Saturday 22nd May

Attendance: 5

With all the frantic activity going on with D8233 over the last couple of months, work on D5705 has taken the back seat somewhat, however as this was a scheduled Co-bo working weekend and the fact that a party of representatives from Hattons model shop & Heljan were coming down to photograph & measure up D5705 for the planned limited edition OO scale model that Hattons is commissioning the co-bo would very much be the centre of attention this weekend, and in order for the the Hattons & Heljan guys to get at D5705 it had to be shunted down the siding its on and the tarpaulin pulled back to expose the loco for viewing, for this job alone we needed more hands than normal so the turnout today was quite good at five.

The first task was to get the loco shunted out, this involved disconnecting the power supplies from the locos first, making sure they were uncoupled from the coaches behind, then Andy Hardman came down and borrowed the works shunter 08479 and used that to couple upto the rest of the stock on the siding and after removing the chocks & handbrakes pushed up to the locos, D8233 was just in front of D5705 in the row and after coupling they were pulled back until D5705 was clear of the shed wall, they then uncoupled D8233 and pulled it clear so that there was a clear space all around it was then that the job of removing the tarp was done.

The tarp is very heavy, its an Ex-class 66 tarp so is slightly longer than D5705 and as such all the excess was wrapped around the No2 end which is the end we decided to uncover first, it was soon found after unwrapping the excess tarp that a large section of it was torn and this made the job of pushing it over the top of the cab very difficult, eventually it was over and they tied on rope so that it could be pulled back either side, however soon it got folder over and began to fall off to one side, the torn section being the main problem so a decision was taken to cut off the torn bit, that done the tarp was re-centred and it could be then be pulled back until half the loco was uncovered, we didn’t pull the tarp right off as its so heavy it would have been nearly impossible to pull back over so instead we would only uncover one half of the loco at a time.

This is the first time that the No2 end of the loco has been uncovered since the loco was taken out of the Bury transport museum in March 2008, still the Hattons/Heljan party had arrived and they set about taking photos and measurments, at which they were quite thorough, even done to the thickness of the cab window rubbers, after the No2 end had been processed it was time to uncover the No1 end bit first the tarp had to be pulled back over the 2 end, the 1 end was successfully pulled back to half way and the measuring continued and by 12:30 they were about done so the tarp could be pulled over again and the loco shunted back into position with everything back in place and fully secured by around 2 o’clock.

The weather had be hot & sunny so everyone was keen to cool down during the afternoon after the main event, and things mostly concentrated on renovating the exhaust ports of D8233, Adam on the other hand had a little side job of refitting the build plates to the radiator side frames, this he managed to complete and the work wound down for the day.

Sunday 23rd May

Attendance: 2

After the excitement of the previous day this would be a little more sedate, Jason was mostly concentrating on carrying out preparation tasks for the up and coming start-up attempt on D8233 engine so it was up to Adam to carry on with Co-bo work, now more recently Rob Mason has been coming up mid week and doing little bits on D5705, he’s taking home pipe work for renovation and bringing them back all nice & freshly painted and he has also been progressing the job of de-greasing, drelling and painting up the Exhauster stands and immediate floor are between them, the brake frame and main generator cable trunking, the floor in this area was particularly mucky and it took several attempts before the floor de-greased enough to allow primer painting to be carried out, Rob had only managed to paint the exhauster stands but the floor area was still to do and this is where Adam steps in.

During the morning Adam managed to finish the de-greasing and drelling of the central floor area and proceeded to apply the green anti-corrosive primer paint, however it was stiflingly hot in the object as the blazing sun beat down on the tarp and outer body of the loco, Adam did his best to open the doors to provide a draught but it did little to cool things down, so after he had done this and the other painting of undercoat grey on both exhauster stands and the floor treads inside the R/H genny side door, he decided to take a break from the heat and set up another task one that he could do on the workbench outside in the fresh air.

He set up the needle gunning equipment and got out the upper genny bulkhead plate than has been sat in the support coach since it was test fitted into the loco after bringing down from Castlecroft, so by using the needle gun he set about gunning both sides of the plate though he did find that the paint around the aperture the exhaust passes through was quite hard and difficult to loosen with the needle gun, so for some section he used am aggressive drelling wheel instead, once done he took the bulkhead plate inside and hung it up in the paint cab and painted it with green primer using the roller.

By this time it was early after noon and things had cooled down a little in the loco, Adam returned to find that his paint had dried so he applied the follow on coats, first he painted both the exhauster stand with gloss black paint, he then continued to paint the rest of the floor space up to the genny bulkhead with the grey undercoat, that would leave only the rest of the floor to be painted black next time, with all that done it was time to tidy up and go home, Even though it doesn’t seem like that much is going on with this loco at the moment and with all the attention centred on the Class 15 over the last couple of months that’s understandable but after D8233 start-up in June we should see a shift towards working on D5705 as we prepare for craning bits back in later on in the year, so the good stuff is yet to come.

The next working weekend on D5705 is 19/20 June. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton

Above : Most of the floor upto the genny bulkhead has now been undercoated. © C15PS