NG15 No 134 Restoration Project - Working Party reports

The January working party achieved a great deal on many different fronts over the weekend. This ranged from work on 133's tender frame, 134's loco frames and work on various components thereof.

On 133's tender rolling chassis, the hand brake is now fitted and operational. Following the work done by Team Wylfa in freeing off the brake shaft, all the linkages including the brake handle were refitted and now we have a working hand break. There are still some joints that need a bit more work, together with the removal of some flanges that have worn onto brake blocks due to them having been poorly fitted, however, it shouldn't stop the tank being fitted sooner rather than later. Some work is still needed on the vacuum brake as well, however again this can be done after the tank is fitted, however it is hoped that Team Wylfa can attend to both the aforementioned outstanding jobs before that happens. It is the aim that the tank can be fitted during or just before the next working party.

On the Loco itself, the rear frame stretcher was bolted into place. This task involved making two podgers to align the holes. Podgers are drifts with a long, shallow taper which are driven through misaligned holes to bring them into line to allow the bolts to pass cleanly through the holes. Whilst the stretcher still needs to be fitted with the final 'fitted' bolts into reamed holes, in place of the original rivets, it will now allow the rear drag box to be removed. Toward this an assessment was done as to the best method of adding extra bracing to the rear of the frames when it is removed. Once the new drag box is in place then all the temporary bolts will be replaced with 'fitted' bolts at the same time as the drag box has the same treatment.

Now the full extent of the cylinder misalignment is known the cylinders can be re-bored to correct the error. The work is anticipated to start shortly and will involve the cylinders being re-bored in situ. In preparation for this all the piano wire and alignment fixtures were removed.

Work also continued on the central grease blocks, with one side now fitted to the loco running plate frame.

The final item to report was the inspection for cracks of all the suspension components. This used the dye penetration inspection method and involved a number of us getting rather pink from the red dye used. A few minor cracks and poor welds were found and so these will be repaired before the components are refitted to the loco or tender.

Team Wylfa started the New Year with a modicum of success on their first working party of 2012 - the seized brake shaft from 133's tender that Andie Shaw and Pete Randall successfully removed and took to the Clip Shed workshop during the December working party just before Christmas has been freed off. With the rust scraped and wire brushed away from the shaft / bearing interfaces, these were then soaked for a short while with some 'magic mix' - a mix of paint thinners and oil. Some 'gentle' persuasion with a sledge hammer followed and before long, the outer bearing had been carefully levered off and bearing and shaft cleaned. The inner bearing was then freed off in short order - it is 'trapped' on the shaft between a pinned collar and crank arm - both of which are 'rust welded' to the shaft. These would have to be burned off so as this work on 133's tender is only to make it useable 'for now' on a temporary basis, there is no intention of doing major refurbishment by making a new shaft and crank arms. The opportunity to drill the cast iron bearings and tap them 1/4" BSP for the fitting of grease nipples has been undertaken - there was no provision for lubricating these important parts of the brake system from new..! Next visit will see the assembly thoroughly cleaned and painted ready for refitting at the January Working Weekend.

Work on 133's tender missing front end vacuum brake piping was also undertaken during this working party. Just before Christmas, measuring and cutting of replacement pipe spools was done. Half of these spools had threads cut on their ends during the evening with the remainder to follow by the end of next week's working party. We may get around to assembling them on the tender too if they are completed early enough in the evening.

The whole of 133's tender brake system should be in a functional state by the end of the January Working Weekend thus making it suitable as the short term home for 134's new tender tank.

The December working party was held on the 17th & 18th of the month, the weekend before Christmas with the result that with the weather and the allure of the Christmas shops the Squad was somewhat depleted. The result was that for the first time in many years there were only two of us at Dinas over the weekend.

We carried on with the remounting of the handbrake on 133’s tender chassis. The brackets that we attached last time were drilled and a mounting plate made so that the pedestal could be bolted onto the chassis. With a new piece of footplating also bolted across the front of the chassis to allow safe operation of the brake, all the construction work was completed. All that needs to be done is the reassembly of the handbrake mechanism. The operating shaft which connects the brake pedestal with the brake rigging was still seized. With no easy solution available, the shaft and its bearings were unbolted and removed. This turned out to be a wise move as both the bearings turned out to be absolutely solidly seized to the shaft. The complete assembly was taken to the clip shed where we will attend to it next time!

It just remains to wish all a Happy Christmas, and remember the Tee Shirts are still available. (Donations too!)

This working part continued with the two task as described in previous working parties, the loco's frame alignment and №133's tender chassis.

