The DLW team have been very busy over the past few weeks! Under the direction of the Locomotive Manager, Richard Pearson, and the Director of P2 Engineering, David Elliott, our team of dedicated volunteers have set to work restoring many of Tornado’s components.
The team has de-greased, sanded, inspected, painted and carried out repairs to the locomotive’s sand pipes. The repairs have included weld repairs to fractured pipes, replacement of a sand trap due to defective threads, and they have all been cleaned out thoroughly since some of the old sand had set like stone.
The pictures below show before and after:
The five air reservoir tanks from under the tender have all been flushed out with a de-greasing agent, they have been cleaned (a very dirty job!) and now they have been painted, each receiving five coats of paint which should give them plenty of protection once they are back under the tender again.
The picture below shows volunteers George Bee and Keith Martin flushing the tanks out on a wooden track which was used to roll and tanks back and forth to aid the flushing process.
And five coats of paint later!
The four air brake cylinders have also been serviced by our DLW team; each cylinder has been dismantled for inspection. The coil springs were carefully decompressed and removed for inspection, the brake cylinders were then thoroughly cleaned and painted before they are reassembled.
The picture shows the tender brake cylinders, covers and brackets going through the painting stage, this been the last coat of undercoat before two final coats of gloss, the coil springs and pistons can be seen behind.
The reversing stand has been fully dismantled for inspection and repairs; and the photo below shows volunteer, George Bee, applying some paint after the first stage reassembly.
Some reversing stand components dismantled for inspection.
The six cylinder drain cock valves have been cleaned, dismantled, and inspected and a number of repairs identified, all six will now have the seats re-cut as well as each receiving a brand-new spindle new matching guide bushes.
The picture below shows another DLW volunteer, Nik Procter, busy in the blast cabinet cleaning up the valve bodies.
And the six new valves:
Work has also started on the dismantling, cleaning and repairing the manifold and the manifold isolating valves. The picture below show progress this week:
If you are interested in contributing to the overhaul of No.60163 Tornado, please click here to find out more.