Saturday 10th September

Attendance 3:

It was going to turn out to be quite a big day for the Class 15 Preservation Society today. Adam and Jason arrived on site and following a cuppa their first job of the day was to source some wood to place under the wheels of two Bo bogies……. These bogies have been living at the Crewe Heritage Centre for the last few years and they contained the correct number of teeth on the gear wheel on the axles of the wheel sets. A couple of old scaffolding boards were sourced and using a circular saw these were chopped into pieces, one piece for each wheel to keep the flanges off the floor. With that complete a brief bit of gardening was carried out to remove the weeds in the area where the bogies were to be placed. Once completed Adam ad Jason broke for a cup of tea.

Following the cup of tea the next job was to start setting up the loco body stands ready for the CoBo lift in a couple of week’s time. First up was to mark out where the 4 concrete sleepers needed to be positioned. Once the position were marked out and a quick check was made to the dimensions then it was time to start digging out the holes. As the concrete sleepers are so heavy wooden sleepers were placed into the holes instead to check for level. The pair of sleepers weren’t level so after some tweaking they were rechecked and found to be level. This had been quite time consuming and as it was nearing lunch time and the bogies were due to arrive imminently it was decided to stop for some food…..

Having just stopped for lunch the bogies arrived....... Chris B arrived first in his car and a few minutes later Alasdair arrived in his truck with the bogies. We made our ways around to where the bogies are to be stored prior to overhaul. Alasdair moved the wagon into place and then got it set up ready for list the bogies off. Then with assistance from Adam the crane was attached to the first bogie and the strain was taken. With the lifting chains taut Adam and Chris then removed the securing straps from the bogie and it was lifted off the back of the wagon. It was then lifted over to where it was to be placed onto the ground and lowered until it was a few inches above the ground. Then Adam, Jason and Chris put the pieces of wood into place under the wheels and the bogies were lowered. A problem was discovered! When the wheels were on the ground the bogie was rolling off the wood. At about this time Malcolm Kirkwood appeared and seeing the problem he went and founds some pieces of wood to wedge under the wheels to stop them rolling forwards. The wood was sourced and placed into place and the bogie lowered and the plan worked perfectly. With that done the lifting chains were removed from the bogie and the crane was moved over so a start could be made on the 2nd bogie. The second bogie was unloaded in a similar fashion and placed on the wood and then Alasdair packed up his wagon and left. Chris, Jason and Adam then spent half an hour or so checking over the bogies seeing what was missing, what had been added and generally what state they are in.

Back to the sleepers. Chris had arranged for a JCB to come and give us a hand to move the concrete sleepers. So the two wooden sleepers were removed from where they had been placed and the JCB lifted in the first sleeper. Then the second sleeper was lifted into place and was checked for level, it was found not to be level (not sure why) but after some rework the sleeper was placed back down and when checked was level. With that done the JCB then picked up the first stand and with some directions the stand was placed across the sleepers, a perfect fit. While that was going on some ground prep was undertaken for the other sleepers and when placed into place they were perfectly level. The JCB was then used to left the 2nd stand onto the sleepers and fitted perfectly. The last job of the day as it had involved a lot of back breaking work was to place some ballast around the sleepers to provide them some support. And with that completed the day came to a close……..

Sunday 11th September

Attendance 3:

Today there would be Adam, Jason and Graham Mortimer working. Today like the previous day would be doing bits on both Loco’s. Adam started off by mixing some car body filler with the hardener and applying it to the Electrical Cubicle door as it had numerous dents and holes in it. This was then left to harden.Jason and Adam then grabbed a couple of shovels and a wheel barrow and went round to where the body stands had been setup the previous day. The plan was to place some ballast around the concrete sleepers that had been set into the ground. Jason and Adam made a start to moving the ballast but it proved to be hard going. It was very hard to get the spades into the ballast. But with perseverance and sweat they managed to surround the four concrete sleepers with the ballast.

In the mean time Graham has been tasked with making a frame to assist with the pulling out of the old Traction Motor cables. The cables are well and truly stuck in the conduits at the moment so the plan is to pull them out with the aid of a winch which will be mounted on the frame. Graham had located some 3 inch angle iron and then thought of a design for the frame. This involved bending the angle iron and to allow the bending he needed to make some cuts in the metal. Graham drew out the metal that needed to be cut then got himself an angle grinder with a cutting disc on it. Then he made the cut. When he had finished making the cuts he required a hand to bend the metal into shape so waited for Jason and Adam to complete their ballasting job.

With Jason and Adam finishing the ballasting they headed back to the coach and while cuppas were made Adam gave Graham a hand by heating up the metal in the area that it needed to be bent. With the metal gripped in the vice and Adam applying heat so that the metal was glowing orange Graham applied pressure and the metal began to bend. This continued until the required angle was reached. The same process was applied for the next bend in the metal and with that completed the frame just required welding up. Some holes had been drilled into the metal to attach the winch to the metal and a dry the frame was taken to the 15 to check that it looked Ok and that there weren’t any obvious problems with the design. By this time it was lunch time so they all broke for some food…..

After lunch Adam and Jason decided to refit the air tank frame to the class 15. This had been sitting in the coach for quite a while now andas the traction motor blower has been re-fitted in the cooler group end of the 15 the frame could now be refitted. So the frame was dug out from behind various items and Jason hunted round and found the bolts for the frame. Then he and Adam carried the frame round to the loco.The frame was lifted into the nose end and placed into position, then the bolts were pushed through the holes, in some cases with a bit of persuasion as the holes didn’t quite line up. However it was found that some of the holes needed to have different length bolts, for example a couple of the bolts appeared directly above the back of the coupling assembly so these needed shorter bolts. So Jason shouting out instructions of which bolted needing to go where Adam swapped them over. With that completed Jason loosely fitted the nuts and spring washers, they then needed tightening up so Jason used a spanner from underneath the loco and Adam tightened them up from above in the cooler group area with a socket and ratchet. Jason found himself in some very awkward positions but they managed to tighten all of the nuts and bolts. The tanks will be added to the frame a later date as they need to be hydraulically tested and cleaned up.

Next up Adam wanted to give the insides of the Class 15 panniers a coat of wood pigeon gloss paint. This would then enable the panniers to be loosely refitted to the 15 in the future and at the same time clearing some space in the container that is the workshop for the engine rebuild. Graham decided to give Adam a helping hand. Adam located the paint and two paint brushes and they made their way out to the container. They set about painting the inside of the panniers. This took around 40 minutes to complete and then the Panniers were left to dry in the container.

The paint brushes were taken back to the coach and Graham cleaned the brushes off with white spirit. While Graham was cleaning the paint brushes Adam gave the Electrical Cubicle door a sand down to remove the excess filler and make the door ready for a coat of undercoat. With some fine sandpaper the door was given a sanding down until the filler areas were smooth to the touch. The door was then wiped down with a cloth soaked in white spirits to remove the dust. Adam then applied a coat of undercoat to the Electrical Cubicle door, this completing the door in undercoat.  This will receive a final gloss coat of hemp in the near future with the view of refitting it soon afterwards. And this brought to an end the days work for both Adam and Graham, they bid Jason farewell and left. Jason finished one last job before leaving, the workshop was in a bit of a state so he tidied away a few tools and then had a sweep up to removed a large amount of muck and with that completed Jason also left. It was another very productive weekend and now everything is ready for the lifting weekend for the CoBo, another big step forwards for the project……