Progress was finally achieved with the frame alignment in that we finally discovered that the driver's side cylinder, the replaced cylinder, has had it's liner incorrectly bored, it pointing away from the frames slightly. The fireman's side cylinder also points up slightly, again presumably from an incorrect rebore. A plan is to be generated to correct these two defects.

The work that Team Wylfa had done on the brake gear was all but completed with all the brake rigging reconnected and set up. Brake blocks were 'cottered' onto their shafts and adjusted to run true on the wheel treads. On Sunday, following liberal doses of easing oil, a large rose burner was applied to the main brake shaft bearings below the pillar and finally with the assistance of a 14lb hammer, the crank was finally freed off. It is still stiff – probably because one of the bearings is mounted on the back of the footstep which is easy to knock out of alignment being both flimsy and in an exposed position. A new bracket was then fabricated to take the hand wheel pillar. See the Gallery for a photo of this. The only things left to do now are to mount the pillar and connect to the freed off brake shaft, fit the vacuum brake piston rod and remount the vacuum brake train pipe between fore and aft. These are all possible after No.134's tender new tank is temporarily fitted.

Some other work also took place with the refurbishment of some minor components such as the removal of the old bushes from the break rigging suspension arms. The worn, rectangular suspension hanger rod holes on top of the chassis; were all chain drilled ready to be cut out, cleaned up and prepped ready for welding infill pieces in to restore the holes to true rectangles. This involved an awful lot of holes being drilled through metal in various states of hardness due to the years of modifications and welding. A drill on average lasted 1½ holes and this required one of the team being on permanent drill grinding duty on the Sunday!

Both the the September and October working parties continued with the same two tasks of the previous months, namely that of the preparation of 133's tender chassis ready to receive the new tender body together with continuing with the loco frame alignment. The latter is proving particularly frustrating as it's proving very difficult to understand what's going on with the alignment. We certainly know we've odd cylinder castings and the replacement is misaligned but quite why we're not sure.

Regarding 133's rolling chassis, this is being refurbished so as to take the new tender body for №134 as it's own chassis still needs quite a lot of refurbishment work to finish it off. The new tender body was delivered to Dinas in time for the September working party and the HR Superpower weekend held the same weekend.

It is intended to use the new tender as a travelling advert for the restoration and to move it to prominant positions during special events.

The tender body was well received during the Superpower weekend that gave much encouragement to the team. Whilst there will be the objector to the new style those people must realise that we're in a different era and a different railway to that for which the NG15s were originally built. Never mind the fact that the old tender body was quite incapable of holding water anymore, quite simply, we would not be allowed to run tender first with the original tender with its poor rearwards visibility. This was OK in South Africa where the driver could swing out and with not a crossing in sight, but on the WHR with four or five crossing every mile and limited clearances a design such as this was unfortunately needed.

The working weekend got a lot done again. With two teams working simultaneously, one group tackled the frame alignment; while the other the basic refurbishment of 133’s tender chassis so it will be ready to accept the new body when it arrives. The main achievement was the fitting of FR/WHR standard couplings at each end, so that the vehicle can be easily towed. A refurbished vac cylinder out of 134 was also fitted so that it's now not too far off from being 'road worthy'. The main vac pipe was also removed for repair, overhaul and modification.

We have been working for a while to check the alignment of the frames (this is critical to ensure smooth running between the axles and the pistons). This had not been going too well, and this weekend we managed to confirm what we had been coming to suspect for some time, ever since we discovered that have unmatched cylinders and liners on each side. That is that the right hand cylinder is out of alignment by about 125 thou, 1/8“ or 3mm whatever your predilection. This in an ideal world, with full works facilities would mean that the cylinder would be removed and remounted on the loco having been re-machined and bored. This however would be a massive job for us and we are currently working out if we can rebore the cylinder to correct the alignment in situ. This is an accepted practice, but we are at the limits of the practicality for this process. The alignment issue is also at the back end of the cylinder, so the end cover with the piston gland in it will also need realignment! This is probably the biggest issue we have encountered since the restoration of the locomotive commenced.

Happily, the other cylinder and the other axles were all aligned and the driving axle datum dowelled in place. This will allow us to set up all the axleboxes, horns and suspension so we can re-wheel the engine.

At the Brunswick Iron Works, the monster is rapidly outgrowing its cage! Pictures show that the body in now well advanced and that the back of the cab has now been fitted. It is a truly magnificent piece of fabrication and hopefully you will all be able to see it soon. More details on the Tender page and in the Gallery.

Following the working party weekend, Team Wylfa had been progressing the de-scaling of 133's chassis during their evening working parties. Following this cleaning up they have now painted it to make it much more presentable and ready to receive the new tender body.

