Sunday 8th July 2018 has been in our diaries for a long time, as it was scheduled to be the last day of FR 20’s boiler certificate before its 10 year boiler lift and overhaul. For that reason the loco was scheduled to operate the trains on the Ribble Steam Railway on both the Saturday and Sunday, with excellent weather to hand – well we had had plenty of time to put in the request for it!
Saturday was a little quiet (something to do with a football game!), but plenty of people, including many members and friends, came along to say “Goodbye” on Sunday. Coincidentally, Neil was able to spend his first full day on the footplate at Preston that day as he looks to regain his fireman’s ticket – at least he had a loco that he knew from times past.
Sadly, after handling the train service and rake of three coaches without fuss, FR 20 retired to the shed at the end of service on Sunday afternoon in steam for the last time for a while. As Tim put it at this point: “finish with engines”. We know from the large amount interest on the internet that everyone is willing the FRT to get the loco back in traffic as soon as feasibly possible.
There has again been steady progress in the FRT shed at Preston. Tim has been applying more gold size and varnish to Great Eastern Royal Saloon No. 5 whilst John Dixon and Mike have been undertaking repairs to droplights. 
John is seen here cleaning out a droplight sill prior to reassembling it. Roger has started the job of sanding down and priming parts of the buffers and couplings.
With the weather far too hot to progress the painting of the exterior of the mess room, John Davis and Paul Newton undertook their own version of Scrapheap Challenge amongst the various paraphernalia near the FRT shed and found the remains of an L&NWR bench seat, which they are now interested in restoring.
Keith has brought back some of 5643’s components from Embsay for fettling and Fred is seen here on Friday cleaning up the regulator quadrant. Keith was due to go over to Embsay on Sunday as he looks to get 5643 back in steam as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, Keith has been lining up Wootton Hall‘s tender axleboxes with the overhauled tender frames, seen here at work. A further riveting session is planned for Thursday.
Finally, for those of you who are wondering where latest edition of members’ magazine The Iron Horse has got to, we can tell you that Alan is currently sorting out the layout and choosing the photos in readiness for it to go to the printer.
Alan Ogden has once again been tackling the instruments and smaller electrical items on Fluff and is seen here with a refurbished switch box.
Ade, Alan and Howard have been hard at it in their efforts to remove the final spring hanger pin on Caliban‘s frames. Suffice to say that plan Z didn’t produce immediate results, but lots of sweat and toil were duly expended and victory was eventually achieved.
It is pleasing to be able to report that the riveting session on Wootton Hall the previous Thursday had seen approximately 50 rivets installed, and evidence of a neat job is seen in this photo of a newly riveted bracket on the front portion of the frames.
Backing plates for the tender cab steps have also been bent to shape.
And a newly fabricated and shaped plate is seen here on the frames in front of the boiler.
Alan, Tim and Pete Skellon successfully made it to the Bolton Station Community Gala on Saturday and, would you believe it, played railway songs in the bus interchange for half an hour! Must have been rail replacement songs! Both Alan and Pete had been disorganised in forgetting to take their mobile phones with them, but between you and us Alan also forgot to take a set of teeth – but we won’t tell anyone, will we?
Ade failed to score with Caliban‘s last spring hanger pin last Wednesday and is now looking for a plan Z for this week. We will, as ever, keep you posted.
There is more varnish on GER No. 5 with still plenty more to apply once John Dixon has finished filling in all the remaining cracks in the woodwork. Meanwhile Mike and Paul Newton have been working on a plan to create a replica works plate for Rachel, Ken Nuttall’s petrol Simplex at Haverthwaite, for Roger who has been working on it for some time now.
John Dixon has been moving around the Great Eastern Railway Royal Saloon No. 5 filling in cracks on the teak panels whilst Mike Rigg has repaired one of the window frames.
Tim has continued the task of applying gold size and a first coat of varnish, which has been completed on the north side and east end.
