaned and painted and are now hung on the hooks too. The vacuum cylinder will be coming off soon for overhaul up at Medstead. One of the winter projects will be cutting, fitting and making the pipework and brackets.

Next door, meanwhile, Dance Hall 55506 has emerged into the daylight as the beginnings of that overhaul get under way.

 

I feel Strictly a-callin'!

 

This weeks YouTube video looks at the line between Alresford and Winchester (Watercress Way). Nice to see the old line has still got a use.

 

Popped into the Carriage Shop again. BY has now emerged from the scaffolding. Looking damn good, to me.
Pat

 

Just two hardy souls atop the hill yesterday - it should have been three, but one of our number had car trouble, so was grounded & muggins here had to go into work in the morning.

Still, I arrived late morning to find me mucker under the Wembley van aetting things up to start overhauling the country end brake hangers.... handling cold lumps of metal with a biting wind are not a fun combination, we thought about having a bonfire, but the prevailing wind would've smoked us out!!!

So we duly set to removing pins, that were quite frankly almost seized, this meant the use of old sump oil & WD40, plus a lump hammer to convince thenm they wanted to come out!

As progess was being made on that front, we rembered that the GPV still needed patches on the solebar for pad exams & oiling dates...... so yours truly went to find some blackboard paint in the paint store....... he couldn't find any ( he knows we have some somewhere......) but did happen upon a tin of some shade of black vinyl matt, so that was bought to life in a waterbath & eight coats were duly applied, given the way the wind was drying it off so qiuck!
board
By the time we called it quits due to the increasingly bitter wind most of the country end brake hangers were done, meaning next time once the country end is finished, a start can be made on the London end... and just as we were packing up, the class 11 with the toad BV in tow rolled in from the Alton section with the PWay on board having been doing sleeper changing.

As it was to early to head home, we decided to pop down to Ropley to see what was going on.......

Quite a lot as it happened!

08 288 was earning its keep shunting coaches & looked & sounded good, https://www.flickr.com/photos/duty_druid/51662560459/in/dateposted-public/ 30925 was also back from its Holibob to the Bluebell, 76017 was being worked & I believe 50 027 was also having the same in the top yard judging from the bodies trundling back from that direction.....

We then decided to have a shufty inside the carriage shed to see how Traincares BY is coming on, it's needed for the Steam Illuminations, must say it look mint even though it isn't quite finished, but I'm assured it will be & comapared to what it looked like a year ago, its a total transformation!

Venturing to that end of the yard was fatal....... my Ropley Spy happened to spot us! And for once, seemed pleased to seem me....... once he'd calmed down & assertained that me mucker wasn't a member of the ULS & was duly extrapolating on why it would be in his best interests to do so, almost making the poor guy fill out the memebership form & part with the contents of his bank account on the spot!

Turns out he was pleased to see me, so that I could take some pics for him & post them on here - he's even threatening to scribble some ramblings down on parchment with his quill, as its been some time since his last........

So........ to fulfil my part & keep him happy, said pics - three angles of the tender brake weigh shaft of 499, which he assures me WILL be in traffic for 31/12/22........

 

Someone needs to venture into the Hampshire Records Centre and recover once and for all the evidence that the Eastleigh works and Harland and Wolff shared a draughtsman ...

Tom

 

I see the dress code is as weird as ever in Hampshire according to the title on the Blue Tray.

 

Why, did it sink?

 

It was alright when it left here...

 

Can someone please explain the last few posts to the uninitiated? Blue tray? Connection between Eastleigh and a shipyard? And for the even more ignorant; what does a weighshaft do?

 

First point:
In the first of the three photos, there is a storage box on the shelf above. Zooming in shows that it is labelled "socks & tights"

I'll leave the other points to others.

 

I was making a sarcastic comment that Urie's locomotives had more in common with shipbuilding than, say, precision machines. They weren't renowned for their svelte character.

As for the tender weighshaft: It translates the up / down motion of the piston in the brake cylinder into a pull along the brake rods to pull the brakes onto the wheels. I believe the etymology of "weigh" is the same as "weigh anchor", i.e. to lift up. That is more obvious on valve gear, where the weighshaft converts the motion from the reversing lever / screw / steam cylinder into lifting or lowering the expansion link or die block, thus altering the valve gear setting.

Tom

 

The Urie school of design certainly hung on though. I do find it amusing that Holcroft was a huge fan of the Schools, while simultaneously complaining about Finlayson's tendency to revert to Urie (hence the shortened Arthur boiler instead of his preferred smaller Nelson) and admitting that in the final balance he'd had very little to do with its creation. Did you get any turns on 925 while it was visiting the Bluebell, Tom?

 

H Holcroft - strikes me as one of those clever chaps who are so useful to men with better judgement (if, possibly, less talent).
Pat

 

One day (three trips), the first of which was a learning experience and the next two were quite fun - certainly making me look forward to "Stowe".

A few things struck me, probably because they weren't what I was expecting. Mentally I'd thought along the lines of it being like the S15. So there's your first shock: the cab feels quite small - I think because the cab roof is in the same place, but the floor must be higher to clear bigger wheels. Add to that the sloping sides. In cab layout, I'd also been thinking about the rubbish Drummond-inspired firehole door, but Ashford seem to have put a proper SE&CR pattern one on, far more user friendly. It's also got the really nicely calibrated Ashford ratcheted quadrant damper controls like on a U-Boat, not the agricultural "set it to where it is happy and then just leave it" Urie versions; and the lever-operated steam valves for the injectors. Altogether more refined than the S15.

Out on the road - you got the feeling it wanted to run. Certainly no difficulty with 200+ tons on our 1 in 55 gradients.

Tom

 

76017 did the honours on the Press Preview train for this season's Steam Illuminations

Illuminations in the Woods by Stephen Morley, on Flickr

 

I see Holly Green from itv meridian local news visit yesterday afternoon.

 

This weeks YouTube video looks at BR class 4 75xxx locos.

 

At Ropley the BY continues to progress - doors are being fitted / fitted out.
Pat

 

Laura Nightingale on Hampshirelive did a good writeup
https://www.hampshirelive.news/what...cpXp0q70YMm2xEbjPx-dWasmVeT21GLFE26wOiqPdzChM