Apologies for the lack of a blog since Christmas caused by post-Christmas
illness. However, that hasn’t stopped the rest of the troops from making good
progress over the last month.
We are pleased to report that our folk group formed of Alan, Tim, Pete and
George got the New Year off to a good start at the Engine Inn, Cark-in-Cartmel
with the audience seemingly having a good time.
Phil Bell and John Davis have been working hard in the kitchen of Great
Eastern Railway royal saloon No. 5 with John seen here fitting new tiles.
Phil and Anne Burton have continued their work on the chaise longue in the
east saloon with Phil pictured here.
The new window straps have arrived and await fitting.
Some new cylinder lubrication pipework has appeared on No. 4979 Wootton
Hall.
Team 5643 have paid two visits to Bury to prepare 5643 for its return home to
Preston, it having successfully completed its last scheduled steaming on the
East Lancashire Railway on the 27th December; the extended ten year boiler
certificate officially expired on the 8th January. The guard irons have been
removed as well as the brick arch and the engine was steamed cleaned last
Thursday.
Caliban’s boiler was subjected to non-destructive testing on Monday, 23rd
January. The initial results were encouraging and we await the final report.
Cumbria had been well used at the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway
following its re-tube and subsequent return to traffic at the end of October.
Alan, Ade, Tim and John Dixon visited Embsay yesterday to discuss winter
maintenance. It was agreed that one of the eccentrics needs to be re-metalled
and this will be brought to Preston once it has been dismantled.
Needless to say, the opportunity was also taken to look at Stephen Middleton’’s collection of coaches, including the Great Eastern Railway royal saloon of 1877 built for the then Prince of Wales. It was fascinating to compare this early build coach with our own GER No. 5 which was built in 1898 for the Princess of
Wales!
Finally, we have had to incur some unexpected expenditure in repairing the
entrance door to the FRT shed, which was completed today. Unfortunately
this has resulted in the replacement of the lock, so new keys will need to be
issued.
Well, the last of the RSR’s Santa Specials has run and some of us are now
Whilst the Santa Specials have been a distraction from other activities, Matt
Last Friday evening, 16th December, saw a gathering of FRT members and
Keith has now turned his attention to Wootton Hall’s cab floor which needs
The supports for the floor can be seen here.
Phil Bell and John Davis have started to erect the new ceiling in the kitchen
Finally, Anne and Phil Burton have been busy with the sewing machine in
A key step forward with the restoration of Great Eastern Railway Royal Saloon No. 5 was achieved on Friday when the fabric on the walls of the west end saloon was completed with the remainder of the missing wooden mouldings being made by Phil Bell and then fitted.
The saloon was then cleared of materials and the carpet vacuumed by John Davis – just don’t tell Mrs D. that he has been passed out on the vacuum cleaner!
With Anne and Phil Burton still busy on the chaise longue in the east saloon, Phil Bell and John Davis will now turn their attention to the kitchen area. We show therefore a ‘before’ photo that we will eventually be able to compare with the finished job.
Ed has meanwhile continued his lone work on the woodwork in the guard’s compartment – we let him out for lunch!
Sam has been doing the majority of the dirty work in FR 20 and is seen here busy cleaning the firebox.
Friday saw FR 20 receiving its boiler washout prior to its 14-month boiler inspection. Jon Dixon and Neil Glover travelled down from Lancaster to give us a hand and can be seen here with Sam aiming water down one of the firebox washout plug holes in the cab.
Sam seemed to get rather wet during the process but saw the funny side of it.
Sam has also been working on Caliban, seen here in the process of removing the ring underneath the chimney hole in the old smokebox ready for re-use. And John Dixon has been preparing new sections of metal for Caliban’s cab.
And Keith has been working on the flanges that connect the main steam pipes to Wootton Hall’s smokebox.
Ade appeared on Wednesday morning with the aim of removing Caliban’s well-worn smokebox by the end of the day. Space is at a premium in the FRT shed but Ade managed to appear with a fork lift truck and the weltrol on which the boiler is mounted was shunted into position by pinch bar. At this point additional hands were summoned and, with assistance from Paul Balshaw, John Dixon and Ron Crowe, the job was done in time for elevenses to be taken!
Giving it a daily polish will be just another job for the train guard to do to keep the coach spick and span! And John now only has another couple of heater guards needing similar treatment! Of particular interest was last night’s Channel 5 programme on Queen Consort Alexandra for whom, at the time she was Princes of Wales in 1898, the coach was built. She seems to have been quite a character and the programme is worth a watch on MY 5 if you can spare the time. 
