The Chairmans Birthday working day

The Fenchurch Fund Chairman spent the day on Saturday working with the engineering team of the Little Loco Group.  Here are a few pictures from the day.


We start off with a couple of pictures of the components that have recently been returned from Statfold Barn where they were metal sprayed and ground round.  The photos do not really do them justice, a great job was carried out on them.

The left hand valve rod

 

The right hand valve rod

The chairman was tasked with cleaning up parts of the brake rigging with powered wire brushes and sanders. a couple of pictures below including after painting by Jim Turtle our painter in residence.

One of the items of brake rigging

Jim busy with a paint brush!

 

The main job for the day was more drilling, reaming and riveting on the drag box, around 10 rivets were installed by the gang, it would have been more, but owing to rain and loss of light we needed to stop earlier than originally planned.

Setting the angles onto the rear buffer beam true and square

 

Ben cutting holes in the angles, through the holes in the frames

 

A closer view of the business end of the cutter

Rivets gently warming to a cherry red before being transferred to the holes and riveted over

 

 

Sean carrying the rivets from the forge to the correct hole in the frames

The hot rivet located in one of the holes between the drag box and stretcher

 

Matt riveting over the protruding head



six domed and two countersunk rivets completed

Finally a picture showing the joys of working in the open air!

Sean, Ben and Matt inspecting the work carried out in the rain before calling it a day.

From the last two pictures you can see that the working conditions are not ideal.  We are currently looking at options to improve this including temporary, interim and permanent solutions.  This will cost a fair amount of money to sort out, but to improve the working conditions, leading to a more efficient use of time it might well be worth it.  We are in the early stages of thinking about this at the moment, so watch this space!

Remember, all of this has been possible with the generosity of people like you that are interested in the project.
Without your support we cannot carry on at the same rate experienced so far.
Please donate anything you can afford if you would like to see our efforts and passion come to a successful end.
A donation of £27 would go a long way towards our aim.
(with gift aid that becomes £33.75)

If you can help us, please make your donation on line at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/27

You can also give via standing order to the Bluebell Railway Trust (please contact us for a form) or regular payments via Virgin Money Giving.

We are a completely self funded group of Bluebell Railway Volunteers working hard to look after and promote the small locomotive fleet on the Bluebell Railway.



The chairmans Birthday address and appeal

Well, another birthday is upon me!  A time to have a quick look back at what we have achieved since the last one, and that is a huge amount!
I attended the Working day on the 10th of November 2018, together with 6 others.  At this stage the frames were flat on trestles and requiring the mill scale to be removed.   By the end of the day the frames were not only cleaned of mill scale but painted in bonder primmer. yet more holes were drilled in the frames and some tapped to take bolts.  This was done by mid afternoon, so it was decided to "erect" the frames using temporary stretchers. So, the frames have now been "vertical" for just about a year. 

However, the story does not end there as during the year the frames were set to level and square and checked many times.  This required the stretchers to be located using temporary bolts to hold everything in the right place. By April all of the stretchers had been bolted in place and thoughts were turning to when the riveting could begin.  Other work carried out at the same time included cleaning of the cylinder covers and crossheads. 

various checks and measuring was also taking place and it was at this time we found that the piston rods and valve guide rods would need to be metal sprayed and re turned to the correct dimensions.

At the beginning of July groups of Network Rail volunteers spent a week doing odd jobs on the loco and also on Fenchurch.  These jobs included cleaning and painting of components and starting a deep clean on Fenchurch ready for the forthcoming overhaul.

   

The riveting of the frames continued throughout the year and by September most of it had been done.

Also during the summer the pistons have been machined to make them suitable for many more years of service.  The brake hangers ware also overhauled and re-bushed during the summer.

  

Of course the cylinders have been away at Statfold Barn for the majority of the machining to be carried out and these were returned to Sheffield Park in the early part of the year.  there was still a small amount of machining to be carried out on the castings once they were returned due to needing to test fit as the machining took place.  This has now been completed and the cylinders are being stored until they are required.

  



There have been many, many hours of work carried out on the loco, much of which seem to be virtually invisible, but are vital for the rebuilding of the loco!

