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.

Network Rail Volunteer Week

Annual Volunteer week

Once again this year we organised a week of Volunteering for Network Rail Employees.  This year the week ran from the 1st to the 5th July.  Over the course of the week we welcomed 23 volunteers over the 5 days.  We needed to expand our tasks this year as there is not too much unsupervised work to be done at the moment on 27.  However, we did complete some cleaning and painting on the loco.


The front balance weight having been cleaned and given a coat of bonder primer

the right hand small balance weight having been cleaned and painted

the left hand small front balance weight having been cleaned and painted

One of the pair of front sand boxes having been cleaned back to bare metal before painting

In addition to these pieces that will be returned to the locomotive, a few pieces were cleaned and painted so they can be used as patterns for new pieces to be manufactured.


We also spent some time cleaning Loco 672 Fenchurch in readiness for fitters attention and to make it look a little better.  There was a gang on two days who not only gave the paintwork a glint, but also spent time under the loco with scrapers to remove years of congealed oil and dust.  this will help when the loco is moved into the workshop prior to overhaul.

Part of the cleaning gang in the early stages of cleaning

The state of the wheel backs and springs before cleaning

The connecting rods and brake rigging before painting

The rods and rigging following a coat of paint

We also spent a little time rubbing down and re-varnishing the wooden tops to the tanks which protrude into the cab on the Adams Radial Tank 30583 (488).  This was done to help enhance the splendid livery applied a couple of months ago.  It was intended that 5 coats of varnish would be applied, but time ran out!

The first board with half the first coat of varnish applied

The board with 3 coats of varnish applied returned to the cab

Steve and Sherena painting a small weight

Roxanne getting handy with a wire brush!







Then gang on Wednesday having a well earned tea break

The Thursday gang pose in the sunshine!

NEW DONATIONS PLATFORM

We now have a new 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


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


Thank you for your continued support.