Brookfield getting ready to test cylinder repair November 2010
Another season is almost over with just the Santa Specials left to run. The season has gone very well. On March 6th we held our annual dinner with Chris & Peter Bachelor kindly providing pre dinner drinks at Corner Cottage before we wandered round to the Quayside restaurant where as usual we had a most enjoyable meal. Thanks to Peter for organising it all.
On July 17th we held our annual barbecue giving members a chance to socialise. There was a good turnout and the weather was good .Quite a few members had a drive of No.8 up the branchline while others relaxed in the Brake vans. The raffle raised a healthy £77.
It has been a busy year on the locomotive front with much progress made as you will read in the locomotive reports.
Things at Mangapps are constantly changing and the latest arrivals are the Holden F5 trust who are now occupying the barn behind the main museum building. They are a new build project and the items already constructed are stored in the shed. These include a chimney, smokebox and bunker. I looked forward to watching their progress.
On the subject of new build locomotives I am amazed how many are under construction. I think the enormous success of the A1 Tornado will only encourage groups involved in these projects.
These are some of the ones I know about; LMS Patriot 45551, BR clan Hengiest 72010, NER G5 0-4-4 T, BR3 MT Prairie tank, and possibly not one but two Gresley LNER P2 2-8-2’s one in the streamline form. Then of course there is the conversion of Cogan Hall into Betton Grange. It will be interesting to see if they all get completed.
If my experience is anything to go by with the cost of boiler tubes for Empress being double the price of the previous ones fitted, finance will a governing factor. I think that engineering wise the things can be made, but at a cost as many items are one off productions. It is always important to use modern advances in welding etc which means items like boilers should be all-welded steel construction as the cost of flanged copper fireboxes are too high. Items like steam pipes again would be cheaper and easier to produce in steel instead of copper or cast iron. I made this mistake when restoring Brookfield where I had patterns made and new steam pipes cast as per original only to have real problems machining the flanges on the pipes. As a steel construction, the flanges are made and then welded onto the preformed pipes; much easier. I suppose the diehards may not like it but it is cheaper to build a look-alike than an exact replica.
Let me finish by thanking all our members for their hard work this season. Wishing you all who read this an enjoyable Christmas break and look forward to seeing you next year.
Richard Moore