We are a totally self funded group within the Bluebell railway and every penny we spend needs to be raised by ourselves.  There are a few ways this happens, We run sales stands at many of the Bluebell Railway events through the year, together with a few model railway exhibitions. Another way is through donations, either one off or standing orders via the Bluebell Railway Trust, with or without Gift Aid.  For details please see below.  We also accept items of memorabilia or railway models suitable for auction or to sell on our sales stand.  Finally we have recently launched the "RIVET CLUB". This enables you to donate a regular monthly amount, for which in return you will receive a periodical news letter, advance notice of any special events organised by the Fenchurch Fund or The Little Loco Group and other benefits to be confirmed.  Details for the Rivet Club can be found below.

Remember, all of this has been possible with the generosity of people like you that are interested in the project. Without your support we cannot carry on at the same rate experienced so far. Please donate anything you can afford if you would like to see our efforts and passion come to a successful end.

We are also looking at expanding our team of sales stand volunteers, so if you would like to join us, please drop Clive an email at the address below.

One off Donations

A donation of £27 (or any amount) would go a long way towards our aim.
(with gift aid that becomes £33.75)

If you can help us, please make your donation on line at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/27

Standing Order Donations

You can also give via standing order to the Bluebell Railway Trust (please contact us for a form) or regular payments via Virgin Money Giving.

The Rivet Club

You will soon be able to join the Rivet Club and make the difference! at £3 a month you could help us see SECR loco No 27 return to steam within the next 5 years! Once signed up you’ll also receive a copy of our quarterly E-newsletter as a way of saying thank you as well as keeping you up to date with our current progress! More details will follow shortly!

Please donate if you are able, it will make  a great difference to the restoration programme.

Thank you for reading this far!  and thank you for the help you have so far given.

Regards

Clive D. Emsley

Chairman of the Fenchurch Fund

thefenchurchfund@gmail.com

Join The Rivet Club!

The Little Loco Group supported by The Fenchurch Fund are launching"The Rivet Club" with the assistance of The Bluebell Railway Trust.

The Rivet Club

Help us to see this fine little engine run once again by joining our Rivet Club!

The Idea?

Hundreds of rivets go into the construction of an engine to make it whole, all playing their small part, and this inspired us and got us thinking! How could we raise the expected cost of £150,000 to see No 27 Primrose run again? Like each individual rivet that goes into the construction of an engine to make it whole if we where to break down this figure into a large number of individual monthly donations from a large number of regular donating members the task of raising the funds to restore No 27 Primrose would become a lot less daunting and a lot more achievable!

The Rivet Club!

Hence the Rivet Club was born! Set at £3 a month to join the club (Less then a Pint of Beer to coin a catch phrase of a famous new build!) each member would contribute £36 a year. Not much you might say but if we where able to sign up 1000 members then this would equate to £36,000 a year towards the £150,000 needed and help to raise the funds required over a 5 year period!

So could YOU help us?

You will soon  be able to join the Rivet Club and make a difference! at £3 a month you could help us see SECR loco No 27 return to steam within the next 5 years! Once signed up you’ll also receive a copy of our quarterly E-newsletter as a way of saying thank you as well as keeping you up to date with our current progress! More details will be posted here shortly.

Thank you in anticipation.

A few Cylinder pictures

Just a few snaps of the cylinders which have recently been taken off the milling machine following the final major machining activities on them. There are a few minor jobs to be done before we can think about installing them in the frames though!  There is also plenty of work to be done on the frames before reunification can be carried out.

The top of the cylinder block

The first picture shows the top of the bolted together cylinders with all of the major machining complete. 

Close up of the exhaust

This picture shows the machined face of the exhaust port.  the blast pipe will be attached to this when it is installed.

The front of the cylinder block

This shows the machining of the faces to take the cylinder covers and the temporary fitment of the valve chest cover. You can just make out the machining of the inside of the bore around the steam ports

Looking through the left cylinder bore

Looking through the left cylinder bore it is easy to see the surfaces and tapped holes. the red oxide cover is to the valve chest.  this has been temporarily place on the castings.

