Another rather damp weekend with Keith Wright, Robin Fransham, Mark Hallet & myself in attendance.

After some rather good detective work by Mark, a special design relay was obtained for the DSD speed switch circuit board. This was repaired first thing and the box remounted on 56040 (but not before it was dropped on my head! – lump available as proof!) An attempt was made to start her, but the batteries were just that little bit too tired to get the speed up, so she was put on charge for the morning whilst work began on removing the axle box covers. The covers were removed to check the condition of the bearings and the grease, the outermost being very awkward as the cab steps had to be removed first! Sounds a fairly easy task, but in reality took several hours to complete – again I was to be found in my usual Saturday position of under the bogies!
These checks revealed no problems with clean soft grease around the bearings with no signs of damage or corrosion. Robin went round with the grease gun and gave each axle a few squeezes of grease, and then went round the break rigging and traction motor blower bearings all lubed up nicely. Investigation into the speedo fault revealed a wiring problem on No.1 end cab, there are two positives and two negatives in the wiring loom behind the desk for the speedo’s, a pair of each for the main speedo and another pair for the slow speed speedo, somehow both positives were wired on the slow speed speedo, whilst both negatives were wired on the main speedo! This was rectified and everything was ready for testing.

Oystermouth burst into life, but after a few minutes the air was not building as expected, a rather large gushing noise was heard coming from the parking brake frame. Upon investigation it was found that the parking brake interlock valve had stuck, the engine was shutdown and air isolated from the parking brake. The valve was stripped down to reveal that it was full of that wonderful substance that gets everywhere – water! The valve was removed from the loco, stripped, freed and lubricated before being rebuilt and replaced on the frame. Time to press the button again with fingers crossed! This time she fired up and was building fine, checks revealed that whilst removing the interlock valve, we had accidentally damaged one of the pipes leading to the valve – one of the problems associated with fixed pipework which has to be strained to release valves etc. This was patched for testing purposes with a solution Heath Robinson would have been proud of! Air then built up nicely and she took power straight away with no problems!

The DSD time was allowed to elapse and this dumped the main air pipe confirming that the newly repaired DSD box/relay was working, after 2 minutes time delay the pipe was returned and power could be obtained again. A quick trundle up the siding proved that the main speedos in both cabs were working, and on the return the slow speed control was switched in proving the slow speed speedo’s were working – and that the traction control module worked well as she was increasing/decreasing power in order to keep a steady speed. We shut her down for the night, removed the temporary repaired pipe and another pipe from the unloader valves so that replacements can be manufactured. All in all a rather wet but successful day!

This working party was a lot smaller than usual, due to the working party having to be split over two weekends (this weekend and the next), due to problems with availability of personnel. Keith Wright dropped in on Saturday morning and did a bit more work on the No 1 cab, before going off to work at a model railway exhibition, while Graham Miles worked on rubbing down No 2 cab over the weekend. Jon Batley spent the weekend working on the loco steps, and was joined on Sunday by Sean Sharples who did a bit more bogie work, and Oli Smith who worked on the No 1 cab nose end, removing the horn grill for de-rusting.

Back up at the Sleeping Coach, our younger member Josh Quirk helped Jane Bibey with the toilet and drain cleaning, and cooking the members meals (before Jane hits me, please note that this wasn’t done at the same time ! !). Jane also learned the hard way, that she needs to check that Josh has wound his watch up, before asking him to take the fudge brownies out of the oven at a certain time. Chocolate Fudge Charcoal anyone ????

While all this was going on, I drew the short straw again, and was exiled to the “Black Hole of Calcutta” that masquerades as the inside of “Oystermouth”, to start the repairs on the blown air pipe under the walkway in the electrical cubicle. One of the air pipes that passes through the underside floor plate had rusted through at the union which passes through the plate, which had then burst during an initial test of the air system. The original plan of action was to disconnect the air pipe underneath the loco by the bogie, disconnect the air pipe inside the electrical cubicle, and cut out the damage union out using a 2″ Starrett cutter.

That was the plan, but events turned out a little different. An earlier attempt to start this work had foundered, due to not having a 30mm crowfoot spanner to undo the air pipes underneath and inside the loco. Now equipped with this crucial (and expensive) tool, this part of the job was completed relatively easily, and the underside pipe was sealed up to stop dirt falling into it and causing problems later on. The next stage was to cut out the the damaged union.

It was at this stage that we hit a few problems. The first problem was that a second union was found to have a fracture, which would burst in time, so this would have to be dealt with at the same time. With the air pipes to this second union disconnected and sealed up as well, cutting could start. This is where the second problem came to light, namely that the underside floor plate while not that thick, was a tough as old boots. I’m not 100% sure it was mild steel, more like armour plate. By the end of cutting, the 2″ Starrett cutter was totally blunted and burnt out. And it was also borrowed from another group on the MNR, and will need replacing ! !

The third problem was that very near to where I was cutting, the floor appeared to be alright, but the heavy vibrations from the cutting soon shook the rust out, leaving a few small holes, near to the other air pipe unions. This might mean we have to do more dismantling and cutting later on, and then re-plate a larger area. This could be real fun in such a confined space.

The next thing we need to do, is get two new new bulkhead unions manufactured, which is now in hand. Once these are back with us, we have to decide what to do with the underside floor plate, regards cutting out the rest of the rust, and then re-assemble everything. Another b###s ache of a job lies ahead.