August seems to be one of the busiest months for restoration work since we first started the project. John spent Monday 1st to Thursday 4th working in number 1 cab assisted on the Tuesday and Thursday by Alan. New woodwork has been made and fitted to the cab roof. John welded the brackets that hold the heater resistors onto the cabside on the Seconman's side. Alan drilled the holes out in the floor crossmembers where the old studs had sheared off. Once the holes had been drilled, Alan re-tapped the threads so that they will be ready for when the new floor is made. A lot of time was spent restoring more of the equipment so that it was ready to be refitted to the bulkhead. Wednesday 3rd saw the front windows removed from Number 1 cab, the window frames were rubbed down then painted in order to be ready for new windscreens to be fitted the next day. Thursday 4th saw the glazing contractor finally arrive and cut the glass to size. The windscreens were installed together with new rubber surrounds. All of the other windows in the cab bar the droplights and cab door windows were replaced with new glass and rubber surrounds. Whilst the glazing people were on site, the instrument panel on the Driver's side in Number 1 cab was sealed with the rubber surround that had been missing for so long. Sunday saw Alan, Dave, Doug, Joan and Chris working on the loco. Alan continued with work on Number 1 cab floor after installing a newly donated vice on the workbench - thanks for the vice Alan! Doug cut the grass surrounding our storage container and repaired the step into one of the nearby portacabins. The site now looks a lot better for being manicured by Doug. Chris and Dave spent the day working on the lubricating oil priming pump that will be installed in the loco soon. The pump had all of the paint removed and then was painted into primer at the end of the day by Joan. Chris and Dave also started dismantalling the DSD pedal and surrounding equipment ready for overhaul then repainting before it is refitted in the loco. Part of the DSD equipment was rubbed down and painted in primer by the end of the day. A mercy run to the nearest DIY store had to be made by Chris after one of the grinders decided to dismantle itself before work commenced. Joan provided the usual excellent catering service that is really appreciated by the workers. We continue to sell various items on www.ebay.co.uk to raise money for funding the continuing restoration work. Most of the items sold are railwayana and all profits go into our fund. Please use the link on the main page to view our current sales items. If anyone has any unwanted railwayana they wish to dispose of please contact us as every item sold makes the restoration project that much easier! We recently had a number of books donated by Chris McNaughton and these are being put on ebay as time permits. Thanks Chris! Doug, John, Adrian and Chris spent the whole of Friday 12th and part of Saturday 13th up at C.F. Booth's scrapyard at Rotherham purchasing yet more parts. The main purpose of the visit was to try and get hold of a complete set of guardirons as ours are all missing as has been mentioned before and this time we were successful! Numerous other parts that we were missing or needed to replace were sourced from the many 37s on site. Our thanks once more go to James and "Rocky" at C.F. Booth for their assistance in our quest. It was sad to see that one of the locomotives that donated parts on previous visits (37068) has finally made it onto the cutting line and last pictures of the remains were taken for posterity. Other locomotives that donated components over the two days were: 37040, 37162, 37298, 37334, 37344, 37376, 37686 & 37697. A last minute 'phone call on the Friday evening from another preservation group resulted in us removing and buying some of their required parts and they will be delivered to the other group as soon as possible so as to further their restoration work. This is what the preservation movement is all about, groups helping each other out so that they achieve the same goal. We just about had time to get some pictures of the locomotives that donated parts before we left the scrapyard on the Saturday morning. Sunday 14th saw Alan, John and Chris working on the loco. Alan painted the numerous air pipes that had been removed from the loco as well as dismantling the newly acquired droplight seals and reconditioning them. John continued working away in number 1 cab sanding some newly-applied filler, painting the new woodwork, installing some vacuum pipework, reconnected the gauges, rewired the NRN and many other small jobs. Chris dismantalled the DSD from number 1 end as it was completely full of dirt and oil from over the years. The DSD components were sanded back to bare metal then primed. The refurbished lubricating oil priming pump was painted into undercoat. Chris also sanded the newly acquired NRN fascia holder (ex 37162 on Friday) and Alan and John painted it. John painted the AWS change-end switch so it can be re-installed this week. The weekend of the 20th and 21st saw the DSD painted into undercoat amongst the many other jobs undertaken. During the following week, John and Alan worked on a variety of jobs and the old engine oil was drained then replaced with new oil and the filters were changed. The Bank Holiday weekend was a chance for lots of work to be done. Saturday saw Adrian, John, Dan and Chris on site. Adrian cleaned the cab heaters down to bare metal and then painted them, John continued working in Number 1 cab, Chris top coated the DSD pedal and Dan painted the air reservoir with gloss black. Sunday had Chris, Alan, John and Dan busily working away. Chris reassembled the DSD pedal, Dan painted the cab ceiling and other things, Alan fixed the sander then stripped the wiper motors and primed them (as well as a gauge surround that Chris had stripped earlier). John worked on the AWS and NRN systems as well as painting in Number 1 cab. Monday saw Dan, John, Adrian and Chris working on site. Chris dismantled one of the crew seats and then stripped it of all paint and assisted Adrian in priming it later in the day. Chris also gave the guardirons a second coat of undercoat. Adrian sanded down the fire extinguisher holder that belongs to the crew seat as well as preparing for painting a lot of small components from Number 1 cab. John continued the never-ending task of painting Number 1 cab as well as refitting more of the AWS system. Dan did various painting jobs and rebuilt a hotplate ready for it to go back into Number 1 cab.

