April

April 2nd was the first working day of the month. Chris, Doug, Joan and alan were on site. Chris continued working on the cab floor in Number 2 Cab with a few more of the floorboards secured. Chris also cut the last-but-one piece of engine room floor out of a recently-purchased sheet of aluminium chequerplate. Alan worked on the faulty compressor trying to rectify the fault that is reducing the compressor's output. Doug continued painting in the engine room. Joan commenced organising the nuts and bolts that we have been accumulating over the years. Chris got some storage bins as a birthday present so these were pressed into use straight away.

John worked on the loco on Thursday 6th sorting out a couple of air supply faults. A defective valve was removed and replaced with a valve that was removed from 37054 at Motherwell back in September 2003. The engine was then run up and the fault was proved to have been cured. The sanders now had air to them and also the air supply to the turbochargers was reinstated.

Sunday 9th saw Alan and Adrian on site. Alan repaired one of the tools that had given up the ghost since its last use. Once the tool was repaired, Alan cracked on with the cleaning of the fan room readying it for a repaint. Adrian continued in Number 2 cab tapping-out numerous holes for the floor panels to be secured with.

Thursday 13th saw Dan, John and Dave Downer on site to try and rectify the power problem we are currently suffering. Dave tested most of the equipment over the course of the day and has traced the fault down to a circuit that will need further investigation at a later date. Yet again the loco used the test track during the testing process - John is definitely getting some mileage in now!

The bank holiday Easter weekend was a golden opportunity for some serious amounts of work to be undertaken on the loco. Chris and Adrian started the weekend on Friday 14th with a full days work performed. Adrian continued working in Number 2 Cab securing the floorboards as well as helping Chris with reconditioning the first brake cylinder that was dismantled a few weeks ago. A surprise visit from Moff occured in the afternoon brought some sunny weather! All three workers mucked in to get the access tower built in front of Number 1 end's nose so that Moff could complete the welding on the headcode box!! The one remaining corner to be treated was prepared for Moff to commence welding. Moff cut out the worst of the metal and then welded replacement bits in. Once he had finished, the equipment was hurriedly packed away as it was now almost 9 o'clock in the evening - how time flies! Chris had spent part of the afternoon working on the track at the far end of the test track preparing it for the final connection to be made (hopefully on Sunday).

Saturday 15 saw just Chris on site. Chris continued with the cab floor in Number 2 cab, grinding off bolts that had sheared off in the past, drilling the remains of the bolts out and then re-tapping the holes ready for the new bolts to be put in. One more floorboard was secured and the final floorboard was measured up and drawn out ready for Sunday. Chris also worked on the set of points on the test track adding a couple of stretcher bars that were missing previously. In the afternoon, Chris continued preparing the far end of the test track ready for the final connection on Sunday. One of the rails had the end trimmed off using the newly-overhauled disc cutter. This needed doing because someone had cut the rail using a gas axe sometime in the past (not guilty)! The one piece of flat bottom rail that remained to be installed was cut to length and the placed back on the sleepers. Around a third of the rail was clipped-up by Chris but the remaining two thirds had to wait until Sunday. The rain came down for most of the day and Chris decided to call it a day at 8 o'clock in the evening.

Sunday 16th saw a large working party raring to go. On site was Joan, Doug, Chris McNaughton, Adrian, Alan and Chris Barrow. The two Chris' and Doug continued working on the test track. The work involved clipping-up the remaining sleepers to the rail that Chris couldn't manage yesterday followed by moving the entire panel the bufferstop is on a couple of inches towards the rest of the track. This was accomplished surprisingly easily bearing in mind only three people were working on it at the time. Joan installed another batch of storage boxes onto the racking in the container and then proceeded to fill them up from our temporary store of nuts and bolts. Adrian and Alan continued working inside the loco. Adrian cut out the last floorboard and secured another couple of panels - 4 left to go! Alan had progressed to a stage where painting of the fan room could begin. Alan painted one wall in undercoat and left it to dry when Joan announced that lunch was being served. After lunch, everyone mucked in with the trackwork. Some fishplates were replaced and the test track had the final connection made mid afternoon. A sleeper was then produced and drilled ready for use on the bufferstop. The bufferstop was straightened up slightly and the sleeper offered up and fitted perfectly - superb job by the track Foreman Chris McNaughton. Alan made a lamp bracket ready for the bufferstop and this was duly fitted and tested. Chris McNaughton cut some wood to length and then added the pieces to the sleeper where the buffers of a vehicle would make contact with the bufferstop. Joan performed the ceremony of painting the bufferstop's wooden parts and this completed the test track. The addition and subsequent painting of the bufferstop has vastly improved the look of the railway area of the site. At the end of the day, a quick tidying up session was performed with all the spare track equipment (not a lot left!) being stacked away ready for when it is needed in the future... There will be the annual steam festival held on site at the end of May, so if anyone wants to come along and see how we are doing please drop us a line and we'll send you some details. Last year around 20,000 people attended the event. We look forward to seeing you there!