The June working party was planned as a long weekend with the Friday and Monday included to make up a four day session from the 24^th June through to the 27^th June. As it turned out Friday was well supported, as was the Saturday and Sunday, however by Monday the planned work was completed and numbers had thinned out a bit. Also on Monday and our lead engineer was called up to drive the service train so at that point it was decided the working party would be terminated.

The main area of work planned for the working party was the removal of all four tender bogies, those from under №134 and those form under №133. The intention being to select the wheelsets with best matched amount of wear on the tyres. So on the Friday the bogies were removed from under №133's tender in the Carriage shed.

This was followed on the Saturday by the removal of the door to the clip shed, a job that the group is becoming well versed in, followed by the wheeling out of №134's bogies from under the tender frames. With all wheelset alongside each other in the open air it soon became apparent that in fact the complete set from under №133's tender were in fact the best matched.

For more pictures of the working party go to the June working party page in the Gallery - click any of the pictures above.

On Sunday with the decision made as to the best matched wheelsets, №134's wheels were put back into №133's bogies. Before doing that however, the bogies had their spring gear freed up so as they will work correctly. The bogies were subsequently reunited with №133's tender frames. №133's wheels had their bearing surfaces protected and are now ready to be re-profiled for use on the WHR.

Alongside this activity the alignment of the loco frames continued throughout the weekend.

Rather than the May working party being held on the usual 3rd weekend of the Month it was moved back a week so as to coincide with the Railway's Rail Ale Festival weekend on the 21^st & 22^nd May.

After the success of the past few weekends this weekend unfortunately contained many frustrations and a rather disappointing amount of progress made. The hope was that we'd have completed the removal of the tender tank from NG15 №133, however, in being unable to find tools and equipment meant a lot of wasted time! Whist a start was made on the Saturday with a view of making do without some equipment, it involved more effort.

This work did, however, finally get underway on the Sunday when we managed to track down the kit that was needed. Unfortunately some of the 'workaround' progress meant that doing the work as originally intended now took longer. In all it probably took a day and a half to do do what should have taken 3/4 day. These frustrations come along and thwart us occasionally and we just have to ignore them and get on as best we can.

Other work progressing this weekend included, the continuation of the frame alignment jig work. The piano-wire reference wire was further aligned, although it is felt some modifications are needed. It's likely this will now be left until other work needed on the frames has been finished so as it does not disturb the jig alignment. The fitting of the running boards continued. This requires the drilling of holes into the newly fitted edge angle to match those already in the platework. This job has also been progressed by Team Wylfa in between the regular Monthly working parties.

On the tender, the removal of the front dragbox casting continued. The removal of this is getting a bit 'long winded' and Ben, our volunteer working on it, will be glad to see than back of the job!

The April working party took place over the weekend of the 16^th & 17^th. The jobs were a continuation of those of the past few working parties and apart from one 'destructive' task were all associated with the re-construction of №134.

The destructive part of the weekend was the cutting up of №133's tender body. This had been deemed in poor condition many years ago and has certainly not got any better with age! The main body was full of holes and all the internal baffles were so rotten they could be pulled out by hand! This now leaves the tender chassis that will be tided up in order to act as temporary storage for №134's new tender body when it arrives from Brunswick Ironworks later in the year.

With №133's tender body now removed the opportunity will be taken to do wheel swaps so as to match tyre wear between the two tenders. №134's wheelsets were in various states of wear and so it is intended to try and match them as best as possible. This should enable us to maximise wear out of all tyres, including those under №133's tender should that loco ever reach the head of the restoration queue.

As regards №134's tender chassis, work continued on the removal of the front drag box coupling casting for reuse in the new dragbox that will be built.

As well as the work on the tender, another group was concentrating on the loco frames with the main area of activity as in previous months being centred around the cylinder and frame alignment. We have been set back by approximately 4 months on this due to the discovery that the loco has mismatched cylinders. At some point in its career it's been given a replacement cylinder and so there are some dimensional discrepancies that will need to be allowed for. To find out which one is the original will need some more research. The result of all this is that spending more time on getting it right now will save us time in the long term.

Also on the loco frames work continued on welding up the horn ties to prevent the frames from cracking. The ties should be a tight fit over the horns but in some cases are very loose.

One of the 'indirect' jobs was that of another session of jig making. This time it was the manufacturing of clip press tools for the copper lubrication pipework. Some clips were subsequently manufactured using the new press.