We mentioned last week that Keith has mounted the ejector exhaust pipe on GWR ‘Hall’ class No. 4979 Wootton Hall, so here is the promised photo.
And the safety valve bonnet is also now in place.
We start with Peckett 0-4-0ST Caliban where the last tubes were
Once more there has been much work on Great Eastern Railway Royal Saloon
Meanwhile, John Dixon has been repairing one of the brass window supports
Finally, Alison kindly left us some of her tasty butterfly cakes on Wednesday, which were the left-overs from the RSR AGM the previous evening, where Ade had done his best to eat them! Needless to say, there were none left when Alison popped in to enquire on Friday lunchtime!!!
Work has continued apace on Great Eastern Railway Royal Saloon No. 5. Anne and Phil Burton are making progress on the chaise longue in the east saloon where repairs to the wooden frame have been necessary.
John Dixon, seen here painting a lamp bracket, has just about completed painting the components on the exterior of the coach in a specially mixed shade of brown.
Ed has continued to remove old paint and varnish from the guard’s compartment.
John Davis has been giving his attention to sprucing up the Royal toilet roll holder!
Tim has been giving the interior woodwork a couple of coats of varnish. Once dried, the new fabric is fitted to the lower panels. Phil has been in charge of the scissors.
It’s a two-handed job to fit the fabric, with John Davis lending a hand here.
Elsewhere, Fred has started to prepare Caliban’s boiler for an NDT inspection, cleaning off old rust and dirt.
Finally, the new screw for Wootton Hall’s reverser has now arrived, seen here on top of the fabricated reverser body. This opens up further work on this mechanism.
Talking of dates for your diary, Alison has arranged for this year’s FRT Christmas Dinner to be held at The Ribble Pilot pub on Preston’s dockside on the evening of Friday, 16th December.
We have also seen further progress on the overhaul of Great Eastern Railway Royal Saloon No. 5 where John Dixon has been replacing grab handles, lamp holders and the like to the exterior of the vehicle.
The fabric to line the interior sides of the coach has arrived and Phil Bell is seen here cutting some white backing sheets.
And here is the first panel to be fitted with the new fabric, with shiny varnished woodwork above, and a sneak preview of what the whole coach will look like when completed.
We are however pleased to report that the working party at Bury last Monday was successful in removing most of the items from 5643’s smokebox in order for a full hydraulic test of the locomotive to take place on Friday. Keith also went across to Bury on Tuesday and Thursday to complete the job and apply the necessary blanks. Even better, the locomotive passed its test in front of the boiler surveyor and so a steam test has been scheduled for this coming Friday. This will require a further working party tomorrow, Tuesday, to reassemble the items in the smokebox. Unfortunately, the hostile environment of the smokebox had eaten away at the ejector exhaust pipe and so it came out in two pieces rather than one. Keith has since been busy at Preston cleaning up and annealing the pipework.
He has also made up a new pipe for the ejector.
The first layer of varnish has been applied to the woodwork in the west saloon of Great Eastern Railway royal saloon No. 5 and also one side of the interior doors. The two doors on the right have received the varnish and those on the left await their turn. The end result looks good and is due reward for the all the effort that has been made to strip off previous layers of varnish. Work has also been going on behind the scenes by Andy Allthorn to produce replacement light fittings and obtain new glass bowls which will hopefully be arriving at Preston shortly along with the new LED light bulbs which have been procured.
Finally, those of you who attend working parties at Preston will be aware of the football rivalry within the FRT shed between Preston North End and Blackpool fans. The 4-2 home win by Blackpool the previous Saturday prompted Ed to turn up in his dayglo tangerine football shirt, much to the dismay of PNE supporters Phil Burton and John Davis!
Ade and Alan made some good progress in removing the last of Caliban’s tubes from its boiler last Wednesday. Ade worked in the firebox to “encourage” each tube to move forward.
Ade then joined Alan in hauling the tube out through the front tube plate. Inevitably some tubes were more reluctant than others to move!
David Starkie made a welcome return to work last Wednesday after convalescence and is seen here on the right assisting Ed (left) and Phil Burton (middle) on repairs to the chaise longue in Great Eastern Railway Royal Saloon No. 5. Varnishing of the exterior of the vehicle is now complete and all the brass work has been re-fitted. Phil Bell has repaired most of the interior mouldings and John Davis has been cleaning down woodwork in the west saloon ready for varnishing.