Monthly Archives: July 2018

Monthly updates

July 2018 Update

Work continues on the locomotive with progress being made on the machine shop front. With temperatures a little over 80 degF in Ians workshop at school it’s time to make some more progress on the Klinger valves. All 4 bodies have had all the internal machining completed and are ready to be drilled for the cap mounting stud holes. Just waiting for a drilling jig to be made. The 2 large caps are machined inside and out and are awaiting jig drilling plus the interesting part- Machining the metric trapezoidal thread. Another one of our members has volunteered to create all the spring hangers and fittings for the trailing truck and bogie. The Society has provided all the material for the work and if anyone would like to contribute towards the cost please do get in touch.

The project was featured in this month’s Heritage Railway magazine which was a roundup of the Society’s efforts over the last year. Its great being able to get some coverage in his particular title which will hopefully gain us some supporters.

The Society is delighted to announce we have acquired a brass lamp fitted with the bullseye lens, toggle switch to side and bulb holder inside. The lamp is reported to have come off Merchant Navy’ Class No. 35024 “East Asiatic Company” and was purchased at a recent Railwayana auction. Gaining the lamp is fantastic news for the project as the use of original components helps add character to the locomotive. The lamp is part of a number of items that have been loaned to the Society on a loan term lease by one of our members to be used on 35011. Members will be able to read about the other components in the next issue of the Packet out in late September.

Lastly the Society was saddened by the death this month of project supporter and Bulleid 4DD Double Deck EMU Supporters Group Committee Member Ian Ross. Ian was a great friend of the project and helped publicize the project in the early days.  His loss at such a young age came as a complete shock and our thoughts are with his family and friends at this terrible time.

As always thank you for your support.

 

Monthly updates

June 2018 Update

The project has taken a major step forward with work being focused around General Steam Navigations trailing truck. With 35011 having the only surviving fabricated trailing truck the society has secured the matching fabricated dust covers for the spring beams. With the drawings for the cast versions not being available the society decided to go with the fabricated design which would improve the uniqueness of the locomotive rather than going down the extremely costly route of borrowing an existing cover, getting that made into a pattern, cast and then machined. The drawings for the fabricated dust covers were converted into a CAD file which enabled the pieces to be laser cut and then welded together. The two dust covers were completed in time to be taken down to the working party over the May bank holiday and were successfully test fitted to the locomotive.

Test fitting of the cover at Sellindge.

The Society has also ordered of a pair of spring beams for the trailing truck. The spring beams are traditionally created by forging the steel into the correct shape and then machining the piece to the required specification however with the introduction of water jet cutting GSNs spring beams will be cut out of a block of steel using and then machined to completion. What this allows us to do is created spring beams that will have the same strength as the forged versions but for around half the price. One of our volunteers, James Pearce, converted the drawings into a CAD file which was sent directly to the water jet company. Water cut beams is a common practice used on recent locomotive restorations although GSN will be the first Bulleid locomotive to feature one and should be delivered during the summer.

The CAD model of the spring beams (James Pearce)

Once the spring beams are completed we will have all the components required to successfully overhaul the trailing truck once it’s been released during the strip down stage. The only major remaining component will be the hangers for the springs which one of our volunteers has offered to machine and features in the machine shop section. We plan to get all the components together and test fitted on the trailing truck at Sellindge by the end of the year.

Issue 7 of the Packet was posted to our members in earlyJune which featured all the latest news from our AGM and updates on the engineering, crank and machine shop fronts. If you’d like to join the society this could be the perfect chance with GSN making excellent progress each and every month. More info on our membership can be found on our website.

As always thank you for your support.