In all another productive weekend was had. There's now also a varied group of people rainging from a young Welsh lad, a Polish guy and a South African (who claims to be English as he was born on Colonial land) through to various people from the South of England up to Lancashire.

With 10 people attending on the Sunday of the March working weekend the team were able to work of 5 different projects at the same time.

The first project was that of fitting the piano wire through the cylinder to check for squareness. This is a long term task that will be continuing for a few more weeks to come.

The second was the painting of the tender's rear drag box. This had been repaired and strengthened over the past few weeks and now that all the welding was finished painting could commence.

Following the removal of the tender's front drag box one group concentrated on the removal of the draw bar location plate from the draw box. This will be reused later in the new drag box with the old front drag box being beyond economical repair.

The fourth project was a start being made on the scraping the old tender tank from 133. It is intended that when the new tender turns up in late summer it will be placed on 133's tender chassis whilst 134's chassis is finished off.

Finally the welding repair work continued on the horn ties on the loco frames.

As usual there are some photographs in the Gallery section. These show the scrapping of 133's tender tank, the frame alignment and the repaired rear tender drag box.

A good regular group now attends these working parties and on this occasion they were joined by a new young local volunteer. As is the trend of recent working parties, the group was active on both the tender and loco.

The main activity on the tender concentrated around refitting the break cross shaft. This has been cleaned realigned and greased so as it can now be turned quite easily by hand.

On the loco, work commenced on the refitting of the running boards and this involves the laborious job of drilling the hundreds of holes in the new running board angles. The alignment of the frames was also the centre of attention, continuing from the previous working party. During this activity it was discovered that the wheels have been moved forward by 0.150” (or 3.5mm in modern parlance!) and as a consequence the loco had been fitted with shorter piston rods. The manufacturing continued of a jig that is needed to align a wire through the centre of the cylinders to check the frame squareness. Another set of jigs was also started that will be used to manufacture all the clips to attach the lubrication pipework to the engine at a later date.

With the weekend having no dismantling or removal of bits of engine, and consisting of much refitting of components there was a warn feeling of the loco coming back together again. There was a real sense of having 'turned the corner' in the restoration of №134.

As always a few photos from the weekend are in the respective section of the Gallery.

Here Clive Briscoe gives an update of the valuable work done in the evenings by Team Wylfa. If you are unable to make our Monthly working party weekends but find yourself at a loose end in the area on weekday evenings and can help then Clive would be interested in hearing from you. Details on the Contacts page.......

With the carriages now tucked up in bed until the start of the new season, Team Wylfa have been able to step away from them and work full time on 134 during their regular Tuesday evening working parties. Since before Christmas, there's been slow but steady progress in between the monthly 134 Group working parties.

The main thrust has been on the removal for replacement of some of the rivets holding the rear of the loco’s frames together in the firebox region. Some of these rivets had badly wasted heads on the inside of the frames where they were adjacent to the firebox. It’s quite a challenge as the rivet material is very tough and resists drilling. It’s taken its toll on our stock of ¼” pilot drills – several of which have now been reground so many times that they are now mere stumps. Then there’s the larger drills - ½” and larger which are also diminishing… It is necessary to go up to c.¾” for approx half way through so that 1) A large punch can be inserted which will not distort or jump out when struck with a 14 lb hammer and 2) So that the rivet will slightly give (reduce in diameter) on each hammer blow. Eventually, they do come out but so far, have been resisting until the last few thou! After each rivet has been taken out, a temporary nut and bolt has been fitted to stop the laminations of the frames from coming apart.

Unfortunately, there is more drilling of rivets in the offing – almost certainly, the loco’s internally corroded rear drag box will have to come off for rebuilding (like the tender’s front dragbox which was removed during the recent January working weekend).

Also being produced at the moment are replacement studs for the tender’s vac pan fittings. Once the vac pan is finally in place, the next task will be to rig the brake gear. Most of the rods and fittings were worked on in earlier phases of the restoration a few years ago though most are currently waiting on a pallet for NDT checks before they can be re-fitted. There is something of a push on to complete the tender chassis work asap since a new tender tank / bunker is a distinct possibility before too long and it will need somewhere to sit when it arrives. And where better but its final resting place…

Anyone in the N Wales area fancy joining us? Let me know beforehand - see my contact details on the main WHR website www.whrsoc.org.uk/WHRProject or Barrie's website www.isengard.co.uk or on the 134 dedicated website http://ng15-134.co.uk. We're there from 7 - 10pm. If it's known that we won't be there for whatever reason, a look on Barrie's site under the ‘Team Wylfa’ banner will usually reveal a post to this effect a day or two beforehand.

