A Major Step Forward
With the weather firmly on our side the restoration team, led by Matt, has made great
progress towards achieving the goal of erecting the new frames
by the end of the year!
With a few weekends and a couple of days holiday to spare
Matt and Ben have all but completed the drilling of all the holes in the new
frame plates! This is great news and a major step forward in the rebuilding of the loco.
Following on from the drilling, reaming and tapping of the holes in the frames, all of the horn slots
must be machined square prior to the erection of the frames. Hopefully this will be carried out before the weather changes and working outside becomes untenable.
Also, at the July working day the team got
together and took the plunge. The disassembling of the remains of the old
frames, turning it into a flat pack P tank! The pictures below show the process taking place.
We also welcomed Russ Hubner to the team who made
himself most helpful drilling and shelling out broken stays in the front
counterweight! pictures of this process are also below.
The opportunity was also taken to have a good clear up of
our little site and set-up a new area with better forklift access for
assembling the new frames. This involved placing the wheels on their track panel where the old frames were to allow better access for working on the new frames. You can get an impression of the changes from the aerial photo below.
Temporarily we have placed the cab in this area to
help Clive Emsley and his team of Network Rail Employees who are giving their Charity works days
assisting in the cleaning up and painting the cab and helping to preserve it from any further deterioration until the restoration of the cab is carried out.
Offsite the cylinder blocks, as well as all of the fitted
bolts and studs, will soon be machined at Statfold Barn with an expected
completion date set for the end of October. So hopefully by the "Giants of
Steam" event we should have the new block back on site and ready to fit!
We are progressing well but we can only keep up the good
work with regular donations from all you kind folk so if you feel you'd like to
help us, be it a small or large donation, then please visit our online donate
page below and help us see 27 run once again!
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| A birds-eye view of the July Working day with Russ busy shelling out and removing old stays in the front counterweight (Bottom left) and Ben and Sean removing the final few rivets in the old frames (top right) before dismantling. The new frames can be seen (now drilling has been completed) outside the villa. |
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| The leading wheel set temporarily placed on the tramway outside Atlantic House, with Beachy Head's boiler in the background |
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| Matt gas cutting some of the final rivets holding the old frames together! |
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| A close up of the operation to remove the final rivets |
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| The re-build team busy working away at disassembling the old frames |
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| Sean partakes of a quick cup of tea before the final push to remove the last pieces of useful items from the frames |
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| Matt making sure the lift will go correctly prior to lifting out the motion plate |
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| The motion plate is removed without too much effort |
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| Russ hard at work shelling out old broken studs from the front counterweight |
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| Shelling out I hear you ask! This is the process of removing a snapped stud in a threaded hole. It involves grinding the remains of the old stud flush with surface then drilling out the centre of the stud. The process is completed using a shelling tool to collapse the remains of the stud into the centre hole. This (hopefully) saves the threaded hole for future use following a clean up of the threads. |
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| The disassembly process begins with the removal of the frames from the frame stands and placing on the ground |
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| The frame stands are moved away and the frames are ready to be put down |
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| And rest! the frames are placed on the ground ready for the final stretcher and the temporary stays to be removed |
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| With the last stretcher removed the chains are rejigged for the final phase, the splitting of the frames by removing the temporary stays |
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| Finally the frames are dismantled the last piece being moved out of the way. |
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| A close up of the marking out and scribing ready for the horn openings to be machined |
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| Plenty of marking out on the frame plates ready for the machining of the horn openings |
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| A close up showing the holes now drilled and some marked up for threads to be tapped |
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| The original 1910 frames flat packed in the yard at Sheffield Park |
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| The site now rearranged and tidied up. The cab has been placed in the area ready for preservation work to be carried out to arrest the deterioration of it. This work is programmed to be carried out by a group of Network Rail staff during their charity engagement days. The team will be led by Clive Emsley during the week following this weekends "Steaming Through the Ages" event, and before the following weekends working day. Hopefully it will look good following the process! |
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| The rejigged are showing the "flat packed" frames, the wheels and other bits and pieces. |
Our thanks go to Matt Holloway who not only is leading the project, had time to supply these fantastic pictures for the BlogSpot.
Sales and Information Stands
We are attending a few more events this year (so you have not missed your opportunity to buy one of our new tee shirts!) These start with this weekends "Steaming Through The Ages" We will be located at Sheffield Park on Platform 1 by our tanks (hopefully).
Please come along and say hello, there may be an opportunity for a couple of tours to see the frames and working site though this is subject to confirmation.
Other events this year include:
- Burgess Hill Model Railway Exhibition 1st of September
- Shareholders Weekend - Sheffield Park - 8th & 9th September (to be confirmed)
- Worthing Model Railway Exhibition 22nd & 23rd September
- Giants of Steam - Sheffield Park - 13th and 14th October
- West Sussex N gauge Group Exhibition 3rd & 4th November
We look forward to seeing and talking to you at any of these events.
Please remember that the work can only continue with the donations, support and interest that is forthcoming from all of our supporters.
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