GWR 2806.9

Friday at Toddington

A sunny (and breezy) day at last, excellent for painting a truss outdoors.

Ah, but who stole our truss? It was there last time, there, leaning against the containers on the right. Now it's gone!

After hunting around a bit, behind or on top of containers, we finally found it again. It's in the picture too - can you see it?

 

 

 

The truss got moved because we have contractors in to assemble the steel platform that is going in behind the new goods shed extension, to link it with the containers on the right at first floor level. A fire escape is also part of the assembly.

 

Here is how far the contractors got Friday morning.

The fire escape and railings are still to come.

The breezy day was good for painting, so we were able to wire brush the rust off the truss, apply a dose of Kurust to neutralise what was left, and when that had gone off, we put the remainder of the truss in primer. So that is now ready for its first application of dark stone undercoat.

 

 

The sudden drop in the temperature, and a certain amount of rain earlier, has led to a rethink of the outdoor messing arrangements by the ash pit. Tables and loose chairs have now appeared in the shed, where we were able to sit well apart, and also in a breeze, what with the wide open shed doors. Very safe, that.

We mentioned earlier that there are currently no fewer than 3 GWR 2-8-0s under overhaul in the shed. That must be something of a record. (2807, 2874, and 3850).

Over several days we had a contractor in to rebore the cylinders of 2807. Fascinating stuff. In the picture the kit, which is portable, is being set up.

The cylinders need a rebore eventually, as they wear, or go oval, or get scored. Just under one mm is taken off, so it's not much. It does remove a bit of the original 2807, so maybe it's 2806.9 now?

Later the mechanism doing the rebore was up and running, so we were able to do a little video, which you can see here:

https://youtu.be/pcn73wMNhZc

2874 is of course a Barry wreck, more news of that further down the blog.

3850 is the third of the three, and this one is well advanced, it's really impressive!

No cylinder boring here, 3850 has a completely new set of cylinders! The original pair was severely cracked, so not repairable. A completely new casting was ordered, and it can be seen here, upside down as was GWR practice, having new plating fitted. The green bits are brand new frame extensions, as the originals had been in a rough shunt somewhere along the locomotive's long life. So all in all, 3850 is getting a completely new front end, which is a remarkable achievement. We have the technology!

Outside the shed is 9466, now being made ready for departure on October 1st. Enjoy this last look.

76077 Toddington Standard

There was sign of progress here (the frames are being worked on off site) in our workshop, where this little jewel was being manufactured.

It's a new casting for the sanders being machined.

A blank casting is alongside for comparison. Nice work! Look at the thread inside the hexagon shape.

These new castings don't fall out of a blue sky, they have to be commissioned, purchased and machined. As our 76077 was the last out of Barry, it also has the fewest parts remaining, so we have quite a list of what we still need.

https://standard76077.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Component-Sponsorship-Pricelist-r3.pdf

The team is encouraging our supporters to sponsor individual parts, that is how you can help. If you want to be responsible for one of the parts on the locomotive, do check the list and sponsor something. Some items are too big (we think) for one person to sponsor, so the reversing gearbox for example at £10.500 is split into 75 parts of £140 each. Interestingly enough, we heard from our man with the piggy bank that several individual items have indeed been sponsored so far, but only one of the reversing gearbox shares has been taken up. Only one ???

How about having a go at that? We do need a reversing gearbox...

Otherwise, if you want to help on a regular basis, but perhaps with a smaller amount, set up a standing order, as yours truly has done. £25 per month, in our case, the price of a meal per month. The 76077 supporters site has further details and forms here:

https://standard76077.com/support-76077

Spring hangers are also being machined in the workshop:

Here the end has been machined flat, ready for the oval apperture to be drilled.

 

Nearby was a supply of the forgings required, with those in the next stage (oval hole already machined) on the left.

 

Still to do is to cut a fine BSF thread on the shaft. This is used to adjust the loading on each axle.

A day later, Sunday, saw a lovely crisp and sunny morning, with some interesting shunting in the yard:

Here's Foremarke hall reversing out to collect the 9400, past our new yard lamp. What a great scene!

Some moments later, our Hall returned and can be seen here passing the other GWR yard lamp. Rods down too.

Further to our tidbit in the last blogpost about Chris firing a banking engine up Campden bank, we stand corrected after a chat with him over a cup of tea. The biggest banker he fired up Campden bank was an 8F over 3 days. But - he did fire a 9F, indeed many of them, as a train engine up the bank, which was 4 miles long and which ended in a tunnel.

The 9Fs brought coal trains from S Wales up the Honeybourne line, and turned west into Honeybourne station, where they would run into P3. The loco would then run round, turn on Honeybourne Triangle, reposition itself on the other end of the train, and charge up the bank, needing a good run as those coal trains could be up to 800 tons in weight. The coal train would then be taken to sidings at - Swanbourne. Now, where have we heard that name recently?

As the forecast was good for Sunday, we gave the truss - it turned up on this well wagon, in case you couldn't see it earlier - its first coat of dark stone undercoat. The truss urgently needs to be winterised with two coats of paint on each side, as it is stored outdoors.

 

 

Here's the truss, half way through its first undercoat. Although you may be reading this with the rain pouring outside,  we did have several sunny days recently and this enabled us to finish off painting the truss, with two coats on each side. It can now better stand a little rain.

 

 

We also added to our kit of parts in the new workshop, by bringing over the arched ridge purlin, and these two items for the columns.

Everything on this job is heavy...