The underside of the castings

The underside of the cylinders showing the drain holes to allow condensation out of the cylinders as the loco moves off. Note also the legend "SECR P CLASS LH" and similar for the RH cast into the metal.

Fundraising Stand

We nave come top the end of this years programme of sales and information stands, apart from a couple of "mini stands" by the signal box on the 30th November and 7th of December.


We are always looking for new places to spread the word, so if you organise a model railway exhibition or other related event and are looking for stands to fill a space, please let us know.


Our first even in 2020 will be at the Wealden Railway Group annual exhibition on Saturday 7th March in Lancing Parish Hall.


Fundraising generally has been reasonably good this year, though we did miss three events for various reasons, including wind and rain at the Giants of Steam. This has meant we are slightly down on take from last year.  If you would like to help fill the gap between the figures, please go to our Virgin Money page shown below.


Remember, all of this has been possible with the generosity of people like you that are interested in the project.
Without your support we cannot carry on at the same rate experienced so far.
Please donate anything you can afford if you would like to see our efforts and passion come to a successful end.
A donation of £27 would go a long way towards our aim.
(with gift aid that becomes £33.75)


If you can help us, please make your donation on line at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/27

You can also give via standing order to the Bluebell Railway Trust (please contact us for a form) or regular payments via Virgin Money Giving.

We are a completely self funded group of Bluebell Railway Volunteers working hard to look after and promote the small locomotive fleet on the Bluebell Railway.

This weekend

Over the weekend coming (28th and 29th September) we will be having a display and sales stand at the Worthing Model Railway Club's annual exhibition. (http://www.worthingmrc.co.uk/exhibition)
We will be able to talk to you and (hopefully) answer your questions!  We will be having the usual range of products, with some special offers too!  We are likely to have some basic model railway items for sale too. We are now accepting payments by card for sales and donations when at exhibitions and railway events (as long as we can get a signal!).

If you, like us, want to see the loco working again in around 4 years time, your help is urgently needed.  We will need something like £100,000 for boiler work to make the dream happen.  It would be good to have your help.  If you would like to donate any amount ending in 27 it would be great.  Any amount from 27p to £31,027 would be great! Please do not donate more than you can afford though!


The best way to donate is via our Virgin Money Giving account where your donation can be gift aided.  This gives us an extra 25% donation at no additional cost to you. 


If you can help us, please make your donation on line at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/27


We are a completely self funded group of Bluebell Railway Volunteers working hard to look after and promote the small locomotive fleet on the Bluebell Railway.


Thank you,
The Fenchurch Fund Fundraisers and Project 27 Fund Spenders!

Behind the Steam Weekend

Just a few pictures from the weekend!

Most of the riveting on the drag box has been carried out, just a few more to go!

Some of the domed rivet heads

Some of the flush rivet heads

Sister loco 178 having piloted 80151 from Horsted Keynes

178 at Horsted Keynes (Stephen Garrett)

Display Banner on the Sales Stand (Jonathan Pegg)

The sales stand on Platform 1 (Jonathan Pegg)

Display Boards (Jonathan Pegg)

Remember, all of this has been possible with the generosity of people like you that are interested in the project.
Without your support we cannot carry on at the same rate experienced so far.
Please donate anything you can afford if you would like to see our efforts and passion come to a successful end.
A donation of £27 would go a long way towards our aim.
(with gift aid that becomes £33.75)


If you can help us, please make your donation on line at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/27

You can also give via standing order to the Bluebell Railway Trust (please contact us for a form) or regular payments via VirginMoneyGiving.

We are a completely self funded group of Bluebell Railway Volunteers working hard to look after and promote the small locomotive fleet on the Bluebell Railway.

Burgess Hill Model Railway Exhibition

Sales and Information stand event

A quick update on the sales and Information stand "road show" events coming up for the rest of the year.  It looks like a really busy September!


On the 7th of September we will be attending the annual Burgess Hill Model railway Exhibition at Burgess Hill Girls School in Keymer Road (RH15 0EG). The opening hours are from 10am until 5pm.
For further information please take a look at the web site for the event -  https://www.burgesshillmrc.org.uk/exhibitions where you will find a list of the exhibitors and traders.  Our loyal volunteers will be glad to meet you and chat with you regarding  the restoration of our historic loco. 


