Of ducting and lifting

16th February 2025

I often say that moving big lumps into position gives the impression of significant progress. In which case, we have had a progressive week.

After a flurry of phone calls a fresh set of belts were despatched for the big minilok, this time consigned to the nearby UPS drop off point seeing that the UPS driver was apparently unable to locate the Briddon Country Pile and these, together with belts for the W H Davis loco were joined by a throttle pedal which, I hope will enable me to get the manual throttle system functional shortly. In contrast, Deutz in Germany have not responded to the issues raised in connection with the ECU but I am hoping for better news on that this week.

Although I spent short periods of time at the workshops on Tuesday and Wednesday, they were indeed brief but in part that was in anticipation of more time later in the week, starting with Thursday, when Matt H was due in. I set him off with some jobs to do, while I dashed over to my oil supplier who had the oil ready for the lathe. I was envisaging Matt spending much of his time on that, given that we now possess two different operators manuals and a spare parts manual. Initially things were not going all that well. The manual's instructions for an oil change being to run the main pump and deliver the oil into a suitable empty container. Since the nominal capacity was 45 litres and I had presumably over-filled it last weekend, I produced two 25 litre drums but the pump would only scavenge 35 litres or so. Presumably Colchester never considered the possibility of the lube system becoming water-contaminated, so although we refilled it with fresh oil, the remainder, and with oil floating on water it is likely that much of what remained was more water than oil, then contaminated the new stuff so colour-wise, it is no better. Performance-wise it was no better either, but Matt saw a gear that had blue'd with heat and put his fingers down and found yes, it was hot.

I also asked him to get the belts changed on the minilok but this proved problematic. The alternator belt was straightforward, and he attended to the adjustment which had been slack as a rubber joint had failed. The two main fan belts (this is an air-cooled engine so they are a bit important and only one was present when it arrived) were a different matter. I could not believe that allrad had made a simple maintenance action as changing a belt so difficult. The engine faces backwards so the cooling fan draws its air from the rear of the loco. So they had built a large rectangular duct that hung from the casing fame, butting up to the engine at one end and the rear casing cover at the back. Then on either side they installed train air brake compressor and various hydraulic and pneumatic valves. To access the fan and change the belts we had to remove the rear casing vent section, undo the fixings and wangle it out to the rear of the loco.

Evidently someone had done this before, as it was already bent on the flanges at one end, but even with this to assist us, and having undone and lifted off the casing top section,it still wouldn't come out and I told Matt to get it out anyhow as it was not going back in! Once out (here it is [above] , somewhat the worse for putting up a fight) changing the belts was easy, and daylight revealed that a second compressor - which I was aware of but hadn't taken much notice of, had no drive belts at all so that might be looked at more carefully. Meantime the engine will be recirculating air within the engine bay which is not good if you are working it hard, but I have my eyes on some 400 dia galvanised duct with which to create a more user-friendly alternative.

Andrew and I had a meeting with Mark S up at Rowsley so I left Matt after throwing the casing parts back on the minilok. Our meeting was wide-ranging, from issues of agreements, fences, LOLER requirements for use of the Hatramm on Peak Rail in general, and the future provision of motive power both for works traffic and variety in train services. For now it has been agreed that we will resuscitate the 03 for the Twin Peaks Gala (11th and 12th of April - unusually a Friday and Saturday) so put that in your diary.

Back at the shed Matt had got to the bottom of the problem, adjusted a clutch and as a result the lathe was now working satisfactorily and he had started to clean it all up.