In between Neal made himself useful by offering up the floor sections for the large steel platform that is being built at the south end of the goods shed look-alike mess room.

2874 - a Barry survivor

As you probably know, work has started on this amazing survivor of the Barry scrapyard, one of the diminishing number of rescues that is still in the raw. They must be getting quite scarce now, untouched Barry wrecks.

GWR 2874 in the loco shed, with the boiler already removed

This loco was built in 1918, so it's now over 100 years old. It was sent for scrap to Barry in 1963, and spent 24 years there, standing in the rain. In 1987 it was finally purchased and was put into open storage at Blaenavon. After a while it was moved to the WSR, and then into private storage in the W Midlands, all of this outdoors.

Now, finally, the old lady 2874 is indoors at last, and look at the state of her:

Rear dragbox

Area under the cab floor (what cab floor?)

Frame, fireman's side

Rear view of cab end

 

Yours truly is a supporter of 4253, the 2-8-0 tank on the K&ESR. That's a tank engine version of this 2800 class. Their frames at the rear were so badly worn away that about 2ft of the upper half of them had to be cut away and replaced, but it is all do-able. 2874 is not so bad as that, but you get the idea of the work still to come from these pictures.

So it's really heartening to see that this venerable locomotive is finally being restored. As we said earlier, we currently have no fewer than three of these types being worked on in the loco shed, one of which with new cylinders and a new front end. So we certainly have the skills and indeed the facilities at Toddington. Makes you proud, doesn't it?

The group doing this restoration have a website here:

https://www.2874trust.org/

A trip to the foundry

A trip to our friendly local foundry was called for, as we needed to collect 5 chunky iron finials that they had cast for us, using an original once discovered in the undergrowth around the demolished ruins of Broadway station.

The five castings are for Broadway (1), for Winchcombe (2) and for a fellow GWR preserved line (2). They are a good example of the attention to detail in Victorian times. All they do is stop the rain from coming into the top of the running in board and modesty screen posts, but why not make them look stylish as well? They weigh a ton too.

 

 

We also decided to pick up the patterns for the lamp posts that we had cast for Broadway (and for sale) as well as for the ball topped gate post. They are now in secure storage on the railway. So these bits you see in the pictures above are made of wood, an example of the pattern maker's art. The pattern for the Acanthus leaves, typical for a GWR lamp post, is particularly well executed.

While mooching round the foundry's pattern store, we couldn't help noticing a few other examples of well made patterns in wood.

 

Just look at this beautiful seat end pattern, executed as a pair.

What appears to be the end of a canopy or bridge. A huge pattern, and what an art to be able to cast this without mishap!

 

 

 

All sorts of patterns were stored in this corner, no doubt some no longer in use, but you never know. Wheels, columns, crank cases, pulleys, it's a complete walk through our industrial revolution.

It is possible that we may be commissioning further units of the ball topped gate posts. You would need them if you have spearhead fencing on your site, the posts hold up the ends and mark off any gates that go through the fence. We also used two as newel posts for the P1 staircase at Broadway. If you have an interest in these posts, you can drop a line to breva2011 (at) hotmail.co.uk.

Back at Toddington, there was a wonderful atmosphere on Tuesday, as 35006 came back on shed at the end of the working day.

Just parked me motor 'ere...

What was rather striking was that both driver and fireman were what yours truly as a retiree might call 'the younger generation'. We are clearly getting new blood in the loco teams. Great!

After coaling the pacific (you can just make out the bucket of the Telehandler) she was taken round to the yard for topping the tender up with water.

The two new yard lamps and the parachute tank water tower make for a great photo opportunity, and as there is a road right next to this scene, our visitors can take (almost) the same picture.

Here is 35006 almost perfectly posed for the photographer. But we must have a word with the driver about stopping so that the rods are down...

Wednesday on the Usk project

The forecast was not at all friendly, so we anticipated a short day before the rain came at mid day. It's not that we are whimps about working in the rain, but you can't lay bricks in the rain, certainly not engineering blues, it just doesn't work.

While the PWay yard was being tidied up we took the opportunity of welcoming some of the rubble that the contractors had left behind after filling the gabion baskets for work on the Isbourne. It was good fill for us!

As we continue to position the big edging bricks, we are checking the levels here, vis-a-vis the foundations of the building. 

Dave doesn't seem to quite believe the bubble, maybe he should buy a new one?

As it was getting a bit cold and damp - rain already seemed to be imminent - Paul decided to warm himself up a bit with a spot of shovelling. Maxie went 'open wide' and soon got 6 loads of ballast and some of our reject cement, which over the last 6 months of non-use had gone a bit hard in the shed.

The mix was for concrete, which we are using here to bring the level of the rear concrete block wall up to the level of the bricks in front.

By the end of the morning, we had laid all the concrete we wanted - the rest up to the foreground at the bottom of the picture can be dealt with by plain mortar.

Meanwhile John continued with his mortar cleaning of the big bull noses, just out of shot here on the left. He's done about 2/3 of them already, almost completely on his own. There are 300 of these bricks on this location alone (another 500 await him in storage on the other side of the yard....)

We transferred about 30 of them during the day on to the Permaquip trolley in the background, so that next week we can resume laying the edging bricks, everything will be ready. Weather permitting of course, it's definitely autumn now.

The sky got darker and darker - when would the rain come finally? A perfect forecasting method was found: a phone call to the wife of one of us who lived in Cheltenham. Would she look out of the window and see if it is raining? And it was too, dang !

 

Then, as the train leaves, so must we - see you next time!