Of holes, balls and long journeys

29th September 2019

On Tuesday night I was at the local PRA branch meeting at which the presenter remarked that he had made a 500 mile round trip just to get this picture (he lives in Derby but the photograph was somewhere near Newton Abbot). In the past I might have admired his determination, but instead found myself wondering whether in years to come we will look on it as an unjustified contribution to CO2.

Last week I was faced with 4 apprentices looking up at me, eyes expectant, all hanging on my every word as I was to direct them to tasks on RS8 that would be filling and satisfying. Afterwards I admitted to Bryan P that 4 had really been too much: I never did get the hang of barking out orders and hadn't brought a sheepdog with me. Anyway, this week Andy H and I arrived to be greeted by - nobody. Well, after a while we did get Callum, one of the four from last week, but he arrived sans-PPE, and had to be sent off to get it. I set him to work manufacturing the clamps for the battery box lid, and you can see his finished effort (well one of the two) below.

Meanwhile Andy H seized on my fresh tin of real Golden Yellow and started top-coating casing doors. I began by making the two clamps for the air cleaner panel that hold it tight to the casing top.

Simple enough, I then headed into the cab and secured a resistor within the electrical cabinet with double-sided tape. Having checked with Andy that he hadn't plans to start painting the cab ceiling again, (it was done in Magnolia rather than Buttermilk but you'd be hard pushed to notice) I dug out the seats from the storeroom and as the original M6s had all disappeared, sorted out some setscrews and shortened them to length, taking it in turns with Callum to use the vice.

When I was hosing this loco up, I brought three hoses - fuel in, fuel return and transmission oil suction - up the right hand side of the loco just behind the edge strip against which the casing doors sit. I had little regard for the casing doors at that time - it seemed too far off - but when I re-created the doors for fabrication I realised that the stiffening edges and budget lock retention would foul the hoses. Worse still, it turned out that the rear doors butted up to one another right in front of a cross support for air lines, etc, meaning there was almost no room for hoses there at all. The 4 apprentices had found this last week, and re-routed the transmission oil feed from its filter so as to pass behind this support, but I now bowed to the inevitable and re-routed another. The trouble is, I brought them up the side so as to avoid the leading spring. You don't want a sudden spring failure ripping a hose in two, or a spring unwittingly trapping a hose and wearing its way through until all your fuel tank contents is dumped on the floor. I contemplated a support frame to keep the hoses safe: it won't be neat, but at least it'll be practical. (Why didn't I bring them across and up the engine itself? Well, partly because it's Sentinel/Thomas Hill tradition to do it that way, but basically because when it comes to disconnecting an engine to lift out, it's easier to detach the hoses up at the pumps and move them aside than lift the power unit with yards of hoses hanging down to snag on things.)

Meanwhile Roy and another Engineer, Dan, who has taken up Pete C's old job, were scouring the plant for balls for us. When they returned they were quietly hopeful of having secured some: we wait and see. With all the casing doors now seemingly painted, I arranged with Andy that we could fit most of them ostensibly to get a decent picture. A passer-by stopped and asked the inevitable question 'Is it nearly finished?' Well yes, it is, bar the exhauster installation, driver's vac brake valve, sanders and a dozen other miscellaneous tasks, but it's strange how the act of putting on painted casing covers give the immediate impression that it is complete.

I was down at the shed all Wednesday, and while I was struggling with a commercial job, Andy H was in his element digging more holes and filling them with stones, Postcrete and sockets for fence posts. One may need cutting off a bit nearer ground level, but after he'd gone I couldn't resist dropping in a spare fence post (neither tall enough nor thick enough) to see how it would look (and whether he'd got his verticals right! After a scare last week when it was thought the Station House dog had got out through the temporary fencing, this needs progressing. (The dog is OK, well as OK as being old, part blind and probably a bit rheumatic allows it to be).

Andrew's been pursuing crane (bridge) rails to set into my trailer, but it looks as though the next two jobs will be with the present loose rails on top. The weekend was notable for less than sympathetic weather. I was continuing on one of my commercial jobs, so Andrew was pottering around tidying and such but failed to have another go with that cab radiator.

'Forums', that early form of social media on the internet that has all but died out, still continues in a number of railway spheres. WNXX, Andrew tells me, had a poster saying how the sound of 03 901 going up the bank at Midsomer Norton was worth the long journey he had made to get there. That same forum reports this week that Iowa Pacific, the American parent company of the BARS group which includes RMS Locotec, has gone into administration. Meanwhile a forum I do frequent is that of the Industrial Railway Society, where a poster asked if Hunslet 9222 - 'Adolph' (sic) had actually ever been at Oswestry and where had it been between leaving Blodwell and arriving at Andrew Briddon's. Several replied, one pointing to this blog where its transport had been recorded. Strange to think that some of what we do other people think of as history that needs to be documented.

And on that point I'll leave you for tonight. We'll see what RS8 has in store for us tomorrow - will there be balls or just a balls-up? I'll be back, same time next week unless fate intervenes. Will you? See ya then.