The 500 day challenge to beat Wilf Mole's 136 restoration team (Lukas et al in their Bloemfontain workshops) is now ticking away so the more folk we have working on 134 the better if we want to try and beat Lukas and the Sandstone Team in bringing 134 back into steam ahead of their 136...

We had a good turnout for the first working party of 2011 with plenty of tasks being worked on on both the loco and tender. With the tender, the bulk of the heavier work being done that weekend was the removal of the front drag box from the frames. As indicated by its name, with this being a box structure, and with a number of integral casting, we we’re unable to establish the condition of some of the internal sections. This therefore entailed its removal and so this was started on the Saturday and completed on Sunday. The result of this exercise being that the drag box will require renewal!

Work continued with the tender vacuum pan with the tapping for the studs in the neck ring and the chamber side release. Also on the tender, shimming and aligning the tender brake beam was done so that it rotates by hand.

On the loco itself the main tasks were associated with checking the alignment of the frames. This has involved the manufacture of various jigs, with some machining completed on the Saturday, to enable measurements to be taken. Although there is more to be done, the measurements taken so far indicated nothing untoward other than a difference in the cylinder lengths. We are aware that we have odd cylinders, ie one casting has been replaced at some time in the loco’s life such that we have a slight difference in the front to rear faces of the cylinder bores.

Finally there was the painting - there's always painting to be done! The aim is the fit the running plates as soon as possible so all the plate sections and edge angle are being painted prior to fitting. This has also involved the slight adjustment to the mounting of one of the running plate frame hangers as this had distorted slightly whilst having some butchery repaired.

There was no working party in December other than Andie Shaw paying a visit himself on the weekend of the 11th and 12th. During the visit he checked the welding work done by Brunswick Ironworks where they'd repaired some butchery done in South Africa to the rear coupling of the tender. The rear cross stretcher to the loco frames had also been returned and its fit checked. Due to heat distortion during the repair it will need some plates added and machined to the correct profile where it mates with the frames before final assembly can take place.

The vacuum pan was trial fitted into the tender frames to check for alignment. Some wasted rivets were ground off the rear of the frames in the area of the fire box ready for renewal and finally the jig work for the frame alignment checking was progressed . Some pictures taken during the visit are in the Gallery.

The November Working Party on the 20th and 21st was again well supported with a varied selection of jobs carried out. These ranged from painting to removing bolts and rivets.

The Saturday started by discovering that our friends from Brunswick Iron Works had visited the Loco and had been doing some welding. This consisted of the building up of wastage inside the frames in the area where the rear cross stretcher fits, the welding together of the new running board angles and the repair of the running board supports where some of the South African metal mites had been feeding! These latter repairs and the angles were subsequently painted with primer.

The running board support - as it was in early 2009 (left), after being repaired (middle) and after priming (right)
Click the picture to go to the Gallery page for more pictures

The tender's rear drawbar was removed and the South African coupling detached from it. The drawbar was cleaned and as there was still sufficient paint in place it was given a coat of undercoat. A suitable FR chopper coupling was cleaned and primed in preparation for fitting. At some point in the Loco's past the drawbar assembly casting had been replaced in the tender's dragbox. This involved the removal of some sections of the dragbox and the work now compromised the strength needed for the fitment of the new tender body. Templates were therefore made to enable suitable plate material to be cut and welded into place at a later date.

With the running board angles now welded, these and the running boards that had been temporarily fitted were removed so as painting could commence on all these components. The painting was started on the Saturday and completed on Sunday. Another job that started on the Saturday and continued into Sunday was a start being made on the removal of rivets on the front tender drag box.

Sunday's main jobs consisted of the manufacture of a jig for the alignment of the cylinders and frames as well as the attachment to the frames of various alignment brackets. The final job to report was the fitting of the tender brake arm for the vacuum Pan.

The October Working Party was well supported with seven volunteers over the two days, as well as the usual stream of people (always most welcome) who turn up to see what we are doing. Several small but important jobs were progressed:

The fitting of the Angle to support the footplating was the biggest job; a giant 3D jigsaw, where the bits all have to meet together neatly in mid-air! The fireman’s side went well but on the driver’s side, one of the brackets which support the footplating has come loose. As it is riveted there was no option but to take it off – easier said than done. After much grinding, drilling and verbal encouragement, the picture shows Ben (one of our younger volunteers) with the errant bracket. Next time we will put it back using fitted bolts.

The wheels that have returned from Boston Lodge, just 2 drivers and one of the ponies, were moved to some temporary track by the Boiler and after greasing, covered over to protect them from the weather until we need them.

