Of Hatz and help

27th January 2019

Evenin' all, (salutes and adopts friendly 'Dixon of Dock Green-esque' smile). Ready for another instalment? Well, here it is.

Monday, and no suprises that it is Tunstead day. Andy H, Pete C and myself were joined by Martin who has been before (he and another rigged up a press to assemble the buffers) and made us all feel chuffed by saying how far we had got on since last he saw it. It was not a day for giant steps of progress though. Armed with the additional offcuts of half inch pipe I'd brought, Martin and Pete C continued with completing the steel pipework, which in this case was the feed from the emergency reservoir through a filter and regulator to the changeover valve, and three-quarter pipe tee'd to feed through the cab bulkhead to where I am having to put in a temporary rectangular manifold and the second route across the front of the cab to feed the driver's brake valve.

The rectangular manifold has a decided disadvantage compared to the rotary one - whereas I had started putting isolating taps on each separate feed off the manifold, on the rectangular there isn't enough room. Curses! So I'll finish with a common isolating tap so we can turn off the entire desk supply when needed to fix or modify summat.

That's the plan, but Andy H has sweet-talked a member up at Wortley Top Forge and we're hoping that a specially machined adaptor might be forthcoming. Me? Well I cracked on with various tidy-ups on the wiring, then marked out and drilled the side of the new instrument panel to take one of those profiled plates I had to hold the keyswitch. It would have been so much better had I planned all this out before the instrument panel was made- the suitably shaped 'ole could have been lasered into the side plate. Instead I had to drill four 6.5mm holes and a big 35mm hole in the centre, which took a lot of time and flattened the battery drill part way through. When I was marking it up, I slipped with the centre punch and it went down - all the way into the pit. So I donned my pot-holing outfit and went in after it, finding not only the punch but a couple of nuts and bolts and the information sheet I had produced some months ago. This I had taped to the end of the loco only for it to disappear by the next week. I thought someone had pinched it but it seems it had managed to find its way through the narrow slot between the concrete edge of the pit and the metal grille. As we've had to move our work-bench (a large grey machine had been parked just in front of RS8 as there's nowhere else to put it) Andy pasted the info sign to the bench so that everyone walking past can read it.

We'll see if it moves again! It's high time we filled the axleboxes with oil and Andy headed down, but found we hadn't a suitable can with a long enough spout or funnel, so that's back on this weeks list. The majority of the work remaining is flex piping, both the small bore (pneumatic) and the half and three-eighth reinforced hoses for fuel and converter oil, so we're 2 to 3 weeks away from a start up depending how we get on.

On my way back Monday evening Andrew suggested I stop off at Rowsley and see if Ludwig Mond had arrived, I glanced over but wanted to get straight back as I had a headlamp bulb down on the van and felt uncomfortable driving in the twilight with it. So on Tuesday morning I drove back up and found not only that the haulier had arrived but that single-handedly he had already split the unit from the trailer, built up the ramp and lowered the loco as far as he could, except that Peak Rail staff had yet to unlock the gate and lift the derailer, so there he stopped.

I chivvied things to life and then set off for Darley Dale to collect Charlie. Charlie duly dragged Ludwig down to Darley Dale and parked it in the sidings, its smart appearance drawing favourable comment later that day.

Thursday and Andrew had casually asked if I could pop over the motorway and put all the bits back on the trailer now that it had passed its MoT. I dutifully obliged, and a very friendly forklift operator put the track panel and pallets back on so that I could secure them down with straps ready for the trailer to return to its regular home. The final task was to load up the Hatz-powered power pack, which involved putting the power pack sideways on the forks, manouevering the forklift next to the van's back doors (and the forklift was bigger than the van!) and three of us sliding the pack off the forks and into the van. I figuered this would be in the van for a day or two...

On Friday morning Andrew and I arrved at Darley to meet up with a lorry-load of wheelsets. My 'these are a bit light, aren't they?' wheelstands had in fact all been used and all survived to fight another day.

With those to unload and a couple of other large lumps to go on the far side of the shed, it took all morning to unload him, and although I harboured hopes that he might be quickly utilised to pull the Hatz power pack out of the van it was not to be.

Saturday and we were joined by Charles, Stephen and Andy H who proceeded to work on various aspects of 1382, with Stephen on conduit and Charles on door painting. Andrew was also cutting and threading pipes for the vac train pipe, but they did break off long enough to fit the front grille to the casing sructure for Adolf.