Thursday 1st saw Pete from Carlisle (yes you did indeed read Carlisle!) on site working with Chris. Pete undercoated the chair that Adrian and Chris had worked on a few days previously. Chris continued with the numerous little paint jobs that were outstanding.

Monday 5th was the next working party and Pete and Chris were on site yet again. Pete top-coated the seat with black gloss and commenced dismantalling the next seat for the same treatment. Chris built a display shelf ready for a sales stand which will be at the steam festival at the end of the month.

Tuesday 6th saw a vast improvement to the tea brewing facilities in our workshop with Pete building a shelf to hold the mugs and other very essential items as well as providing a big box of biscuits! A proper stereo was installed by Chris and Pete to replace the radio that has never worked very well since it fell of one of the air reservoirs in the engine room! Alan cracked on with the building of the cab floor for Number 1 Cab.

Thursday 8th had Joan, Doug, Chris, Alan and Pete on site - very good attendance for a midweek party! Alan carried on the floor making after fresh supplies of timber had arrived. Pete reassembled the recently painted seat and it looks superb. Pete rubbed-down the next seat and primed it before the day was over. Chris sanded two of the replacement electrical covers for Number 2 Cab and Joan then painted them on the inside face. Chris painted one of the electrical covers with primer. Doug worked on the sanding system replacing a damaged delivery pipe with one of the spares that were acquired from C.F. Booth at Rotherham. Chris repaired two of the other sanding pipes and also painted the floor in Number 2 nose - only a small bit of floor remains to be painted.

On Friday 9th, John, Pete and Chris were on site for a few hours in between fotting a Class 33 which was running nearby with an inspection saloon - John insists that he still dislikes Cromptons! Pete painted the current seat into undercoat and Chris assisted John with work on the heaters in Number 1 Cab. John rewired the AWS Change-End switch.

Pete and Chris arrived on site during Saturday afternoon on the 10th after an earlier commitment. Pete top-coated the latest seat and commenced re-covering the cushions for the second seat as the originals were torn when they were supplied to us. Chris gave the inside surfaces of the electrical covers for Number 2 Cab a second coat of heatproof paint. Chris installed two heaters in Number 1 Cab (one on each side of the cab on the floor).

On Sunday 11th, Chris, Alan and Pete were on site. Chris painted various items including the hotplate surround into undercoat. Chris also cleaned up a couple of glass sections from the light fittings that are away for chroming - rumours of Chris taking up a new hobby of washing up have been strongly denied!! Alan continued the task of building the jigsaw that has become the cab floor at Number 1 End. At the end of the day there remained only one more floor panel to be produced and a source of screws to secure the floor has been found. Pete carried on working on the second crew seat and completed the recovering of the seat cushion as well as doing a sterling job making tea!

Chris, Dan and John were at the Great Central Railway's diesel gala on Sunday 18th riding behind Sister loco 37255 so Doug, Joan and Alan carried on without us on the loco. Alan completed the cab floor at No.1 end - what a transformation it has made! Doug and Joan worked in both cabs getting them ready for some welding to take place shortly.

On Sunday 25th the Annual Harvest Festival Steam Fair took place on the site where we are based. The fair is produced to a smaller scale than the main steam fair in May although the Harvest Festival Steam Fair is much more informal. We had number 1 cab open for the public to visit and the loco proved extremely popular with at least 300 people visiting the cab over the weekend! A lot of people remarked that it was a nice change to see some people preserving a diesel locomotive rather than all the steam locomotives on site - something we kept winding the steam blokes up about all weekend!! We had a small sales stand in front of the loco selling all sorts of railway books and models. We sold almost all of the model railway stock before the end of Saturday so Chris had to go and get some more ready for the Sunday. Thanks to all that helped over the weekend: Adrian, Alan, Chris McNaughton, Dan and John.