It has been another week of birthday cake and presents.
Ade celebrated his birthday on Wednesday and is seen here cutting the cake kindly supplied (again) by Alison. There was some pressure on members to eat up by the end of Friday as we still hadn’t managed to entirely demolish the two cakes from the previous week! (You’re slipping! Ed.)
Keith received a late birthday present in that the long-awaited newly manufactured sets of valves and crossheads for Wootton Hall from Tyesley arrived on Tuesday.
These were followed on Thursday by the six Armstrong Oiler pads for the tender axle boxes which opens the way for Wootton Hall‘s tender frames to be placed back on their wheels.
Much of Friday was then spent in lowering Fluff‘s frames back on to its wheels. The springs have still to be fitted after which it will be possible to move the chassis.
Another step forward in FR 20’s overhaul was made last Wednesday when the boiler was filled with water. One of the tubes needed some attention from Matt Jervis (pictured), but on the whole things looked to be satisfactory. It is hoped to be able to start to raising some pressure over the next week or so.
Finally John Dixon has been fitting some new copper pipework to FR 20’s tender braking system and Tim has been busy painting the tender frames.