Thursday 3 rd January:

Attendance 2:

Adam and Jason decided to go to Bury a couple of days earlier than normal. Following the festive greetings and a cup of tea a plan of campaign was decided upon. The plan was to tackle one of the last outstanding areas to allow the Bo bogie to be reassembled and this was to treat the springs. So the plan was to sandblast the springs utilising the sandblasting cabinet in the loco works next door to the C15ps coach. 6 of the 8 sets of springs (2 sets had already been wire wheeled) had been transported down to the coach at an earlier working weekend. So Adam and Jason carried one set of springs (a spring set is made up of an inner and an outer spring) round to the works to test out the sand blasting cabinet.

Jason located the power source for the Sandblasting cabinet and following a quick test and a top up of the shot blast a start was made on one of the springs. The smaller spring was placed inside of the cabinet and Adam gave the spring a good blasting. After about 20 minutes work there were two things to note, there was absolutely no visibility within the cabinet while sandblasting so a lot of it was going to have to be done by touch and that this was going to be a very time consuming job. Once the first spring was completed it was taken back to the coach. Then Adam and Jason transported some more of the springs around to the works.

So while Adam continued on with the sandblasting Jason set up an angle grinder with a wire wheel so that he could drell the spring ready for a coat of paint. While he was doing this Adam brought back the one of the larger springs, this still had remnants of paint on it as it was in an awkward location. Jason had an idea that the needle gun would be able to get into the paint and remove it. So Jason then set up the needle gun and got the two spring's drelled and painted with a coat of green primer paint.

This is how much of the day continued. Adam was sandblasting a couple of springs at a time and then he carried them through to the coach where Jason then needle gunned if required any old paint and then drelled the springs. This carried on until mid-afternoon when Adam finished the last of the springs. He tidied up the area around the sandblasting cabinet and then returned to the coach. Jason was working his way through a few springs which needed needle gunning. Adam continued on with the drelling of the springs and by late after afternoon all of the springs had been drelled and needle gunned.

After a quick cup of tea Jason and Adam made a start on painting the springs into green primer. This proved to be an awkward and messy job particularly painting the insides of the springs. Jason came up with the idea of attaching a bent paint brush to a long screw driver and this proved to be very successful in cutting down the mess and the time it was taking to paint the insides of the springs. They spent what was left of the afternoon painting the springs and once completed they decided to call it a day once they had tidied up the paint brushes and all of the tools. It had proved to be a good day and had broken the back of one of the last major tasks.....

Friday 4 th January:

Attendance 4:

Today Jason and Adam would be joined by Stephen Smith and Phil Cribbin. First job of the day was to treat one of the dampers from the Bo bogie. As none of the dampers were leaking and they seemed to be in a good state it was decided that these would just be drelled back to bare metal and painted... So Adam gave this a quick drelling as the paint and rust came off really easily and then it was given a coat of primer. Then Adam, Jason and by this time Steve set off up to Castlecroft to dig out some items for the CoBo from CoBo world. The underneath of the CoBo is going to be sandblasted during the summer to ready it for when it will be reunited with its bogies. There are some panels from the water tanks missing and also one of the panels for the fuel tank missing.

On arrival at Castlecroft CoBo world was opened up and a search was undertaken for the parts. As is typical with these things the water tank panels were located at the back underneath a lot of other items so a certain amount of removing Western and CoBo parts was required to get at the items that they were after. Once retrieved the removed parts were put back. A search for the fuel tank cover was undertaken but this could not be located, a piece of wood will be made up to block off the opening when the sandblasting is undertaken if the original cannot be found by then.

While in CoBo world Jason noticed a piece of metal that he thought he recognised. He and Adam dug out it out and they realised that it was a panel for covering an external conduit on the CoBo. After some rummaging around another two covers were located and these were put to one side to take back with them. At this time Phil turned up. All of the parts were loaded into a car and the second damper from the bogie was grabbed from inside Castlecroft shed so that it could be treated. Once loaded everyone returned to Baron Street.

Back at the C15PS coach a cuppa was had and while this was going on the car was unloaded. Some nuts and bolts were located so that the conduit covers could be attached to the loco. Also some nuts were located for the water tank covers so that they could be attached. With the cuppa drunk everyone moved around to where the CoBo is located. On the water tank there are studs with which the covers are secured. The panels for the conduit were lifted into place and then a few bolts for each panel were fed through the holes and tightened up. It was discovered that there are some additional panels required so these will have to be dug out of CoBo world in the near future.

Jason then moved onto fitting the water tank panels He started by drelling a couple of studs for each water tank panel. As he did this Adam, Steve and Phil followed him fitting the covers into place. Two of them supported the panels in place while the third person then fitted the nuts and tightened them up. With these jobs completed it was decided to go inside the CoBo and remind themselves where things were up to inside the CoBo as it had probably been over 12 months since Jason and Adam had last been inside.

It was noted that there are a few outstanding jobs, mainly painting jobs that needed to be completed in the engine compartment. They are small jobs which will not take much time to complete and so will be tackled as and when time permits. The floor in the engine compartment will also need another coat of paint as it is covered in paint drops but again this will be completed as time permits.

As the afternoon was moving on it was decided to go back to the C15PS coach and complete one final job of the day. This was to apply a coat of undercoat to the springs as the primer had dried. The springs were painted as was the damper that had been painted first thing in the morning. Once the painting was completed and the paint brushes cleaned up the time was getting on so they decided to call it a day.

Saturday 5 th January:

Attendance 2:

It was going to be a very short day today as there was a Green Diesel Gala on at the railway and Jason and Adam had decided to have a run out behinds some of the loco's. But they still had time to deal with the second damper. Jason had initially dismantled the damper as a pin holding the tap cover in place had snapped. The snapped off pin was knocked out and then the two parts of the damper were drelled back to bare metal. Then both parts were given a coat of green primer paint. And that was all that was done, Jason and Adam then departed and spent a very enjoyable day at the diesel gala.

If you wish to lend a hand please contact Adam Booth