Of crane and train

12th December 2021

Another moving instalment.

So first thing on Monday it was out to move a railcrane, our first and who's to say whether our last which was being taken for scrap, then off to Sheffield and Davy Markham's.

We had collected D-M's old Vanguard during the summmer, but only recently had I been instructed to uplift the long bogie flat wagon that went with it. I had popped in last week to put a tape measure over it, and when I arrived this week the same security guard was on. 'Has ,,y low loader arrived?' I asked as I'd lost track of it when we left Booths while I walked back to the van, but the blank expression told me I was first. When Adam arrived he wanted to know how I was on first name terms with security, for he'd been waved through with a 'Mr Peter's already here!'.

Like I said, an interesting wagon - a pair of cast steel bogies, a substantial fabricated frame covered with a 20mm thick floor of steel and those mesh grilles all around to stop employees from leaping under it. Curiously a glance underneath shows that there are no longitudinal frame members up the middle (which is the more usual way to take traction stresses) but then this is hardly a wagon to go in a long train. Most of its life up to now was spent shuffling big heavy lumps around the yard that was once a major producer of steelmaking equipment, now a re-purposed industrial estate.

I've been out again sizing up a job which I'll tell you about next week, so let's move on to the weekend. Saturday was a productive day even if the weather was less than satisfactory outside, and did rather slow work on the OBA. On the Hudswell we got the radiator and compressor installed, plus sundry other minor tasks while Andrew had the welder in close proximity.

I left Andy M to look after the cement van electrical installation, checking what we had done thus far, fitting and cabling up 2 more twin fluorescent fittings, one so that there is light both sides of the 'work area' in the middle, and another in the ceiling at the other end to the workbench, making 7 tubes in all, 2 of which are 'maintained', that is, stay on for a while when the power goes off. It certainly does make for a bright working area, and having cleared most of the stored clutter off the workbench, that is an inviting place to strip down parts, but how long will it remain clean and tidy?

Andy added his own particular style to the light switches - in case you are bemused by it, it means 'Bench' and 'Not Bench'.

With better weather on Sunday, flooring on the OBA progressed.

Andy M tackled Tom, which has been striggling a bit of late, changing the engine fuel filters and stripping and cleaning the pre-filter. These latter are a peculiar thing. A filter element which is conventional, save that it is wrapped on the outside with brass wire, and a knife blade scrapes over the wire turned by a handle through the top of the filter. Periodically you should rotate the handle 1-2 turns, which dislodges the dirt that has been caught by the wire. You should then, while the dirt is back in suspension, remove the drain plug and dump the dirtied fuel out from the bottom of the bowl, then refill with fresh fuel from the tank. Sadly all too often an operator, if they do anything at all, merely gives it a half-hearted twist and leaves it, so the suspended dirt goes straight back up against the wire as fuel flows again. So at my request Andy M took the entire filter off the loco and cleaned it thoroughly, reporting that 'it was quite dirty' (well it's an ex NCB loco and as I've said before, I've never known a coal mine loco NOT to have coal dust in the fuel tank). With the filters back together and bled through, Tom was started and tested for a while, and touch wood, appeared to be OK.

Andrew meanwhile had headed over to Wirksworth to sort out an issue on Charlie: a loss of converter oil was traced to a charge pump that is leaking. Trouble is, Charlie has the later style of C6 where the power bulge on the timing case previously used for the supercharger (on the C6S) was re-deployed as a provision to run compressor and charge pump with geared drives rather than belts. If the shaft seal on the charge pump fails though, there is no 'interface' area to protect the engine oil from contamination, in other words, if oil escapes down the shaft, it passes through the casing into the timing gear area and joins the multigrade down to the sump. At least we are not running fuel through the converter system, but the thin hydraulic oil would lead to a drop in oil viscosity.

We last changed the pump about 15 years ago (and I don't think it was new then) when the sump oil contamination lead to clouds of white smoke (it was still on fuel), but we may have to think about how/whether to change it, maybe a reversion to the belt-driven arrangement might be prudent. For one thing., the charge pump is bolted direct to the plate and carries the gear on the 'other side' so changing it first requires the compressor to be detached, then the mounting plate unbolted from the timing case before the gear can be unclamped and the pump inbolted from the mounting - all a bit of a chore. Other engines have PTO's, typically described as being for 'steering pumps' whereby the pump bolts to a block section with a hole in the bottom so that a seal fauilure doesn't ooze into the engine, is readily apparent to external exam and the pump easily swapped.

Back at Darley Dale, with Tom parked up I took Andy M over to the Hatramm and unlocked it. The cab as I have said before has loads of redundant equipment, with bits of GSM-R, NRN and OTMR still fitted, though not neccessarily complete. If we are to get it working and reliable it needs some rationalisation and he made a start stripping out some of the obviously irrelevant enclosures. Hopefully in the new year he'll progress this work and we'll have a runnable Hatramm at last.

So that's about it for the week. Up silly o'clock again in the morning for a loco move, then later in the week I have a run to South Wales to pick up a quantity of items Andrew won on an industrial auction. But as we near that festive time of the Year I'll wish you all a Covid-free week, enjoy any cheese and wine business meetings you have planned  and hope you'll be back. See ya then.