It has been a very busy fortnight since the last blog. Furness Railway 0-4-0 locomotive No. 20 was due to leave Preston on Thursday, 1 st May to go to the Tanfield Railway and so work continued to sort out the leaking left hand clack valve which showed evidence of a score. The final solution, just in time, was to
put it in the lathe giving a clean surface, as seen here. We are pleased to report that this remedy did the trick!

Ben, John Dixon, Sam and Tim travelled up to the north east for the three days of steaming over the Bank Holiday weekend. The BBC was on hand to film the loco and the members at Tanfield for a forthcoming edition of ‘Our Lives’, a thirty minutes programme which is scheduled to be screened in July.
There should be no shortage of footage for the editor to work with. Other locos in steam were Barclay 0-4-0 No. 1659 Stanley of 1920 and Robert Stephenson 0-6-0 T No.2730 Twizell of 1891.

The FRT gang was also able to join a social evening on the Sunday, which included a whistle blow and a good portion of fish and chips for all concerned.
Unlike, the western side of the Pennines, however, it was not particularly warm, with a cool northerly breeze!
FR 20 was also booked to appear again at Tanfield this last Saturday and Sunday, the FRT team this time being Alan, Alison, Peter van Zeller, Sam, John, Ben, plus Anne and Phil Burton. They are (apart from Ben) pictured below together with Preston fireman Aaron Johnson’s daughter and wife, Victoria and Theo.

The second weekend also featured Cockerill 0-4-0VBT No. 1625 Belgian tram locomotive Lucie of 1890, which is owned by Paul ‘Piglet’ Middleton and based at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. We couldn’t resist including the following photo which shows Ben ‘Piglet’ Valentine and Paul together:

Those wishing to view photos and video footage of FR 20’s stay at Tanfield should look no further than the Tanfield Railway Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/tanfieldrailway/?locale=en_GB
We show below a photo from Ben of FR 20 and vintage coaches at the very rural and historic Causey Arch station. We thank all the people at Tanfield for the friendship and hospitality shown over the past two weekends.

Back at Preston, work has continued on the 10 year overhaul of Great Western Railway 0-6-2T No. 5643. Chris Rycroft completed a marathon stay caulking session last Thursday, completing 66 stays, inner and outer, on the left hand side of the firebox, and the remaining 32 stays inside on the top half of the door plate. Well done, Chris!

Latest news is that 5643’s new cylinder liners are to be freeze fitted at Preston this next Friday, with the new liners then being bored out over next Saturday and Sunday.
Finally, we hear from Beamish Museum that the agreed temporary re-painting of the FRT’s North London Railway coach into Highland Railway green has been completed, and very smart it looks too!