The Tender Vacuum cylinder was also dug out and started. This goes into the top of the frame, so must be in place before the tank is positioned. The optimists in the team therefore wound everyone else up saying it was therefore essential to get on with. To help with the alignment (ie stop it getting knocked off), the Vac release valve needed turning through 30o to avoid the brake rigging. Now the cylinder had alternative mounting points for the pivots (super says Andie) guess who gets to move them? Not Andie! Our predecessors in SA had however, helpfully welded the split-pin retainers to the cylinder so a 5 min job including meal breaks, became a 5 hour one. See picture of the locating spigot just in the top of the alternative slots. The cylinder bearings are just visible in the picture of the tender frame.

All in all a great weekend (esp as the Managers beat the Engineers at football!) Photos in the Gallery.

This is the first working party following the Railway's peak summer season and it was satisfying to see it well attended. There is now a good regular group working on the loco and effort wise it enables good progress to be made. Now that's not to say that more hands won't be made use of..... they certainly will!

The group split into two this weekend with one group working on the loco's running boards and the other machining new grease points for the lubrication system.

Brunswick Ironworks delivered some fabricated edging to the running boards as those on the engine were in such a poor condition that it was not worth trying to re use them. The problem encountered however, was that most of the attachment points on the engine were also badly distorted from years of use in South Africa such that quite a bit of straightening work had to be done to get it all to fit!

The running plate edging being fitted
Click the picture to go to the Gallery page for more pictures

As mentioned the second group was attending to the manufacture of some new grease blocks. Normally most of the motion would have either oil or grease lubrication, and whilst the oil lubrication is normally serviced from a central mechanical lubricator, the grease points are not and are individually greased as part of the loco's preparation each morning. This, on a wet Welsh morning, is not the most pleasant of jobs! In order ease this task and to speed up loco prep all the grease points are being brought to a central block so only one point needs to be greased.

New grease block being manufactured.
Click the picture to go to the Gallery page for more pictures

With the peak summer season now upon the railway this working party on the 17th & 18th July was the last one until September. The July weekend saw much done however, even if none too obvious.

The main job concentrated on drilling and tapping the frames ready for fitting the jig that will be used to align the horn faces. All the spring and brake gear is now prepared for non-destructive testing and work was started on machining the grease blocks for mounting the grease nipples.

With the wheels now at Boston Lodge for re-profiling (see the News section) there is now a definite feeling that the 'constructive' phase is in full swing. That full swing however, will still be slow work as there are lots of jobs to be done and for this help is always needed. Whilst we welcomed a new face at this working party more pairs of hands are always welcome. See the Contact page for how get in touch to find out how you can help.

Money as always is also going to be a limiting factor to progress and if you've been hovering and perhaps not quite yet got around to helping fund the Loco then please make that final effort to help us financially. It could not be easier now as it can all one done through the Cymdeithas Rheilffordd Eryri Shop. Go to the Online Donations section and everything will only a couple of clicks away. Please help as best you can.

The June working party was held over the weekend of the 19th and 20th. The working parties are now being well attended by volunteers not associated with running the trains therefore good progress is being made during the summer months.

The reverser cress shaft was finally removed from the frames, an aborted task from the previous month. This will allow a more permanent repair do be done to one end where there had been an 'on shed' running repair in South Africa. Another item that was troublesome to work on and that again finally submitted this weekend was the stripping down of the front bogie pivot.

The front brake hanger was refitted after a repair to make it fit correctly! Another completed job is that all the bushes for the spring pillar guides have now been removed.

As well as the teams activities Brunswick Iron Works have been attending to the wastage where the rear frame stretcher fits and have been repairing the running plate supports. In all it was a good weekend's progress. Pictures in the Gallery.

The monthly working weekends are normally held on the third weekend of the Month, however, this May working weekend was held on the second weekend. Now the fact that this coincided with the Welsh Highland Railway's Rail Ale festival might not be purely coincidental!

The weekend work was somewhat varied once again with a number of smaller tasks being tackled. The front running board valance was straightened, cleaned and primed and so this is another piece to join the now refurbished kit of parts. During inspection of the frames it was noticed that there were errors in the mounting of the front brake hanger bracket and so this had to be removed and correctly fitted.

One job started on the Saturday, and that had to be abandoned was the removal on the reverser shaft. The brackets were removed from the frames, however the shaft would not release from one of the bearings, no matter how much heat was applied and how heavy the hammer was! Tired mussels meant this had to be left unfinished. Hopefully it will concede to us at the next working party.

