Into 2017

Hopefully the tender wheel tyre forgings will be delivered to Ian Riley's works at Heywood by 21st January and he'll be able to crack on with getting them fitted and machined to profile as quickly as possible. In the meantime a few small but necessary tasks have been completed on the loco and tender..

The tender has been placed on a couple of spare Gresley coach bogies to free up the slave bogies for use underneath Ivatt Class 2 46512 which has had its wheels removed for tyre turning. Here we see the tender as a four wheeler suitable only for low speed movement.. The Ivatt's tender sits behind 828 - but not coupled...

Gresley axlebox is quite a good fit in Caley tender horn....

Getting ready to close up the tender water tank...

Tank closed up. Note the very old crack in the cast iron lid of the lefthand filler cap...we might need to renew that soon..

When opening out the split taper pin for the loco steam brake bellcrank pin it broke...! Easy to fit a new spare until it turned out that the original was a non-standard size so no alternative but to ream the hole out to the right size. Here we see the taper reamer going into action..

Reaming completed and new taper pin fitted and opened out without it breaking...

Boiler blowdown connection into the ashpan has been fitted permanently. Here we see another taper pin acting as a lock for the connection on the rear wall of the ashpan..

Ages ago Alan French made up this elegantly simple spark arrester frame. It is designed for ease of removal. This is it being trial fitted. When complete it will be clothed in stainless steel mesh to prevent red hot cinders escaping up the chimney. Its lower end fastens on to of the blastpipe / blower ring and the upper end engages with the chimney petticoat (or more properly in CR parlance the "hood").

Close up of the stainless steel clamp that locates Alan's spark arrester.

Calum Titley carrying out a welding operation on the new spark arrester frame. Note the newly fitted safety chain on the smokebox door - a CR arrangement to prevent the door hinges being overloaded if the door is swung too far..

Drilling out the bolt holes in the oak spacesr for the front buffers. The material for these was donated by the National Trust for Scotland at Inverewe Gardens thanks to Mr Aidan Bell. A neighbour of Keith Holyland's very kindly machined them to the final size in his large wood-turning lathe..

The new spacers in place after being given a coat of red oxide paint. Note 46512 alongside minus all wheels..

Do you ever feel you're being watched...?

Slightly unfocused picture of 828 with her buffers permanently back in place. Now we can get the front bufferbeam repainted and numbered....!

Picture of 828 in her very early CR days - probably at Aberdeen...tender is well loaded with coal..!