Restoration diary

If you have been following RRRG for some time, you will remember that about a year ago we purchased and collected a number of spare electrical parts from the owners of 50021 Rodney.  Amongst these was the electrical cubicle originally in 50011 Centurion before that locomotive was scrapped.  Our reason for purchasing the cubicle was to use as a donor for rebuilding 50029's cubicle; as a rule of thumb the items that were removed from 50030 before we bought the locomotive were carefully unscrewed and the wiring in the electrical cubicle was in good condition.  The same cannot be said for 50029 unfortunately, with many of the cubicle wires having been cut.  To save the headache of pairing loose ends we aim to transplant the relatively intact wiring loom from the ex-Centurion cubicle into 50029.  That there were a good number of other components in the donor cubicle that would be useful for 50029 was a bonus.  The actual frame of the ex-50011 cubicle is however not in such good condition as the cubicle frame already in 50029: many of the catches for the doors are either bent or broken and it is obvious the cubicle has led a hard life since the locomotive it resided in was scrapped.  For this reason we cannot just swap the cubicles around between Renown and Centurion and a process of making one good one from two halves is necessary.

These pictures were taken on 9th June 2013 and show progress on the careful stripping of this cubicle and some of the parts we have recovered from it.  Electrical volunteers Steve Tripp and Andy Rowlands are shown at work but credit must also go to Julie Rollason and Sarah McCall for their invaluable assistance with this sub-project.

The complexity of the wiring loom is obvious from these pictures which show volunteers Steve Tripp and Andy Rowlands removing some of the last major components before we make a decision on how to tackle the wiring loom.  A good number of useful items have been recovered from this cubicle for re-use in 50029, as shown below.

Shown below is one of the cubicle doors from the ex-50011 cubicle.  We have already refurbished the equivalent door and installed into 50030 and we have a better example in stock for 50029.  This is actually one of the better condition parts of the cubicle frame and speaks to the state that the ex-50011 electrical cubicle is in.

The next task is to assess the wiring loom in the 50011 cubicle and how best to remove it.  As the pictures show it is a many-tentacled monster and will require considerable thought as to the best way forward before we dispose of the frame of the 50011 cubicle.  With the size of the "thin man's passage" inside a 50 round the side of the electrical cubicle now not befitting our volunteers' physical profiles, we may also look to lifting the cubicle out of 50029 as a way of proceeding.

A small RRRG party consisting of Sarah McCall and Steve Tripp visited Booths today to pick the remains of 47829 and 37428.  The pickings were unfortunately a bit thin as not much was left on these locomotives by the time they arrived at Booths.  The RRRG volunteers recovered a number of resistors (these are needed for Renown and we're getting closer to completing a full set), some insulators, turbo gauges and two dismantled arc chutes (complete ones were missing but these parts will help us repair our damaged examples) which made the day excursion worth it.  Well done to those who took the time to go along to Rotherham today.

Today I are be mostly...sorry been watching too many episodes of the Fast Show. Dave had spent the week on site as he's still off work following his operation & he's cleaned & painted most of the water & air inlet piping for the ex-008 power unit. Mark B dug out of the stores the two sections of protective shields for the A side generator conduits & cleaned and undercoated them; one each for 29 & 30. He also sorted a third section of the gen conduits, loosened off the joints and began removing years of layers of paint. I and my girlfriend Julie belled out and marked both sets of wiring from the cab AWS sunflowers to the AWS relay box, though removing the lid of the relay box proved difficult as two of the fixing bolt heads had been broken off some time ago, and I had to put an angle-grinder through the one stud to release the lid. I brought away the shaped mounting bracket from No.2 cab and the sunflower dial from No.1 cab to clean the contacts.

Ian & Pete cleared various debris out of the sump of the power unit, and started cleaning & painting sections of inlet air piping. Dave...supervised, as he is still recovering from being under the knife for a hernia and is excused duties for the moment. Mark cleaned & sorted another section of conduit for the generators, to go with the two sections he had previously done, so three down, 13 to go. This is not as easy as it sounds, as most of the lengths of conduits had been separated from each other for easier storage, so it was a case of multiple visits inside Repulse & our stores to find the right sections.

I test-fitted one of the new Z70 resistors, and found it fits the existing brackets perfectly. I just need to properly space the tapping bands, then it can be fitted permanently.

Our gas bottles on the trolley used to collect them; oxygen (black) and acetylene (maroon).

One of those "must get round to doing that sometime" tasks hanging over RRRG has been to collect a couple of cylinders of oxygen and acetylene with which to power our cutting and welding equipment. Although there is a BOC distributor just across the A6 from Peak Rail's Rowsley South site they have limited opening hours which are somewhat inconvenient for the regular on site RRRG volunteers.  Tim and I decided we would head up to Rowsley last Friday night in order to be on site in the morning ready to collect the gas. So, shortly after 4 o'clock on Friday afternoon I hit the road to drive the 170 miles or so from Reading to deepest Derbyshire whilst Tim got a train from Peterborough to Matlock, where I would meet him. I got delayed by the usual Friday traffic whilst Tim got delayed when 66008 decided to investigate the ballast on the Midland main line near Duffield. (I did however make it through Bletchingdon on the A34 without incident after my two year anniversary earlier this month, and once on site, Dave was as helpful and complimentary as ever that my latest car was retaining its factory-fitted styling so well).

The cylinders are now in situ at RRRG headquarters. One of the main uses we will have for them is to heat up some bolts and pins on our spare bogies which are absolutely stuck fast and won't shift any other way.  In particular there are some arms secured by pins and bolts which prevent the traction motors being removed from the bogies and we want to either free these off, or if necessary, cut them off (we have plenty of spares) in order to free the motors for removal to Bowers for overhaul.

Aluminium air intake manifolds destined for the ex-50008 power unit. The foreground example awaits the removal by wire brushing of years of dirt and grime to reach the standard of the background pair, which Dave Rolfe described as "Rolls Royce quality"!

After treatment with the wire brush, Tim and I set about red oxide primer coating of the manifolds we treated that day, as well as returning to some that other RRRG volunteers had already treated, just to ensure that "Rolls Royce finish"!

With the main excitement of the morning over, and after a few steadying cups of tea and brunch at the Peak Rail cafe, Tim and I set to work on wire brushing and red oxide painting of a number of air intake manifolds destined for the ex-50008 power unit. Chris Bodell's nascent music career meant he was playing a gig in Bakewell on Saturday night so he went home to practice and took his leave of us. Tim was diagrammed for transporting teenagers to a roller disco in Peterborough that evening and so, despite building up some momentum on the inlet manifolds, we reluctantly packed up and I drove us the 100 or so miles back to Peterborough, where the teenagers were transported and Tim and I undertook a mutual debriefing session in The Moorhen at Hampton Vale (Tim's local). Sunday was spent doing more work on the soon-to-be-launched new RRRG website (of which more in due course) and I then hit the road for the final time back to Reading, which was covered in a personal best time of 1 hour 50 minutes and brought my mileage for the weekend to a touch short of 400. But it's all good fun (allegedly!).