35028 Clan Line

A bit of publicity in the Telegraph

 

Is that building siphons in situ?

 

Yes, it’s the first time it’s been done with the boiler in the frames but I think 92 Squadron has had something similar done. You can see all the stages of what’s happened to date on the Clan Line website under the news section.

https://www.clan-line.org.uk/category/news/

 

Yes, we’ve had new sections welded into the syphons along with associated plate work and stays without removing 34081’s boiler. It was a tight squeeze in places and involved a fair bit of head scratching but we did it.

 

I find it heartening that despite being a bit of a pain they are replaced rather than sealed over, as its been stated they 'dont contribute much to steaming' They are to my mind a useful feature in many ways...

 

Also worth looking at Leaky Finders Facebook pages for pictures and infp

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

 

I don’t think you can bodge a repair like this, I wouldn’t want to be on the footplate if a syphons failed.

 

Bodging ? at some point a decision to repair the firebox and the siphons was made and a method of doing it agreed.
Its possible and indeed simpler to repair/replace the parts of the firebox with the syphons closed off and/or removed entirely depending on the state of the those parts.... it maybe that such an alteration would however need additional scrutiny and approvals whereas just repair/ replace as is does not.

 

I’m not an engineer but it’s the syphons that hold up the brick arch. If you knew the engineers and those who make the decisions in MNLPS you would know that everything is done properly. Anything done on a boiler needs scrutiny and approval by the boiler inspector.
Having said that one MN boiler was produced without syphons but I don't know how the firebox differed from the standard boiler

 

Their primary purpose wasn't to contribute to steaming; it was to improve water circulation (with the spin-off benefit of keeping a flow of water over the crown if water level got low).

I don't see how you can "close off" or remove the syphons without a fairly fundamental redesign of the firebox. If you remove them, that changes the structural integrity of the firebox and in particular the crown, which therefore needs redesigning. And if you close them off (by which I assume you mean isolate them at both ends from the water space) then how do you stop them melting in the heat of the fire with no water flowing through them? By contrast, the moment you have water flowing through them, they are subject to full boiler pressure so are part of the pressure vessel.

The replacement firebox for Sir Archibald Sinclair (which was one of a batch for six different Light Pacifics) has brand new thermic syphons in place, and I assume that all the subsequent ones in the batch either have or will have them.

Tom

 

Thanks Tom.
By closing off i meant just patch the holes where they used to be, but i doubt this would be acceptable . Really a new firebox crown and throatplate would be needed ( throatplates tend not to last too long anyway) as would additional stays. Find it hard to believe that a satisfactory solution without big holes in it could n't be found on the grounds of structural integrity. As stated i am glad the effort is being put in to keep them, and whilst its still only a pipe dream at the moment omission of one from the new V4 boiler was to my mind disappointing.

 

I think it's a matter of not taking away from the original design.

 

It's a steel box so it would be a fairly easy job to remove the syphons and let in new pieces of plate where required. However, they would have to be stayed and that might be a problem, especially with the crown plate. The stay spacing of the rest of the box may not allow this. I don't know as I'd need a detail drawing to come to any sort of conclusion.
Personally, I wouldn't do away with them.

 

Indeed, that was my thought - not impossible, but you are adding new design and probably certification issues.

Ultimately, the syphons are a steel fabrication welded in place and braced with stays, like the rest of the firebox. There's no particular constructional challenge I can see that is fundamentally more difficult or different than those already involved in overhauling the firebox of a Bulleid pacific - just more of it. So even contemplating removing them seems to introduce more, and different, difficulties than it removes.

Tom

 

Its good to see 28 with a fire in her again

 

It is, still a hell of a lot of work to do when it gets back to the Lane. The lads at Leaky’s have really worked hard to get it to this stage

 

The buzz is that it's leaving Leaky's next week and heading back to the Lane.

 

I'll have to keep a lookout for SA Smith Low loader passing through Pinhoe next week then. Thanks for the heads up.

 

Hi does anyone have any more info on when 35028 leaves leaky finders, i went pass today and when i was there a medium sized white flatbed lorry with a grabber / crane on the back which arrived,
I tried to take a couple of photos but nearly got confronted by the driver so i drove away.
Then after a hour or two later i passed by again without stopping and the lorry had a jcb digger machine on the back of it.