Just in time for Christmas shopping season, RRRG is pleased to offer a number of new lines of merchandise. We now have fleeces, polo shirts, new designs of t-shirts and mugs plus keyrings and phone cases!
Don't forget our other merchandise such as mugs and t-shirts or Hornby models!
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Also, please don't forget our 2014 calendar. All these items are important fundraisers for RRRG! They would make great presents for someone or even yourself - maybe that distant relative needs some suggstions about what to get you for Christmas?! Point them towards the online shop at renownrepulse.com or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you need shopping assistance.
Dave Rolfe continued measuring, cutting and fitting flooring into the no.1 cab of Renown. Chris Bodell painted some more cab fittings & panels, and varnished the completed flooring in no.2 cab, Ian & Pete fitted two big end bearing caps now the suppliers have sent Ian the nuts for the stretch bolts that they were out of stock of. They were in the process of fitting a third cap but one of the four stretch bolts seemed unwilling to fit, so they had to remove the cap to see what the problem was. Nothing was obviously amiss, but by then the light was fading, so they didn't refit the third cap. My two GWR mates (Matt & Roger) who had visited a few weeks ago again came up, this time armed with some 185mm through-crimps and a large hydraulic crimper, so in the morning we did a test joint to see how it looked, and the result was encouraging. After crimping both sides of the crimp, a layer of heat-shrink sleeving was applied and heat-shrunk. A large amount of insulation tape was then wrapped round the crimp over the sleeving, then a second layer of heat-shrink sleeving was applied and shrunk. We used the group's 1000v Megger to check if there was any leakage to earth, and the Megger result was a full-scale needle deflection to the Megger's capacity of 2 Mega Ohms (2 million ohms). Any reading over 1 megaohm is considered good, and as the Megger only registers up to 2 Meg, the actual reading would therefore have been higher, which means this type of crimp, which is rated at 11,000 volts, should be more than adequate for both the severed main traction cabling and the main ETH cabling, as the maximum expected traction voltage is around 1000 volts. If I can find someone with a higher-capacity Megger, I will repeat the insulation test. Joining the cables in this way will remove a significant amount of time, effort and expense from the work needed to complete Repulse. After lunch, we crimped the last couple of 16mm cables, connected them, then Matt connected four cables to resistors on top of the cubicle which I am too much of a shortarse to reach.
In the morning we had our annual AGM at the Whitworth Institute in Darley Dale, and as usual we were graced with a large turnout from the membership. We then went to site and various work was undertaken during the afternoon, before we retired to the Shalimar Indian restaurant for our annual pre-Christmas curry.
While Tim, Neil, Chris B & Alex cleaned No.2 cab & the visible side of Repulse, Ian, Dave & Pete connected another piston & conrod & fitted it into the power unit. John Pinion & I did more tidying of the coach & I showed two of my ex-GWR colleagues round Repulse. We then retired to the pub where Mark Burrows joined us for a drink before consuming the by-now traditional crimbo ruby.