Of floor and more

20th September 2020

A brief report this week I'm afraid.

It has been a quiet week back at the Briddon Country Pile. Andrew is suffering from an infected toe. I'm suffering from too many jobs on the go at the same time. So once again it is one of those 'we've been largely occupied with jobs I don't report on' weekends. In the week though I've had trips to Goole, Sheffield and Stoke on Trent and the van has had a service, so it keeps me off the streets.

Andrew dealt with a couple of on-line auctions this week - not ebay for a change - and amongst other things has acquired both a workbench with steel top and raised sides (so suitable for dealing with dirty engine bits that might ooze oil; destination - cement van) and a brand new industrial radiator which is apparently for a Cummins 855 so will be suitable for Adolf if we can make it fit. They're coming in with other bits this week.

We had a full house Saturday when joined by Jagger and Luke, although Jagger was working on Jack. Andrew suddenly announced we had visitors - a family group comprising a former colleague from his days at Porterbrook. He opted to take them on a run with Ludwig Mond, and I jokingly asked if he'd made it clear that whoever ran it out of fuel paid for a tankfull. And yeah, Ludwig, whose fuel gauge has been conspiciuously near empty for several weeks (having had a few gallons added each time it had to go to Rowsley) conked out and had to be recovered by Charlie. It awaits time to bleed it through and add some fuel in more significant quantity.

Jagger and Luke had also been spending some time in the cement van, with the result that about 1/3 of the flooring had been prized up by Saturday night. Some of this timber had the tell-tale holes of woodworm, and our practice is to assume the worst and burn it as quickly as possible. Underneath the timber however is a solid steel floor, (so that water couldn't get thrown up and through the floor, causing the bagged cement to set) and so on Sunday Jagger and Luke, aided by newcomer Alec, cleaned the floor, vacuumed it and gave it a coat of primer ready for paint and fresh timber to go down. Above is a photo of the van floor on arrival, and below the same area tonight.

All this makes it seem as though Andrew and I haven't been doing much. In reality together we dropped a torque converter back into a loco, and were about to re-connect the propshaft when it became apparent that the bolts were stretched and needed replacing but we didn't have suitable nylocs in stock to finish the task. How did we know they were stetched? Well we think they are 7/16 inch Whitworth, but when some of the nuts were reluctant to engage, no thread gauge, imperial or metric, gave a comfortable fit. I went on instead sorting out coolant connections, wiring etc, and revised my plans as to how to provide baffling so that hot air doesn't re-circulate around the rad within the casings. (The locomotive had a flex-mounted radiator but the baffles were rigid from radiator to front casings, which rather makes a mockery of the flex mounting.) On another loco I completed the brand next flex-mounted exhaust system, Andrew and I mounted a compressor on a base that he'd painted for me last thing Saturday night, and he also was drilling through frame members to install 1 inch pipes for twin-pipe train air. (I came to order some more inch pipe on Thursday. Normally I would turn to BSS in Derby, but to my amazement they informed me that I would have to come in to Branch and pay, as Head Office were banning 'CNP' (Card Not Present) sales as they had been scammed too many times. BSS's branch in Derby is about 23 miles away, that in Sheffield slightly more, but either way I cannot get 6metre lengths in the van, so found this requirement something of a deal-breaker. Instead I located another supplier in Chesterfield who would take orders over the phone and they are due to deliver tomorrow. If all is OK they'll be first choice in future.) So we have definitely had a productive weekend overall.

Are we about to have another lockdown when heritage railways will have to stop again? Perhaps better now than later with those railways planning on running Santa events. There has been no further news filtered through to us as regards Peak Rail re-starting, though a further works train, propelled by D8, took sleepers down to Matlock on Wednesday. Disturbing for me was news that our local butchers has been closed after 2 staff tested positive for the virus. It is barely a quarter of a mile away and Steph is in there 3 or 4 times a week, but hopefully the precautions she took will have been effective. We will have to wait a few days and see if anything develops I suppose. Tomorrow I'll be back at the shed awaiting deliveries and on Tuesday overseeing work to refit the axle to the Baguley Brewery. Unless therefore the virus has found me in the interim, I'll be back next week and hopefully more to show for it. See ya then.

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