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Latest News: Archive
September 2011
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Latest News: Archive
September 2011
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47 596 starts up after its overhaul. 24th July 2011. Photo: James Steward |
Back in 2009, 47 596 was found to have two leaking liner seals. This meant that water from the cooling system was finding its way into the engine oil. The decision was taken to carry out a complete top end engine rebuild. This entails removing all twelve cylinder heads, pistons and piston liners. A complete overhaul of all components took place, sourcing and replacing many worn parts. These included 36 new piston rings, 24 oil scraper rings, 12 exhaust valves, 24 big end bearing shells and 36 liner seals. All components were degreased and painted before reassembly. The opportunity was also taken to clean and paint the engine compartment. The engine was restarted for the first time at the end of July two years and four months after being withdrawn from traffic. The hard work carried out by the Stratford 47 Group will ensure this popular locomotive is fit for many years' service and it is intended that it will re-enter traffic for this year's Santa Specials.
By Trevor Brackpool and Owen Stratford.
Unfortunately our planned works train today was cancelled at the last minute because of some problems shunting the stock at Dereham the previous week and so we had a hasty change of plans. Instead, we returning to Whinburgh and carried on with the ballast work through the cutting.
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Check chairs. 10th September 2011. Photo: Toby Rawlings |
Today saw us working at Yaxham. We were preparing for the forthcoming renewal of the level crossing. The first job of the day was to load up some materials (chairs, screws, etc) onto the first train and travel out to site. Once there we spent the morning fixing check chairs to one end of each of the new sleepers to go under the road. This will save us time on the weekend. We then had a delivery of rails, pipes and edging timbers using the works train in the lunchtime slot and these were efficiently unloaded in the short hour-long window. This train was rescheduled from the previous week. With these rails on site and having measured up and decided how the crossing will be installed, we set about cutting them to length and bending the flare ends onto the checkrails using the jim-crow. It was a surprisingly warm day and so this seemed like a good point to have an early finish.
The Southern Section team spent the day carrying out vegetation clearance in Whinburgh Cutting. There is a particularly tasty plum tree growing here that keeps hungry volunteers sustained at this time of year. It's quite hard to tell apart from the surrounding scrub when it's not in fruit, so we decided to clear out the scrub to give it some light and make it more obvious which tree is to be kept.
S&T had a maintenance day at Thuxton today whilst the loop was switched in for the gala. All of the points were mechanically gauged and lubricated. Whilst we were on site one of the point machines decided to develop an intermittent fault where the detection was lost. This was traced to inefficient snubbing of the motor causing the lock to spring back just enough to cause the detection contacts in the rocker to break. Some adjustment (after a lot of head scratching) solved the problem. We also installed a terminal block in the signal head for T2 to assist in cable testing before testing all of the track circuits and power supplies.
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Removal of the old track and fittings. 30th September 2011. Photo: Owen Stratford |
While gala trains whizzed up and down, four P-Way volunteers spent the day topping up low ballast beds in Whinburgh Cutting, completing another seven chains worth.
Today saw us make a start on the renewal of Yaxham level crossing. We had a JCB on site and our tarmac contractor to break out all of the old road surface. We then dismantled the old crossing before the formation was excavated and levelled. Whilst all of this was in progress, the rail ends at the extremities of the crossing were cut back and re-drilled. This gives us fresh fishplate surfaces and also removes one set of joints from the edge of the carriageway where they were difficult to maintain. It was blisteringly hot and so we were glad to finish for the day.
By Toby Rawlings.
Today seven members of the Northern Section team dug out 43 sleepers ready for changing between Norwich and Neatherd Road Level Crossings in Dereham. We also managed to collect together the majority of the rubble from this section, repair several lengths of retaining wall and clear the last of the vegetation from the wall and fence above. After sheltering from a heavy shower in the Cottage we finished a little earlier than normal before it really started to pour down.
With eight Northern Section group members on site working from Neatherd Road LC back towards Dereham Station we managed to change and backfill ballast around 26 sleepers today. Drilling and screwing down of the new sleepers was kindly undertaken by P-Way's Trevor who spent the afternoon with us. Hopefully next Sunday we shall complete this work which is aimed at improving this short section of track before the Diesel Gala at the end of the month.
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Changing sleepers. 18th September 2011. Photo: Toby Rawlings |
A team of eight Northern Section members carried on from last week, when we actually changed 27 sleepers, to complete the task by replacing another 17 north of Norwich Road in Dereham. We also managed to clean and backfill the ballast, tidy up the old sleepers and work on the bouncing joint next to the crossing ready for next week's Diesel Gala.
With an early start we were able to load, trolley and lay out the new sleepers before it got busy. However, restrictions on the main point in the station meant that Operations had to shunt rolling stock through our work site twice during the day. This limited what we could do when because Class 50 locos and missing sleepers tend not to mix well.
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Nick digging silt out of the drains. 25th September 2011. Photo: Toby Rawlings |
With seven Northern Section members on site today we achieved a great deal in and around County School. Tasks undertaken include clearing and burning vegetation near the P-Way Hut; greasing the points; removal and collection of the remaining wooden fence posts by the Road-Rail Machine; the uncovering, surveying and digging out of catchpits between Bridges 1706 and 1707. The original plan to retain soil behind the culvert entrance was swiftly cancelled after locating a wasps' nest in the undergrowth!