Continued from the last working party was the cleaning and undercoating of some more brake rigging components. Also continued from prevous working parties was the decarbonising of the cylinder valve chests. These are now all very clean looking and should not need doing again for quite some time. Finally a start was made on removing some of the spring guide bushes from the top of the horn guide castings and from the associated bracket above this. These brackets were also removed in some cases. This again was not completed as some were very firmly in place and some of the castings had been previously repaired around the guide hole so there were fears this was not a particularly strong area of the casting.

The April working weekend was held on the 17th & 18th April, a weekend of glorious sunshine. We were very glad to a welcome two new volunteers to the team on the Saturday and whilst one had to return home Saturday evening the second remained with us on Sunday.

The weekend saw a number of jobs tackled of which by far the largest was that of painting. The biggest item for painting was the loco's frames as it wastime to give them their first coat of gloss, it being the intention to gave a second coat later in the project. Saturday morning therefore saw these sanded down in preparation with the actual painting started in the afternoon and completed the following day on Sunday. At the same time as this, your webmaster spend Saturday cleaning up and priming the remaining loco suspension components that as yet had not been touched since their bushes were removed.

Before this however, saturday morning saw two of us going off to look for some missing brake components that were removed during the loco’s initial restoration session some 10 years ago. These were the brake draw-rods and could not be located during the search in previous working party. There was a suspicion they had been put with some point rodding, however, this proved not to be the case and so we are still missing these components.

Saturday also saw some attention being paid to the tender with the removal of some of the metalwork at the front end. This was the removal of some metalwork added 10 years ago when it was thought the tender was going to be set further back on the frames. However now with the new proposed outline it nees removing, as does some of the original metalwork that is life expired.

Sunday, as mentioned saw the loco's frames complete with the first coat of gloss together with yet more painting, this time it being all the wheels receiving an undercoat.

The final job to be mentioned was the continuation of the removal of built up carbon from the right hand valve gear. This involved the use of a certain amount of heat to loosen and dislodge it all.

The March working party took place as expected on the weekend of the 20th & 21st March 2010. This concentrated on the removal of the rest of the brake rigging and the subsequent removal of their bushes. Other work included the continuation of the decarbonising of the right hand cylinder block. Most of the looser debris had been removed on earlier occasions (see the Galley for the November 2009 Working Party for a picture of some of the larger items to be retrieved from inside the castings) however these sessions are concentrating on the harder carbonised oil deposits. The left hand cylinder block has already received this treatment and is now thoroughly cleaned out.

It was apparent that some of the brake rigging had already been removed on one of the earlier restoration sessions a few years back and a quick stock check indicated these were not amongst our 'kit of parts'. Sunday therefore saw a search party sent out to look for these items over in the South yard where the loco had spent some time and where we knew some components had been stored previously. The brake rigging was unfortunately not found, however, various other items were, including the rather important regulator actuating rod. This is the rod that connects the regulator handle in the cab to the actual regulator in the dome. We need that!

On the evening of Tuesday 23rd February Team Wylfa removed the last of all the cylinder casting studs. On top of this it saw the removal of the 4 blast pipe flange studs removed. This was done with much huffing and puffing with two of the team on the ends of 'horizontally opposed' Stillsons - eventually, they all actually unscrewed! The last of the main steam pipe studs were the opposite of this needing to be ground, drilled and the remains tediousy removed with pliers.

Also that night, the 4 brake hanger brackets all unbolted easily - the bolts are actually in pristine condition and can be reused.

The Saturday of this working part was one of those 'bits and pieces' days. It started out with us raising the Loco's frames by another sleeper height as it then enabled us to roll the wheelsets under the frames out of the way and for us the get the remaining wheel set inside.

The side running plates have been loosely fitted to enable pipe runs to be established.
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We also fitted the side running plates in order to be able to establish pipe runs for the new copper pipework. This is a temporary fitting as some of the components, especially the angled support edge strip, are to be replaced. Alongside this, work continued with the clearing out of the internal valve spaces in the cylinder casting. There is 40 or so years worth of deposits that have built up in the valve chests (never mind the numerous pieces of metal work removed from inside during an earlier working party) and this all needs cleaning out.

The last major job completed on the Saturday was the removal of the cab steps. These are actually on the tender and as this is being altered in order to make the Loco more suitable for use on the WHR they will be in a different position. In order to remove one step the handbrake shaft had to be be removed. There will be a need to remove the modifications made to the tender some 10 years ago when the restoration first started and when a different tender outline was envisaged.

Another interesting 'phenomena' of the weekend was in arriving to discover our boiler had moved! As part of the general tidy up of Dinas yard is seems 134's boiled has been moved to alongside the Clip Shed where the rest of the Loco is stored.

