Furness Railway Trust blog

Tuesday, 4th March saw Furness Railway 0-4-0 No. 20 receive its annual cold boiler inspection, which we are pleased to report it passed. Thanks go to Andy Booth for tapping out the fusible plug holes and supplying new plugs. The ‘in steam’ test is scheduled for Friday, 21st March. With this in mind, John Dixon and Sam, set about re-fitting the left-hand connecting rod and crosshead in readiness for the locomotive to be moved, receiving guidance from Alan.

It is planned to re-fit the ashpan this coming Wednesday.

Meanwhile, there has been good progress with the re-staying of Great Western Railway 0-6-2T No. 5643’s firebox. Keith is seen here burning out some of the front stays from inside the firebox.

Chris has once again been caulking up new stays where they have been fitted.

The ream team of Ed, Ron, Keith and Tim had a very productive shift this last Saturday, Ed and Ron reaming out over 100 stay holes with the air drill whilst Keith caught the reamer from inside the firebox and Tim applied cutting compound. This methodology saw a hole being reamed out every 55 seconds, give or take the occasional lunch and tea break!

We are still awaiting the fitting of the new cylinder liners to 5643, however, it appears that the new liners have been machined to size at Bury, including the port and oil holes.

Finally, there was some sadness as the final eighteen empty bitumen tankers were hauled away from the Ribble Steam Railway on Tuesday, 4th March by Colas Class 56 no. 56113.

The major event this last week has been the boring out of Great Western Railway 0-6-2T No. 5643’s cylinders as a precursor to fitting the new cylinder liners. The first photo shows the borer located in the left hand cylinder and the motor, bottom right, connected to the borer drive by bands.

Chris Birmingham from Riley & Son engineers of Bury was in charge of the operation.

The next stage in the process is the machining of the new liners to fit, which will take place at Bury, and then the shrink fitting of the new liners (cryogenics is the technical term) at Preston programmed for week commencing 3rd March.

Meanwhile Ron and Ed have been reaming out some more stay holes on 5643’s firebox.

We have now received news from Williton in Somerset that Caliban’s inner firebox has now been removed:

With this in mind there has been more work this week on Caliban’s cab. Jon and Sim have been attending to the interior, John Dixon has been pulling the metalwork back into shape, whilst Tim has made further progress with the cab exterior.

Sam has been preparing Furness Railway 0-4-0 No. 20 for its forthcoming boiler inspection, seen here taking the opportunity to give the safety valves a thorough clean.

Some video here of the FRT’s ‘Austerity’ 0-6-ST Cumbria courtesy of Paul Newton who visited the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway on Thursday.

Finally, it has been Alan’s turn to celebrate a birthday, seen here in the mess room with the obligatory cakes.

A short catch up this week.
Ade appeared with a fork lift on Wednesday to place one of Great Western Railway 0-6-2T No. 5643’s side tanks on its side. This has enabled Ed and John Davis to clean it and check for any weak spots.

Work has continued on the repairs and refurbishment of Peckett 0-4-0ST Caliban’s cab with John Dixon fabricating some pull rods to bring the entrance to the cab back into shape whilst Tim has continued to work on the outside of the rear of the cab to improve the surface ready for painting.

Finally, work took place on Saturday to remove the left-hand connecting rod from Furness Railway 0-4-0 No.20. Sam is seen removing the slide bar lock nuts.

The slide bars and rod are seen after removal, ready for measuring to remove unwanted movement around the little end.

As mentioned in last week’s blog, work has started on some of the winter
maintenance jobs listed for Furness Railway No. 20. With the left-hand
motion dismantled, Alan is seen measuring up components with a view to
eliminating the undesirable side movement around the little end that has been
apparent in recent times.

Ron Crowe has been helpfully cleaning up the motion.

Andy Booth has been tapping out the fusible plug holes in FR 20’s firebox
which will increase their size by 1/16”. New plugs are on order.

Work has continued on the overhaul of Great Western Railway 0-6-2T No.
5643 with rust being removed from the side tanks in readiness for new paint.
It should not be too long now before work on fitting new cylinder liners takes
place.

Member Jo Booth appeared last Wednesday with his scratch built ‘O’ gauge
LMS ‘Pacific’ No. 46222 Queen Mary, a quite amazing piece of work
considering he only started on the project last August.

Sam Middleton, Chris Rycroft, Jimmy Dutton, and Mike Stewart spent Saturday at Cheltenham on a
BESTT tubing course. Sam is seen here at work. We are pleased to report that
all have received certificates of competency.

Finally, RSR overhauled Peckett 0-4-0ST Hornet made it out on to the main
line and into Riverside station on Saturday as part of its shake down
programme.

Work has again continued with the overhaul of Great Western Railway 0-6-2T locomotive No. 5643 with Ed and Ron reaching the landmark stage on Saturday of drilling from the outside all the firebox stays to be replaced. There is still work to be done from the inside of the firebox before the holes can be reamed and tapped.

Another shunt of the shed has taken place and Furness Railway No. 20’s engine has been split from the tender in order for it to be squeezed into the heated part of the shed, above the pit, to enable winter maintenance to take place. 5643’s chassis is now at the west end of the shed to allow work to replace the cylinder liners to take place.