Chris worked for half a day on the loco on Monday 17th. Chris removed the cover from the headcode box at Number 1 end. The inside of the headcode box was cleaned out and then the bottom of the headcode box was painted. Once the paint had dried, the cover was re-attached to the headcode box. While the paint tin was open, Chris painted some of the conduit in the engine room and the conduit now requires only the top coat applying before another section of floor is completed. The bufferstop was given another coat of paint while the weather was fine. If only we could have four day weekends all of the time!

John and the two Chris' were on site in the evening of Tuesday 18th. John followed someone's suggestion on how the power fault may be being caused. After about ten minutes of work, John fired the engine up and tea was drunk whilst air was made. After tea the loco was tested and it worked perfectly! After all this time, ten minutes of work cured the fault. Doh! Numerous test runs were made up and down the test track with no problems being encountered. A few minutes were spent jacking and packing one of the track panels that had been connected on the Sunday before.

Sunday 23rd saw Alan and Chris on site. Alan performed some remedial work on the track whilst Chris worked mainly in Number 2 nose. Numerous fittings were attended to a missing bolts replaced. Chris installed the SSF box that had been missing since the loco was purchased. Alan continued with the first brake cylinder overhaul mainly working on smoothing out the inside of the cylinder.

John and Alan were on site on Tuesday 25th. After an hour or so working on the defective compressor, a fault was found and rectified. Alan found a defective plug part-way along one of the delivery pipes. John made a new plug and the compressor works perfectly now! Alan commenced painting the exterior of the first brake cylinder that is being overhauled.

John continued working on the loco on Wednesday 26th and another milestone was reached. John has come to the conclusion that the loco sucks! Don't panic, he isn't jacking it in! John managed to get both vacuum exhausters working (hence the "suck" comment!). The last time the exhausters ran must have been in the mid 1990s so John's work today was quite an achievement and another big step towards the loco being fit for service again. All that remains to be done on the vacuum system is to fit two large diameter pipes (already in stock) and manufacture three small diameter pipes. A small amount of work is outstanding on the vacuum exhausters, namely work on the brush gear.

Saturday 29th saw Chris McNaughton, Dan Jenner and Chris Barrow on the road up to C.F. Booth's scrapyard at Rotherham to collect the remaining spares that James Hawley of C.F. Booth was kindly minding for us. The only remains of a Class 37 on site were the underframe of 37686 on the cutting line and 37686's engine which was being smashed up by a crane dropping a giant metal ball on top of it! Luckily, when the scrapmen had cut the body off 37686, they had not affected the underfame so were were able to salvage a few valves. When we had finished removing parts off 37686, James loaded our two vacuum exhausters onto our lorry and we set off south again. Thanks must go to James Hawley of C.F Booth for his very pro-active attitude towards railway preservationists, without him we would have struggled to get the spares that we have at a price that wasn't out of our reach. Thanks also to Mike Whittingstall for unloading the lorry when we got back to base.

Sunday 30th saw a late start for Chris (still recovering from the day before), however Alan and Adrian were already on site when Chris arrived. Adrian worked in both cabs installing metal edging stripes to the floorboards - the difference this simple addition makes turns what looked like a collection of floorboards into a proper floor. All that remains to be done is to add the lino to the floorboards - this will be one shortly before the loco is ready to leave the restoration base on the way to its new home. Adrian installed a seat for the Driver in Number 1 Cab and we now have a matching pair of crew seats in this cab. Number 2 Cab still awaits the two seats, we have three in the store and should be able to make two good seats out of the three. Alan tidied up the remaining track spares, completed painting the bufferstop and then undercoated the brake cylinder that is being overhauled. Chris tidied the exterior of the nose of Number 1 end in preparation for the steam fair which is now only four weeks away. The nose had a cosmetic paint job and the various bufferbeam pipes were also painted. Number 1 end is the end that most of the visitors will see and it is also the end that has suffered most from the welding of the headcode box so a quick paint job improved the look of the loco considerably. Chris also installed a couple of dummies for a couple of pipes at Number 2 end. The dummies had been removed from the remains of 37686 the day previously.