Sunday saw the continuation of the removal of worn bushes from the Loco's spring anchors and compensation beams. This was a job started on the Saturday. Also a continuation was the cleaning out of the cylinder casting's internal steam passages. This resulted in the discovery that left rear valve cylinder liner is in the wrong place by ½” and the right cylinder liner is in the wrong place by 3/16”! As the liners had already been turned the positional discrepancy cannot be rectified. There was also an original casting defect found deep inside in one of the steam passages – a large flash of metal restricted the steam flow. This was easily rectified by the use of a very long chisel.

Yet another discovery was when heating up the studs on the blast pipe flange ready for their removal. This combiner casting for the two cylinder exhausts does not possess a Kordina – a method of separating the two blasts before they reach the blast nozzle. To all intents it is an almost straight hollow casting between the two cylinders, tee’d up in the middle for the blastpipe connection. It would appear that there could be back pressures occurring that would be detrimental to the locos performance. This is an original design fault and will need careful thought as to how it might be possible to deflect each cylinder’s exhaust away from the other, without the cost of a modified, major casting. Hopefully with most of the discovered problems rectified better front end efficiency should be attained in the future.

Team Wylfa have continued plodding away on the Loco between the main Monthly working party weekends. This has mainly concentrated on the removal of the last few studs and cumulated in the removal of 6 more cylinder studs on the evening of 16^th February by three of the team. This leaves one larger 3/4" BSW and two 1/2" BSW studs left to remove on the cylinder blocks themselves and four 'easy' ones on the mid frames blast pipe flange. This work should be completed as part of the main February working party due on the 20^th & 21^st. This should allow the final cleaning out of the internal steam passages etc to be done then the cylinders are ready to receive the refurbished pistons and valves at some time in the future.

A number of tasks were undertaken with this working weekend, not least the continuing saga of the removal of the studs from the cylinders!

One of the jobs needing to be done was the removal of the rear drag box and draw-bar as the former is very bent and the latter badly corroded to the point of being paper thin in places. A substantial amount of effort and thought went into this and in doing so it soon became apparent why the draw-bar is bent as bends in other platework showed up. At some time in its career the Loco has sustained a very heavy collision to the rear. By the end of Sunday the rear draw-bar had yielded (with the usual resort to the gas-axe on its pin) and was removed. The bent draw-bar will straighten, however the pin is scrap! The front South African coupling was also removed but this time without recourse to the melting machine!

Whilst this was going on, the horn guides were being tidied up and machined in the machine shop. With thanks again to our K1 friends for this task continued from last November.

So back to those damn studs. Team Wylfa had done some preparatory work on the removal of the sheared off studs in their previous evenings working party and this included the removal of some front platework studs as well. The job entails drilling out the centre of the stud, then collapsing it in on itself to allow it to be pulled straight out. Finally a tap is run through the thread to clean it ready to receive new studs.

The rear of the right hand cylinder with all studs removed.
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The Tuesday following this working party weekend saw Team Wylfa remove more studs to the extent that only 8 are left to do and most of those have been drilled ready for collapsing.

The last job to mention was the painting of the wheelsets. The last two needing attention were steamed cleaned over the weekend with one receiving it red oxide primer (well 90% of it). This will be finished off at the next Team Wylfa evening, as will the last wheelset.

Other numerous jobs included the freeing of the valves from the manifold, removal of drain cock, with the refurbishment of both valves and drain cocks being a homework project, and finally the removal of the break beam. In the days following the working party the drain cocks were subsequently removed as a homework project by Matt and Dave Wilding. This showed that the inside of the valves were very clogged up with carbonised oil deposits and the valves themselves in very poor condition to the point of wanting renewing. The replacements will be made in stainless steel.

An extra none scheduled Working Party took place on the first weekend of January 2010. This was held to progress the welding of cracks in the frames and the removal of studs in the cylinders. The numbers on the working party were kept to a minimum, just three people, as there was to be quite a lot of welding and use of torches so the fumes were of concern in the confined area of the 'Clip Shed'. As it turned out the fumes were minimal.

The work concentrated on the welding of some cracks in the rear of the frames just above where the rear stretcher is riveted. A start was made on these although there's still some work left to complete this. The welds were then duly ground smooth.

With the torch being used in the shed the opportunity was taken to use it to help remove more of the stubborn cylinder studs. This involves heating the stud followed by a quick quench with water. This causes the corroded thread junction to fracture such that their removal is much easier. The rear of the right hand cylinder is now clear of studs, however there are still a few others still to remove at the next scheduled full working party or by team Wylfa at their next evening working party.