With the Peckett 0-4-0ST Caliban’s boiler away at Williton for the fitting of a new firebox, attention has turned to repairing the cab and readying it for painting. A skim of filler is being applied to improve the surface of the metalwork. 

Sam took a trip to Embsay yesterday and found the Trust’s ‘Austerity’ 0-6-0ST Cumbria in service.

Finally, the Ribble Steam Railway’s workshop has turned out Peckett 0-4-0ST No. 1935 Hornet of 1937, which was being warmed up on Saturday in the sunshine in readiness for a full steam test, hopefully this week.

Another couple of weeks have gone by and the stay drilling team of Ed and
Ron is closing in on the last few stays to be replaced on Great Western Railway
0-6-2T No. 5643’s firebox, which are being drilled out from the outside.

There is still some work to be done on clearing the holes on the inside of the firebox,
which Keith will do with the gas torch, but that side of the project is now
nearing completion. Thursday saw another set of stay holes tapped and ready
to receive new stays, with Chris Rycroft being assisted by the FRT team.

Elsewhere, with Caliban’s boiler away receiving a new firebox, it’s time to
ensure that other elements of the project are brought up to speed. Tim has
been sanding down the back of the cab, applying filler where necessary, whilst
John Dixon has been cleaning up the threads at the bottom of two of the cab
stanchions.

Meanwhile, Keith has been fabricating a new bracket to hold the steam heat
pipe on the front of Great Western Railway ‘Hall’ class 4-6-0 No. 4979
Wootton Hall.

Members should now have received the latest, Autumn/Winter 2024, edition
of The Iron Horse along with membership renewal letters.
It is good to see so many subscriptions arriving in the Trust’s bank account
already – many thanks.

A Happy New Year to all our readers. We hope that you have had a pleasant and peaceful time over the festive break.

We are pleased to announce that the Trust was notified of a legacy of £10,000 from the estate of the late David Rimmer, our former long-standing Treasurer and Trustee who died last April. We are sure that David would have appreciated the timing of the notification and the Trustees will no doubt wish to allocate the money to progressing one of David’s favoured projects.

The Christmas and New Year festivities have not halted progress on the overhaul of Great Western Railway 0-6-2T No. 5643 where work has continued on the removal of old stays from the firebox, with little now left to do in this respect – just the more awkward ones!

Our folk group, Live Steam, performed a well appreciated gig at the Engine Inn at Cark-in-Cartmel on New Year’s Eve, although the atrocious weather unsurprisingly reduced the size of the audience. Even so, some welcome funds were raised for the Furness Railway Trust and also the Bahamas Locomotive Society for which guitarist Pete Skellon is a Trustee.

Finally, some of you will have noticed that the FRT’s old website has been taken down because it had become out of date. The good news is that Chris Rycroft has been working with Mike Rigg to produce a super new website. Although still being worked up to full size, readers are now invited to have a first glimpse of the FRT’s new presence on the web. Our grateful thanks go to Chris for his skill and imagination in producing something that is very different.

link to the new website!

We find ourselves once again heading towards the end of another year, one that will be memorable amongst other things for successful visits with Furness Railway 0-4-0 No. 20 to the West Somerset and East Lancashire Railways, some excellent progress with the overhaul of Great Western Railway 0-6-2T No. 5643, the despatch of Peckett 0-4-0ST Caliban’s boiler to Williton for overhaul as well as the production of new castings for its motion. Volunteers have met new challenges with boiler work on 5643 and also overcome, with some difficulty for the more elderly, the art of getting out of a deep Premier Inn bath.

The past couple of weeks have seen more progress with drilling out stays on 5643’s boiler (the vast majority now done) and the tapping of stay holes of which over 100 are finished and mostly fitted with new stays – just the caulking to do.

The batch of 550 new nuts has been received from Williton, with Keith seen here testing one on a stay.

5643’s main steam pipe has been away for shotblasting and three of the engine’s driving wheel springs have had their holes re-bushed to give a better fit.

They have then been re-fitted on to the locomotive.

Sam has removed and cleaned FR 20’s washout plugs and the ashpan has been removed for Sim to clean and paint.

Jon has been giving the Coventry Climax fire pump yet another overhaul, this time including a full clean, emptying of the fuel tank, and the fitting of new leads. This will hopefully reduce the lead time in getting this 70 year old machine into action when boiler washouts are arranged.

The latest edition of The Iron Horse magazine is with the printer and should be out early in the New Year.

The Ribble Steam Railway’s Santa Specials concluded yesterday, with Ade driving Bagnall 0-6-0ST Courageous on its last day in service before a 10 year boiler overhaul.

There will be working parties at Preston on Friday, 27 th , and Saturday, 28 th December. The normal Wednesday/Friday/Saturday pattern of working days will re-commence on Friday, 3 rd January.

Finally, our folk group, Live Steam will once again be performing at the Engine Inn, Cark-in-Cartmel on New Year’s Eve, so do come along if you are in the area.

Best wishes from the blog team go to everyone for a merry Christmas and a very prosperous and productive New Year.