Adrian spent Wednesday trying to drill out the last remaining spring hanger pin on Caliban, but to no avail so far. So plan B is for next Wednesday, although Ade hasn’t yet told us what that may be.
Howard has been trying to release the retaining screws on top of the spring hangers and he is seen here with David applying plenty of pressure on a stubborn screw.
Meanwhile Keith has been doing some more drilling on Wootton Hall‘s tender frames and is expecting Matt Gervis to appear on Thursday to start fitting some rivets. The NDT man is also expected this week to test the tender axles.
Outside the shed John Davis has been painting the mess room roof and, with the assistance of Fred, the outside is looking much cleaner in readiness for painting.
A 1949 Duple bodied Bedford made an appearance for the RSR’s Beer and Cider Festival over the weekend, but unfortunately Owd Sue, as she is known, succumbed fairy early in the proceedings owing to the failure of a lift pump. A replacement bus was supplied very promptly by Coastal Coaches.
Finally, we include a photo taken on the 27th May of Alison with one of her cream teas.
In the workshop there was a marked step forward on the (not so) mini project to remove the remaining extremely stubborn spring hanger pins from Caliban‘s frames. A further four pins were removed with the aid of an air powered hammer. Ade and David Starkie are seen here in action. Unfortunately, the air compressor sprang an oil leak and one pin, which has so far shown not one iota of movement, is still left to be extracted.
Sanding of the exterior woodwork of the Royal Saloon GER No. 5 has been completed and John Dixon is working his way around the coach with the wood filler. Tim has therefore been able to start the process of applying gold size, the effect of which can be seen by the accompanying photo, where the upper panels have received the gold size. Almost the whole of the north side of the vehicle has now been treated and more progress is anticipated this next week.
Outside the shed, there has been good progress on preparing the exterior of the mess room for painting. Fred had started the job the previous week and Paul Newton and John Davis are seen here on the roof applying the full force of the power washer. More red oxide on the exterior had appeared by the weekend and it is hoped to be able to continue this progress whilst the weather holds fair.
Furness Railway No. 20 made a return to steam at the RSR over the Bank Holiday weekend, operating successfully over the Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The tender had been lowered back on to its rear wheelset the previous Wednesday after attention to the rear right axlebox. We are pleased to report that the axlebox showed a significant improvement in performance and, whilst still warming up over a period of time, was nothing like as bad as had been experienced at Shildon during FR 20’s latter steamings there. No doubt the axlebox will get further attention during the locomotive’s forthcoming overhaul.
As mentioned in last week’s blog, the main task at this last Wednesday’s working party was the jacking up of FR 20’s tender to attend to an axlebox which had been showing signs of warming up during the latter days of its operation at Locomotion, Shildon. Once the axlebox had been dismantled it became clear that both the bearing and the journal had, for some reason, become scored. Also, the bearing had become too good a fit, not enabling oil to circulate and lubricate the interface between bearing and journal.
Alan, meanwhile, took the bearing aside to remove some of the brass in order to give some more lead towards the top of the bearing, so allowing more oil to circulate. 
The oil pad showed signs of wear to the rivets, which suggested that these had come into contact with the journal. Some horsehair was retrieved from store with a view to substituting this instead of the oil pad when the axlebox is reassembled. The engine, incidentally, already has horsehair in its axleboxes and this seems to have worked well in the past. All being well, FR 20’s tender will be back on its feet on Wednesday and it is proposed that it will be in service on the RSR over the Bank Holiday weekend.
Work also progressed on Caliban where a further spring hanger has been freed off, much against its will. Only another five to go! Howard is seen here tackling the next one.
Keith has been making the most of his retirement, as can be seen from this photo of new steelwork between Wootton Hall‘s tender frames.
Meanwhile, Tim, Paul Newton and John Davis continued the job of sanding down Great Eastern Railway Royal Saloon No. 5 whilst John Dixon filled and sanded down the various cracks in the teak panels. 