I harboured hpes that they might be marshalled to lift the Hatz power pack out of the van, but it was not to be. Apart from making tea, my main task was to strip the hand-operated pump that you saw last week. Internally it was dirty and I suspect some of the valves may not be functioning. I had tremendous difficulty extracting the piston. It seemed as though it was only accumulated brown dirt that was stopping it, but it refused to lift no matter how much leverage was applied. Then I realised to my chagrin that lurking in the dirt was a large circlip, and worse still, that one tab of the clip was inaccessible. The circlip emerged, somewhat deformed, and so then did the piston. The bits have been in the degreaser for cleaning and further examination awaits.

A couple of other regulars joined us on Sunday and first planned task was to fire up both Charlie and James to rearrange things. But we had gone up the yard to look over the ex-RMS Hunslet when we found a visitor in our midst. I confess I did not find his presence welcome. With no hivi nor apology. he appeared around the end of the yard from the main line side, so had either walked up the line from the Matlock direction or climbed over at the level crossing. Either way the courteous thing would have been to apologise for what was, after all, a trespass, but when I asked if I could help him he declared he was looking for an ex LMS wagon donated to Peak Rail in, I think he said, 1981. If I heard the date right it must have been back in the days of the Buxton steam centre, but as it was, I told him that if it was anywhere it would be at Rowsley and he walked off. In those situations it is difficult to know what to do. Should I have ticked him off and demanded he leave by the shortest (safest) route, and no doubt have stories spread by him of 'unfriendly attitude' and 'little Hitler' or spent a great deal of time explaining what and where it might be and gloss over his misconduct? Recommendations on a postcard please.

We got the re-organisation under way. On the one hand, we wanted Ashdown inside the shed so that work can be progressed for a prospective customer, so the 03 had to come out, and we wanted Ludwig down nearer the shed so that at some point soon we can cut out the offending bits of pipe and replace with new sections. Before we had quite finished, we became aware of 4 enthusiasts leaning over the fence, pointing cameras and noting numbers. We went over to chat and eventually asked if they'd like to look around from 'our side'. They readily accepted the invitation and I gave them the grand tour and a cup of tea. Steph arrived with our lunches and fresh buns and flapjack and they sampled the latter too, all in all they enjoyed the tour and refreshment and our donations tin received a boost.

Back to work and at last the Hatz power pack came out of the van. I had joked when putting it in, that if all else failed, I'd tie a rope to the unit and drive away, and after we'd slid it so far and lowered one end to the ground, the Hatz was lifted and I drove the van clear. Then the 4 of us grunted and groaned as in short bursts we manhandled it into the shed.

We went over it and found a Hatz data plate, but it is obstructed by the external superstructure so almost impossible to read! Andrew returned to making bits of pipe for 1382, he was also guiding and assisting as work got under way removing some of the pipework that has adorned Ashdown. When it came to us, Ashdown had a vac system with no suction filter and to our eyes a rather crude exhauster installation. It falls to me to put in hand a new exhauster layout, while Andrew improves pipeworks and sorts out the dragging traction clutch, for which the cover was unbolted and lifted off.

I however had, while looking over the trailer on Thursday, realised that I had slipped up and put a hole on each of the new lifting arms in the wrong place, so I marked out the arms and re-drilled them on the pedestal drill. When are we going to go and fit these? Dunno, but it's going to have to be soon as a number of jobs are in the offing for it.

I have an interesting dialogue under way with a local modelmaker as regards RS8. Whether it will be fruitful remains to be seen, but it has stimulated me into making a start on converting some of the ICI drawings into a full GA through CAD. I've started with the cab, having realised that this particular drawing does include the two fuel tanks (originally there was only going to be one), although there are differences even then with window layouts and an original plan for a tip-up shunter's seat under the rear walkway cover (the drawing appended with a hand-written 'Not Fitted'). I'm reckoning on 7mm scale, but who knows? Perhaps there'll be little RS8's running on layouts in all scales in the future, driving the purists aesthetically mad!

Ah well, that's all for this week. I will though add a sad word for the news that HST's Andrew Wilson, who contributed a shunter column to one of the rail magazines, was found dead a week last Saturday. I had had to take him to task a couple of years ago when I felt he had not just paraphrased some of my prose from this blog but got the meaning all wrong and thus inadvertantly suggested that we didn't know what we were talking about. Ever since he had checked with me on anything he wanted to report on us, most recently on the 10th when he was writing up our problems with 14901's fuel pump. R.I.P.

Anyway, the van's had a new bulb fitted and is ready for tomorrow, let's hope it doesn't snow overnight. See ya.