Other events we will be at (subject to weather and volunteer availability) will be:


September 14th/15th - Bluebell Railway "Behind the Scenes"- Platform 1 adjacent to the shop
September 28th/29th - Worthing Model Railway Club Exhibition Durrington High School
                                     For further information please visit http://www.worthingmrc.co.uk/exhibition
October 12th/13th - Bluebell Railway "Giants of Steam" weekend  - Platform 1 adjacent to the shop


There are a couple of working days coming up in September and October which will see further riveting taking place as well as a myriad of other jobs large and small.  We are going through a stage where a lot o0f hard work is going on, but to the casual observer, nothing much changes!  please be rest assured that work is progressing at a fairly rapid rate.  We are looking forward to seeing a rolling chassis in the not too distant future!


If you can help us, please make your donation on line at:
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/27


We are a completely self funded group of Bluebell Railway Volunteers working hard to look after and promote the small locomotive fleet on the Bluebell Railway.


Thank you

Restoration Update August 2019

Mid Summer Update

 

To the casual observer, maybe not much has changed, but with over 400 holes previously drilled we have slowly been setting up the frames over the summer. 

We have been carefully aligning the various frame plates, reaming through and countersinking the appropriate holes. Over the course of 3 weekends or so started to rivet up the frames, mainly concentrating on the rear drag box.

As well as this work has continued, with much thanks to the bluebell’s workshop staff and machine shop Forman, fettling and finishing off the final machining of our cylinder block in house. Following splitting the block into the LH & RH halves and carrying out some further machining we will be ready to trial fit the block back into the frames! This will represent a great step forward towards the completion of the rolling chassis.

Ian Furgeson, one of our volunteer machinist’s has been busy machining our piston heads to size and re-bushing the spring hanger brackets in preparation for these being re-fitted in the appropriate places. 

 

Help us to keep up our progress and donate today by clicking the link below!

 

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/27

The Rear Buffer Beam with the initial rivets installed

The initial rivets in place for the rear buffer beam

Some of the many rivets installed for the building up of the rear dragbox

Riveting the rear frames and dragbox

Work continues on setting up the rear dragbox with rivets in place

Spring Hanger re-bushed awaiting refitment

Spring hanger brackets waiting re-fitment with the alignment tool shown

Re-machined piston heads

Re-machined piston head ring groves freshly machined by our volunteer machinist Ian Furguson

Alignment button hole drilled and machined ready for it's marking out button to be fitted.

Button installed

Installed button

One of 12 alignment buttons now permanently installed.

There are six of these on either side of the engine directly opposite each other, with their centres pop marked.  They are set on the horizontal ride height line equally spaced either side of the three axle centres. The buttons are used as our fixed datum points to measure from and set up the various components of the engine such as the cylinder block position.  They will also be used for finding the centres of the axle boxes for machining and fitting them, setting the centres of the coupling rods for machining and fitting, and the list goes on! In effect they are extremely important and are the datum points for building the engine accurately and enable it to run freely maintenance free for many years.

Meanwhile the rear draw hook locating plate has been riveted on

A close up to show the head of one of the countersunk rivets employed

Following the recent Network Rail Working Week followed up by some extra preparation, the sandboxes are almost ready to be re-fitted

The brake hangers being attended to following an initial gritblasting

We are proceeding quite nicely with the restoration and it is great to hear feedback from our supporters.  However for us to continue to maintain this level of work, we rely on the donations and purchases made to the fund.  We appreciate this and hope that we will continue to receive the level of funding we have enjoyed in the past.

If you could help us with any donation, large or small, we would be extremely grateful, every little helps as they say.

Please remember that we have a new donations platform for accepting your donations which will help us to complete the restoration of SECR Locomotive No.27.  This can be found at:

  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fund/27
And please gift aid your donation if you are able to

Please remember that our progress can only carry on with your help.  We are completely self-funded group.
Thank you for your continued support.