The job continued on Friday when Fred and Roger joined Paul and the two Johns, with the task now well on the way to completion. 
That’s just as well for the work really does take it toll, numbing both fingers and mind!
We forgot last week to congratulate Keith on his retirement from his job with Ribble Rail on the 4th May. Needless to say, Keith is making the most of his new found leisure time to progress the tender frames for Wootton Hall. He is seen here drilling a brace section that will support the vacuum cylinder.
This last weekend saw Furness Railway No. 20’s last three days of operation at Locomotion, Shildon before returning to Preston this week in readiness for its ten year boiler overhaul. 
Locomotion had arranged a Festival of Steam, which included the first appearance of replacement locomotive, RS&H 0-4-0ST Eustace Forth plus some road steam engines. 
That Sentinel steam lorry was certainly an impressive beast! John and Jean Dixon, Sam Middleton and Keith Brewer visited on Sunday to enjoy the sunshine and steam.
Alan and Tim had their photo taken with two young ladies from the Same Difference Arts who were performing street theatre in Steam Punk attire.
FR 20 ran the last three hours on Monday on its own, with a pause at 15.30 to enable the NRM’s Anthony Coulls to make a lovely speech on behalf of Locomotion to mark the nine years that FR 20 had been based there. There then followed the cutting of two large cakes before staff and volunteers boarded the train, along with visitors, for the final two departures of the day. Needless to say, there was some loud whistling from the locomotive on the final journey (by guess who) followed by some goodbyes from Alan, Alison and Tim to the Locomotion family of staff and volunteers, some of whom had turned up on Monday to have a last go on the regulator. All in all, a fitting if not rather nostalgic occasion. Hopefully, FR 20 will be back in the not too distant future.
Work has continued at Preston on sanding down the weathered sections of woodwork on GER Royal Saloon No.5, although fingers are now becoming rather numb from the effort! The worse side has now been tackled so a start has been made on one of the ends. The second side should just require a light sand to allow new varnish to key to the existing varnished surface. John Dixon and John Davis are seen here in synchronised sanding action.
Adrian made a welcome return on Wednesday after a visit to works for repairs and is seen here giving moral support to Howard as he battles with the dismantling of Caliban‘s springs.
David Rimmer joined in the action on Saturday and a second spring has now been removed.
Mike Rigg spent most of Wednesday in the mess room, assisted by David, stuffing envelopes with GDPR correspondence, which should now have landed with members – in fact two consent forms were already back through the post on Friday, even though second class post had been used in both directions. If you haven’t already done so, please return the consent forms as quickly as possible so that the FRT can remain in full contact with you.
And we leave you with a view of progress on Wootton Hall‘s tender frames, which are now gaining additional metal following the recent completion of the welding work on the side plates.
Work started on Wednesday on the refresh of the FRT’s Great Eastern Railway Royal Saloon No. 5. The coach had, as planned, been shunted into the heated part of the shed after the RSR’s TPO coach had been moved round into the museum.
Time was taken to re-familiarise with the saloon and to identify work to be done. Whilst Tim cleaned up the shed floor to remove dust and the like from the TPO overhaul, others started to move around the chairs in coach in order to hoover and tidy up one of the carpets. It would be a nice idea to replace all the carpets with something more suited to a Royal saloon, but we will have to weigh up the costs! The upholstery also needs some considerable attention and again it will be necessary to get some quotes for upgrading it.
In the meantime, it was decided to attend to the exterior of the saloon. Some of the varnish had begun to peel, particularly on the north side of the vehicle as it stands now – the adjacent photo illustrates the problem. 
A test area was sanded down by Mike, both Pauls and John Davis before Tim applied some gold size, which brought the colour back to the teak. Roger Benbow, John, Paul Newton and Mike continued the task on Friday. The south side of the vehicle isn’t too bad, but will benefit from some more coats of varnish in due time.