Overhaul update
The working parties are now once again a weekly occurrence, but meet on Sundays only until social distancing rules allow otherwise. These photos were taken over a three week period starting on 2 August 2020.
SVR staff are present Mondays to Saturdays with volunteers on Sundays; keeping them apart limits any possibility of spreading the infection. It does though limit communications between the two parties, but having a black cab side sheet allows chalked instructions to be carried forwards.
Work by SVR staff has resumed (they had been transferred to preparation of the running fleet for service operations), and this includes fitting and aligning the left hand top slidebar. In turn, this has allowed all measurements to be made preparatory to machining the crossheads, a job soon to be started.
The removed cylinder cladding as reported last time has allowed the painting to begin, to both inner and outer surfaces, first in grey primer ...
...then in black undercoat.
The cab roof has been moved down to outside the paint shop, where work on stripping the old paint and removing surface rust has started.
A week later, parts of it were in primer. The roof vent has also been dismantled to be fully cleaned and painted without leaving hidden, covered areas untouched.
Much work has been done on the trailing sandpipes. Both sides’ pipes through which the sand will run were made up by SVR staff, and the SMF have tackled the steam pipes. New ones have been made up with male and female ends fitted by silver soldering them to the copper pipes, which were then annealed prior to bending to shape.
They were then led into the cab area, necessitating a large hole being formed in the cab plate work. The mag drill was used to cut this.
Following this, the pipe, made in short sections coupled together, was fed into the cab. Note the supporting bracket.
Below the cab floor, the pipes from each side are extended below floor level. Eventually, a third pipe will be provided for the lead sanders, and all three will have extension pieces leading vertically up the firebox backplate to the sand / blower valve.
The assembly on the right side, with both sand and steam pipes in place.
Likewise on the left. These views are before the painters were turned loose on them!