Of around and about
28th August 2022
Business as usual
Is it Sunday again? I know it was only Monday last week that I did the previous edition but somehow this evening I could not feel less like buckling down to a fresh instalment. Maybe it's the depressing news of gas and electricity costs rising and rising - did you read that it is now almost as cheap per mile to drive a petrol car as it is an electric one? - or perhaps it's the realisation that yet again my birthday is not far off, about 6 weeks in fact, and another year has gone by.
Anyway, let's get back to it all. Wednesday was an interesting day. I took the van down to Adam's and in it was the load cell that I acquired years ago as a dynamometer. The plan was to do a static test with the winch on the Doll, since Andrew had traced the specification for its hydraulic motor, number crunched its torque and the gear reduction, etc and concluded that we ought to see up to 5 tonnes pull on the line. Now bear in mind that when we were loading a Pacer down in Bristol I had had the engine revving (but not stalling) and sufficient pressure that hydraulic pipes were trembling and one of the quick-release connections leaking but the winch seemed reluctant to pull the Pacer (a mere 25tons) up the ramp. So with Adam to hand we set up the winch and put the rope into a 'stall' condition with the load cell between the rope end and the anchor point. We did a couple of tests, and while I didn't try running the power pack as hard as I had at Bristol, the results we got - 1.29tonnes and 1.6 tonnes - were sufficiently far away from Andrew's prediction to suggest that the motor is worn and so a proportion of the pressure was by-passing it completely. So we're on the look out for a replacement motor of similar spec.That is not to say that work won't proceed on the WARN winch, far from it, but may mean that our investment in time and money on the Doll's may not be wasted and the WARN can go straight to T2.
Two years ago, almost to the day, we collected 'Chug' from Aggregate Industries at Croft and took it to a secret location near Melbourne in Derbyshire. Thursday it was scheduled to be taken out of Melbourne and up to Barrow Hill. I can't say I was exactly looking forward to it. The loco was stood on two 110lb FB rails held together with screwed bars and resting on pieces of 4 x 4 timber. Collecting locos from 'plinths' like this means either getting the trailer end accurately to within an inch or so from the plinth rail ends (ideally taping it out in advance so that you don't have to try measuring through the tractor unit) or blocking the trailer up higher and making a nearly level 'ramp' over to the plinth, where our tip sections then lift the loco away from them. Either way, as the plinth forms an obstruction to the shuffling tractor unit, a longer ramp than normal is required else it cannot detach from the trailer nor get back in there afterwards. So instead of our normal 15ft plus tips, it was 25 ft plus tips, and the rails packed much higher than usual. Much more physical exertion in mild, cooling drizzle.
In fact, we did it in stages, winching the loco over the tips and another 10 or 15ft up the ramp before unpacking the rearmost bits and re-deploying the packing up nearer the front which was looking rather bare. All in all it occupied almost 3 hours against our usual 90 minute loading schedule but at least Barrow Hill isn't too far to go, though the route Adam took had to be more circuitous than mine and I had over half an hour to savour the gently falling drizzle until he arrived.
Unloading though went much as usual, the loco lowered down the ramp until the first axle reached the level rails, when it came to a stand. We knew that a shunter was on its way round to collect it, so we detached the winch rope and started to dismantle things. Then a funny thing happened. About 5 minutes later, the loco suddenly rolled. No other loco was present, no-one stood near, it just set off down the remainder of the ramp and as all 6 wheels landed on Barrow Hill metals, continued a few feet. But the metals at this point are actually slightly against it and it came to a halt and started to roll back towards us. We leant hard and brought it back to rest before it encountered our tip rails, and with a chock under, continued dismantling the ramp.
This loco started out in life as a standard Thomas Hill 'Vanguard' 0-6-0 and so far as I am aware was notionally 48tons when new. Its original cab and casings were removed in the course of a remanufacture under my auspices at RMS Locotec about 15 years ago (but they still live on Adolf at Darley Dale) when I repowered it to CAT, fitted radio cntrol and sundry other features. I have observed in the past that Hills tended not to worry if a loco was overweight - Bill Burgess, the Drawing Office Manager, once explaind to me that a customer was unlikely to complain if he got a loco that was a ton or two more but he might if it was a ton or two less as the adhesion would be reduced and the loco might not complete the duty. I was worried when we remanufactured it that I might have lost a ton or so in the process (we had no means of weighing it, but then neither had Hills - in the good old days if they wanted a loco weighing they tripped it down to a Rotherham steelworks and put it on a weighbridge there) but consoled myself that it was probably a touch over to begin with.
I still don't know how much it weighs, but I do know, from the labouring of the electric pump on the trailer lift rams, that it is still over 50tons. With a service job in progress on Friday, I got back in good time to say bye to Steph and Andrew, who were heading up to our daughter's that evening. I had contemplated going over to Llanuwchllyn on Saturday (another 50th anniversary event) but in the end didn't fancy the extra Bank Holiday mileage and so chilled out at home.
Today however it was back to the grindstone, and joined by Andy M for a single weekend before work takes him away from our pleasant pastures once again. Andrew had, after Andy's last visit, invested in a Rivnut kit so I let him loose to secure the BMAC light units on the Hatramm permanently while I started making up the coolant manifold for 1387 using a laser-cut flange collected from new profilers on Thursday and a length of tube which had arrived during the week. Here's a view of the finished result, awaiting Andrew to weld up and illustrating the new hoses which I talked about last week but hadn't a snap to show.
Similarly here's the complicated combo of fittings for the torque converter outlet connection with compact elbow let into the traywork, tee with temperature switch and 45 degree bend to line up with the flex hose that I'll fit shortly. And here below is the limit switch for clutch detection.
It would be good if I could check all these bits electrically in the near future, and indeed I picked up two new batteries this week (at a special price) with a view to installing them, only to discover that side by side they are about a half inch wider than the space they must occupy under the desk. Oh bother, better sort out some smaller ones as a temporary solution. Andy M meanwhile, in between investigating the control valve that came with the WARN winch (it has electronic remote control but it was snipped off at the plug), installed a new stop solenoid and extended the cabling to the deadmans pedal at one side where I'd made it up a touch short.
Meanwhile, on Saturday Andrew had headed on up to Bo'ness to collect something, and while there inspected several locos including Tiger, an NB similar to his own Coronation. On Sunday morning he had made a further trip out to Tanfield, including inspecting the Fowler 0-6-0DH there, which has been the beneficiary of redundant parts recovered from 4240015 at Darley Dale. (I have given this loco the nickname Boomerang incidentally as two sales have both resulted in the loco returning to my ownership.) So, by way of making up for the dearth of pictures last week, here is a pot-pourri of pictures from Boness and Tanfield to round off this edition. All being well, I'll be back next Sunday with enthusiasm and plenty more to report. See ya then.