Friday, and Andrew was available and wanted to get some 'heavy lifting' done. His plan envisaged the Hatramm in the shed on track 3B, but that meant moving everything on 3B out of the way, so my first task on arrival was to fire up Louise and move it across. Track 3B is presently occupied by both Yorkshire 0-4-0DHs, the Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0DH, the Yorkshire 0-6-0DH and the GEC 'Ludwig Mond' outside and Yorkshire 0-6-0DE inside. We haven't moved these for some months - possibly twelve - and we know full well that  Ludwig Mond, roller bearing boxes but Motak lubricated traction motors, is a b****r to shift first time. Although the other four amounted to maybe 135tons, the extra 50 ton 'lump' at the end exceeded Louise's adhesive powers even when setting back and going for it in the coupling slack. In the end with hand sanding I managed to get it all rolling and pushed it up and down a few times so Ludwig could get Motak back into parts from which it has oozed. Then I set back down, hooked on to Des inside the shed and drew that out too, making space for another shunt later. But for now the Hatramm came inside and as it is diesel engined, we carried out the lifts in short bursts with breaks (shut-downs) in between.

Firstly the Cummins 855 was lifted out of the Hunslet 0-4-0 mongrel we call Adolf. This was installed several years ago but having a 'high-mounted' turbo was unpleasantly near the casing underside. Andrew however had been looking back at old torque converter matches with the Twin Disc converters, and the specific rating of the converter in the two speed transmission that is waiting to go in wasn't right for the old spec 855. He has plans for a later Big Cam 3 (with lower turbo) to replace it, but I fear that may require me to produce a new front engine mount. In its place for now, the front section of the casings, which have been sat taking up floor space have been dropped back roughly where they will end up, giving a better idea of how it will look, if you excuse the clutter...

After the last loco lift, we sent a Matterson post back to Mattersons for attention but since it returned it was still sat in the middle of the workshops, so that was lifted and put back roughly where it ought to be (they have to move to suit whatever length of loco we need to lift. That's it on the right of Adolf in the picture above.). The band saw was lifted across to a new home next to the pillar drill and finally the Matterson lifting beam was returned to the lift area and placed alongside Adolf. All in all a productive time which has made the workshop feel a little more spacious though there is still much tidying to do. As a final bout of shunting we transferred the ex Chasewater Baguley railcar around so that it is nearer to the shed (in the hope that we can spare a bit of time to go over it and see whether it works), lifted some bits of scrap into the 'bin  before putting everything back on 3B and Louise back to Track 1.

Saturday I intended to go back down to the shed but got embroiled in the paperwork neccessary to get a simple pallet from England to Northern Ireland. I get to do this once or twice a year, and keep paper copies of the data I entered last time and simply replicate for a fresh shipment. But they have changed 'the system' and added a new form to which I haven't a clue and the link to their 'helpful video' gave me no insights whatsoever. They are proclaiming that from March a new 'simplified system' is coming in which seems to mean that you must log with HMRC what shipments you regularly make and to whom, get them to issue a special number and thereafter you can quote this and 'the system' will automatically do much of it for you. The last few times I have allocated two hours to fill this paperwork out (digitally) and I suspect the simplified system will end up taking longer as I stumble around trying to get the right buttons pressed for it to do anything but display Error messages in off-screen places. Thank heavens I don't get involved in real exporting. Anyway, by the time I had concluded I couldn't get any further it was too late to do anything meaningful so I stayed home, pity in a way as Peak Rail had a night running event that evening which apparently was well attended and worth the novelty.

Sunday and I got down about half ten with a few little tasks in mind, starting with taking a look at how to mount the new throttle pedal in the big minilok. I produced some sketches for a simple laser cut plate to use the old cab floor mountings and will probably be putting an order on the laser cutters this week. I also became the first to use the band saw in its new home, cutting some bits of plywood (off cuts from Andrew's DIY-ing) to form a ledge to go behind the shelving assembly by the sink. The keys are located above on the wall and up to now there has been a 50mm gap through which things occasionally drop, to lurk in the darkness under the fridge. Just after lunch a visitor arrived from Kent - Martin S had driven up to collect some parts from Andrew, but if that sounds like a quick turn around we couldn't let him go without tea and a tour so it must have been 4pm before he set off and by then I had a fresh enquiry to look at. Andrew headed home and I finished the day by installing my ledge.

Early start tomorrow, I'm off to pick up a part and deliver it to a customer - I think I'm in the workshops again Wednesday and Thursday, maybe have Friday 'off' before a weekend getting on with- whatever I can. What that will be, don't know, come back next week and find out. See ya then.