Monday 24th May 2021

Alan marking one of the flanges for soldering to the injector steam pipeA few pictures this week of progress in fitting the new injector steam valves on Furness Railway No. 20. The first, taken last Wednesday, shows Alan marking up one of the new flanges that is being fitted to the left hand steam pipe.

The right hand steam pipe lined up to the new jointThe right hand steam pipe can be seen lined up nicely with the valve after a bit of tweaking.

Sam removing the left hand steam valveIt was left to Sam to remove the pipes and the new valves so that the cladding sheets could be fitted.

The left hand firebox cladding sheet fittedBoth cladding sheets were duly fitted on Friday by Roger, John Dixon and Tim. The sheets are a ‘nib fit’, so it took some time to get them exactly in the right location and screwed down without damage to the new paintwork.

The next stage will be to silver solder the flange joints and to fit the brasswork around both ends of the cladding sheets. Then it will be possible to fit the cab sides and open up plenty more work including the finishing paintwork on the cab sides and valances.

Wootton Hall's tender chassis jacked up ready to receive the wheelsetsWe are pleased to be able to report that Keith was happy with the lubrication trials on the first two of Wootton Hall‘s tender axleboxes. The chassis is now being raised so that the wheelsets can be rolled into position underneath.

Unfortunately, the holidays mean that there won’t be a blog next week.