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News Update 24/25 March 2012
The weekend’s work consisted of routine ash disposal and walk round to check that everything was okay with the locomotive. We now have a break until our next run, that being the OE British Pullman excursion to Bristol on the 11th of April, and so a start has been made on preparation for the trip. This is always appreciated as it takes some of work load off the support crew detailed for the trip and who normally start work the day before the run, as they say; “Every Little Helps”.
It was noticed that a new taper pin would be desirable on one of the combination levers, so we took the opportunity and one was duly made.
The current firehole door is still serviceable but is becoming tired in places. We have acquired a new casting and a start to machining this up was made over the weekend. When an opportunity arises we can change them over.
In compartment two of our support coach “Mercator”, the sliding door wouldn’t shut properly. As anyone who has ever tried to renew a door on a coach will know; it is quite a big job to do. You have to take some of the boarding off around the door and also a piece of the strip lighting down. The problem was found to be one the tensioning wheels that “had seen better days” so this was replaced and the whole lot was reassembled.
As you may, or may not be aware, we occupy space in a shed used by Orient Express which means that it is quite a busy with many different people working in it. Because of this we try and keep it as clean as possible, not easy with a Steam loco trying to keep it as mucky as it can and as we are safety aware, we have the “glory job” of steam cleaning the shed floor as often as we can. Sadly steam cleaning does not consist of us opening the cylinder drain cocks on the loco and letting Clan Line do the work for us, we have got an industrial steam cleaner that we put through its paces instead.
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