Great News...! At long last the tender wheel tyre forgings have arrived at Carnforth. After what seemed like endless delays the good news was phoned through from Rileys to Colin Vaughan on the afternoon of Friday 23rd September. Rileys will uplift them on Monday 26th September and hope to complete all fitting and machining by 7th October (estimated). The SRC will arrange transportation to collect the wheels and get them back to Aviemore as quickly and safely as possible. By that time the tender will be on the jacks in the Carriage Shed waiting to get lowered onto its wheels (hurrah...!!).
Meanwhile there is still work going on at Aviemore Shed. One unpleasant job has been to get at the injector shut-off valves inside the tender tank. The tank has a well at its front and deep in that well are set two shut-off valves operated from a pair of short levers on the tender front. The purpose of the valves is to allow the water supply from the tender to the loco to be isolated so that, for example, the tender can be uncoupled from the loco without having to drain the tank down. When 828 was last in operation it was noted that neither shut-off valve was functioning correctly. The valves can only be accessed by physically entering the tank and crawling forward through the tank internal framing to get to the well. After ventilating the tank thoroughly for a long period we made a controlled entry and confirmed that the valve operating rods were intact and functioning. Close examination showed that the valves weren't travelling fully and that some resetting was necessary. The work was carried out successfully by Tommy MacDonald and we are now able to rely on them once again.
The decision to reconnect the Westinghouse Brake Pump and operate it for demonstration purposes meant that we had to be confident that isolating cock on the boiler backhead (faceplate) was in good order. It has been fully stripped down and refurbished and should now provide a reliable means of on / off control for the Pump. By the way, if anyone has a Westinghouse Pump Governor in their attic it would be good to hear if you are willing to donate it for use on CR 828...! The Governor presently fitted to 828 has no internals. It will allow the Pump to be operated but only under manual control and without being connected to an air receiver.
Our colleagues in the C&W Dept handed over a pair of wooden packing plates for the front buffers and these have been fitted. Because of material restrictions the new ones had to be made in two halves and glued together. They will do the job although they are a little undersized. However, one of our regular Volunteers, Aidan Bell, has very kindly offered to provide us with two fully-sized offcuts of oak that can be used to make another pair of spacers. These are due to be collected on 26th September from Wester Ross and will be machined to fit in the next few days.