Saturday 28th March:

Attendance: 2

Dave G was already there when Jason arrived however there was a power cut in the support coach, Dave was having difficulty in finding the cause of the fault, but Jason then got on the case and it took a while to troubleshoot the problem, meanwhile Dave was giving a tour to another visitor (A Mr Shane Horsfaul) who had come down to look at the locos and was interested in becoming a volunteer, meanwhile after isolating the electrical fault to one of the plugs on the new coach extension cable it was found to be full of water, this required the effected plug dismantled and dried out. Once this was done the plug was rebuilt & re-secured under the coach frames in such a way that water could not get into it again, after that the breakers were reset and power to the coach restored. Then time for a cuppa.

For the rest of the day Dave & Jason never really got going on anything major, it just seemed to be one of those days. A job that did need doing was the removal of the snail duct from the other Traction Motor Blower that was stored in the generator compartment. Jason unbolted this with Dave help, the snail was then taken outside onto a nearby bench and the air guide ring and mesh guard were removed. Later that day Dave decided to have a tidy up in the tool store, something that was well overdue, the rest of the day was taken up by minor jobs of little importance…so ended the Saturday.

Sunday 29 th March:

Attendance: 5

Sunday was much better, the weather was good and that allowed the tarp over the loco to be pulled right back to the cab exposing the roof, Rob M had bought along his young son Dylan and he was set a number of painting jobs throughout the day that he worked his way through at a relentless pace starting off with some undercoating on some parts on the bench. Meanwhile in the loco plans were afoot to move both the Traction Motor Blowers onto the L/H sole bar at the cab end ready for taking away on the Monday, but first all the body side doors that are stored in the Generator compartment had to be moved out the way. An area in the coach had been cleared and Jason, Chris & Rob carried the doors down the loco length and back into store in the coach, after this was done the TMB in the nose end was moved out onto the sole bar and slid along it up to the other end when it was met with the other motor, with these now in position everyone went off to do their own jobs. Jason got out the gunning gear and made a start on Gunning the L/H front corner of the engine, Rob got out a ladder and started on the L/H cant rail grilles at the cab end, and Chris B went into the cab to continue the job of stripping out the piping, batons, old wiring and taking reference photos for later.

Meanwhile Dylan had moved onto another painting job this time it was gloss green and the lamp irons & spacer collars from the cant rail hand rails, Dave G who was also about today set himself up with the task of drelling the other TMB Snail outside - this would take him most of the day.

As the day wore on Dylan did yet more painting; green primer on the first TMB snail in the workshop then glossing the brackets off the engine manifold and electrical conduits. Chris B had removed all the redundant water heater piping from the under floor of the cab, Rob had worked his way along the side of the roof towards were Jason was working and Jason had taken all day to drell the front corner of the power unit. As the day drew to close Rob & Dylan teamed up to primer paint the other TMB snail that Dave had finished drelling after which it was taken into the workshop to dry, the tarp was re-secured over the loco and so ended another successful days work on D8233.

Monday 30 th March:

Attendence: 3

This was an extra day tagged onto the end of the weekend mainly to get some of the electrical machines sent away for renovation in Chris Bailys garage workshop and get the cooling fan & motor off the Co-Bo back from overhaul at Solutions Engineering after the completion of its renovation. Jason & Chris stayed over an extra day and Jim had hired a van for the purposes of transportation. First stop was a quick trip over to Castlecroft yard to fetch the exhausters. There had been some confusion and the wrong exhausters had been craned out as the ones for D8233 were still buried under a tarp next to the stored power units in the yard. After uncovering the exhausters, Malcolm Kirkwood drove the Coles crane for us and both Westinghouse exhausters were carefully extracted, after being moved around to the loading point one was dropped onto a hydraulic lifting platform and the other was left on the ground. Jason gave them both a quick blast over with the steam cleaner as Jim arrived in the rental van, it was a bit of an effort to load the first exhauster using the lifting platform on the uneven ground but after a bit of extra muscle it was shoved into place, the 2 nd exhauster was loaded by the crane after that the platform it self was man handles into the van. That done, it was off to Baron Street.

On arriving at Baron Street the tarp was pulled up around the generator area on the L/H side and the platform was unloaded. First of all it was the Co-Bo fan motor, fan, fan cover and motor cover to be unloaded, this motor is heavier than it looks and needed the platform to shift it, Steve Moreton had come down from Buckley Wells shed to give us additional assistance at this point and the Platform was moved alongside the loco then it was raised up to sole bar height and the fan motor was rolled across, then it was the turn of the first TMB motor to be moved back to van. The loading system was now reversed and both TMB motors were moved in this way. Afterwards all that remained to do was to re-secure the TMB motors and exhausters in the back of the van with tie down straps, then button up the tarp on the loco and send the van on its way. After returning to Castlecroft to unload the platform, Chris in his car and Jim in the van departed to unloaded the motors at his workshop. Job Done.

The next working weekend is on 25/26 April. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton