Wheely good Progress!

Lots of noise and dust!

At the weekend, Matt and his merry band of mainly willing volunteers spent a few happy hours working on the wheel sets.  The first thing to do was to needle gun the years of paint and surface corrosion from all the nooks and crannies.  This is a very noisy and not particularly pleasant job, but vital to the looks of the finished product! The needle gun consists of a series of rods which are fired back and forth by compressed air in a similar way to a chipping hammer or cold chisel would if doing it by hand.  It is much quicker, more fun and definitely more interesting!

Matt and Georgie needle gunning the backs of the wheels on the driving axle (Photo Rueben Smith)

Following the needle gunning the surfaces were cleaned and degreased before a coat of red oxide paint was applied.  The aim is to get the wheels up to a top coat before the Flying Scotsman Event so that we can show the loco will look like when it is finally painted in the Maunsell Lined Southern Green livery.

Jam still on overtime!

The jam still was on overtime last week producing Strawberry Jam, Redcurrant and Rhubarb Jam and Cherry Jam.  The fruit for these was donated to the fund by a friend and supporter in Belgium who was clearing her deep freeze!  The fruit was all grown on a small holding near Hasselt and no chemicals were used in their production.  The jars were supplied by Gardener & Scardifield of Lancing who let us have the jars for a good price, we thank them for this.


We will be selling the jams and other items at the Diesel weekend and the Flying Scotsman event before packing up ready for the Wealden Railways Group model railway exhibition in Steyning on the 22nd of April.

What we need to do!

We are initially looking for a rolling chassis to be well on the way before we turn our attention to the thorny question of the boiler! It is likely to cost us in the region of £27,000 to complete the rolling chassis at current estimates.  This is broken down into the two frame plates, wheel turning, new cast and machined cylinders plus two buffer beams, side valances, rear drag box and a few other bits. 




We will need to find the money to pay for this work through the generosity of our supporters that regularly donate, spend money on our stalls and any other methods we can think of to raise funds!




Thank you for reading this far and for your continued support.




Clive D. Emsley
Chairman - The Fenchurch Fund
Project Manager - PROJECT 27
A Sub-Committee of the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society
www.bluebell-railway.co.uk
http://wainrightsfinestsecr27.blogspot.co.uk/

Why not support us by making a donation at
http://www.justgiving.com/Project27
Or for Text donations Simply text "FENC72 £10" to 70070 to donate £10
    - you can donate £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10;
    - you can also elect to Gift Aid your donation;
    - your operator's standard text charge applies.

No 27 back on the rails (well some of it!)

A short report on last weekends activities

Last Saturday Matt Holloway lead a team of mainly willing volunteers laying a short section of track just in front of the frames of 27 to put the wheels on.  This serves to stop any erosion of the wheels that were turned by moving them from the damp ash onto a more controlled surface.  It also means that they are at a better working height for some of the more ancient members of the working team and of course they are out of the way of the Class 2 project and other groups that use the area between the Villas and Atlantic House.

The track panel ready to receive the wheels (all pictures courtesy Matt Holloway)

The panel was made up using some of the redundant materials removed from the recent trackwork on the single line, thanks to the P.Way gang for selecting 4 decent sleepers and the short lengths of rail. (and delivering it as a flat pack too!)


The wheels were moved from the place they were temporarily stored and placed on the track in the right order and the right way round so as to reduce the confusion later.

Moving the wheel sets note the RL painted on the wheel

Each of the wheels has a code painted on them which signifies the position of that wheel when re located on the loco.  for example, RL can be seen on the wheel in the picture above. This denotes that the wheel is the Right Leading wheel. other codes are RD and RT for Right Driving and Right Trailing.  The same applies for the left side!

The Trailing wheels in position about to be joined by the Driving Wheels

Each pair of wheels have been scotched to arrest any movement of the wheels as can be seen in the picture above.  The Driving wheels are about to be added to the track.  You can just make out the protection of the bearing surfaces such as the crank pins and motion on the driving axle.  This protection needs to be renewed at regular intervals to prevent corrosion of the surfaces.

The wheel sets in their new home!

The wheelsets are now in a position that they are not in contact with the damp earth and being on a track panel are at a good level form working on them.  Now we need to sort out the painting!  This will involve cleaning the years of added paint off them and applying coats of primer, undercoat and top coat ready for lining when the time comes!  It is hoped that the cleaning and painting will begin within the next few weeks (weather permitting).

The wheelsets in their new home with parts from 34059 in front of them.

The work was carried out by Matt Holloway who had a good team with him and our thanks go to them too, they are: Georgina Geddes, Andy Kelly, Ben Dingley and Dan Roberts. Without their help the job would have taken much longer.


You will be able to see our progress during the 4 core days of the Flying Scotsman visit as we are intending to have a display and sales stand adjacent to the frames/wheels. 


Thank you for your continued interest in the project and please do keep popping back to see what progress we are making.

Clive D. Emsley
Chairman - The Fenchurch Fund

Project Manager - PROJECT 27
A Sub-Committee of the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society
www.bluebell-railway.co.uk

http://wainrightsfinestsecr27.blogspot.co.uk/

Why not support us by making a donation at

http://www.justgiving.com/Project27
Or for Text donations Simply text "FENC72 £10" to 70070 to donate £10
    - you can donate £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10;
    - you can also elect to Gift Aid your donation;
    - your operator's standard text charge applies.