DEPOT.
Work recommenced on sorting the stores, some real progress is now being seen, and it is starting to become easier to work as things are now getting allocated into slots in the racking, even more pallets on order.
You may recall that recently we have had new quarterlight windows made for 55009, well guess what was found on a top layer of the racking? That’s right, a full loco set along with the former for making new ones. We didn’t even know that we had these. Several more pallets of Spanner Boiler spares were also located, these will be offered to the group who purchased the last lot at the end of Covid. A Zero Miles Mileometer was also found, cleaned and painted ready for storage. One of the spare exhaust collector drums was also liberated for the removal of a few parts for the one off 423, this was found to be in far better condition so it will be cleaned and used.
POWER UNIT 423
Bit more cleaning off 40 years+ of grime whilst others were removing the old internal hoses, these were obtained from ERIKS in advance as part of our replenishment process. It is pleasing to report that this team had most of the internal hoses replaced by the end of the day.
55009.
Apart from the quarter light windows, see above, the only other work was to replace the 24” Adjusting Valve in the No 1 nose end which was returned from calibration and testing at Railway Brake Services a couple of days ago.
55015.
Well, what can I say, it's still fighting back at us. The loco was shunted out earlier in the week to allow it to be run up for the 'Delectricians' to do some further systems testing. Once the loco was running on 538 the team set about their work. Unfortunately, all was not as we had expected and a lot of searching around was done to identify why it would not do as they were expecting. Fortunately, by the end of the day the final issue was identified, it was now getting late and extremely cold so work will continue next week. Just before starting to write this, I had a call to confirm that they are convinced that they have the solution after several hours of studying the diagrams.
Mike Hallam-Rudd.
Pics by Steve Clark, 15 start up and Trevor inside 423
Mike, Mileometer and New Hoses inside 423
Trevor removing an old and very stubborn hose
New hoses inside the triangle of 423
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