Restoration diary

Mark and Richard were on site on 18th February. Richard reports he did a couple of checks to the cab wiring problems, it appears that we did not have the second live from Cab2 at the Cab1 switch panel, this would explain only having half of the route indicator and no driver's cab light. It seems some of the cab wiring issues is eithe...

Dave Rolfe and I were on site today. Dave was dismantling part of the radiator louvre system, as one side was not operating when we tested it with an air supply last week, as reported before, to try and discover why the shutter blades didn't move. Dave subsequently discovered that the seals on the two air engines for this set of louvres&n...

​Dave Rolfe, Richard Dale, Jay Hirst and I were on site yesterday. Richard finally finished drilling and tapping the fixing holes for the mounting plate for the change-end switch in No.1 cab, a difficult job because most of the holes are either at floor level, or right next to structural supports for the cab desk and the bulkhead the driver's ...

Carl and Sofy Looker, Jay Hirst, Dave Rolfe and I on were site on Sunday 15th April, while Mark and Robert Burrows had the sales stand on the station at Rowlsey South for the Peak Rail/Ecclesbourne Valley Railway Twin Peaks diesel gala. Jay and I were mostly showing people round Repulse, while Carl & Sofy did cleaning up of debri...

​Dave Rolfe, Jay Hirst, Mark Burrows and I were on site today. Mark barred round the power unit and oiled all four turbos again. Dave and I hunted out the big air pipes for the exhauster under the brake frame, finding most of what we need. The rest we either haven't found yet or is missing. Dave then set about cleaning the secti...

Mark Burrows, Dave Rolfe, Jay Hirst and I were on site todayMark & Dave spent much of the day re-arranging things in storage to accommodate some items that will be moved soon as we prepare to refer them to 50030.Now we have identified all the wires that go to the roof-mounted switch panel above the driver's side window in No.1 ca...

Mark Burrows, Jay Hirst and I were on site today working on 50030. Mark cut out the last of the rotten floor treads in the engine compartment ready for Ian the welder to fit new treads, while Jay and I belled out and marked the wiring that goes to the switch panels above the driver in both cabs. Photos in this report courtesy Jay Hirst.

​Mark, Dave, Jay and I were on site today.Mark ground off the remains of the anti-slip treads in the gen compartment where they had rotted away or been broken off, in preparation for Ian the welder to fit new ones. He will also fit new ones in places alongside the engine walkways.Jay and I carried belling out wiring in the electrical cubicle, ...

Dave Rolfe, Jay Hirst and I were on site. We continued the repetitive and rather dull-but-necessary task of cleaning out the engine room in 50030 ready for the return of the power unit nad overhauled generator in due course.Dave had found some heavy duty degreaser spray, and we used it on the sides of the engine compartment at the generator end whi...

​Mark Burrows and his son Robert, Jay Hirst and I were on site on May 16th. Following on from the work done by Ian Williams that we talked about previously, we carried on repairing the bodyshell of 50030 taking the opportunity of better internal access whilst the power unit is out. Mark and Robert continued on the outside of the no 1 cab around the...

A key priority for us now that the power unit is out of 50030 is to get the bodyshell watertight. There's no point us putting overhauled mechanicals and electrical machines back in there if they are only going to get wet! The same applies to the cabs as we move on to refitting and restoring the controls and air pipes behind the driver's desk. We've...

​Mark Burrows, his son Robert and I were on site today. Mark and Robert carried on scraping, bashing, fibreglassing, filling, sanding and priming around the no.1 cab of 50030, while I had a good tidy up on the shelves opposite the electrical cubicle, then Mark helped me fit the three rad resistor backplates along one side of the rads. Apart from th...

When we originally reported on the installation of the overhauled radiators into 50030, we promised some more pictures showing what we did on the day. I took a lot of pictures during the lift day and we hope these will give an idea of everything that was done on the day, and why it was such a long day! ...

​My fiancee Mae joined me on site today, along with Carl and Sofi Looker. While Mae was hammering, poking and scraping at rust spots around the lower parts of the no.1 cab on Repulse (a recent target area we had decided to tackle), Sofie was top-coating one side of the six radiator fan resistor backplates, while Carl and I lifted and bolted tw...

We have previously reported on the work done in the radiator compartment of 50030 once the radiators were originally lifted out to allow the compartment to be refurbished. We had hoped that we would be able to lift the radiators back into 50030 following their refurbishment somewhat sooner than now but a combination of bad weather and oth...

Dave Rolfe and I were on site today. It was more of a sorting stuff out day than doing much actual work as it was my first day back since December. I did manage to clean off the sixth radiator fan resistor backplate and undercoat the second side of two that weren't done last time, and I grabbed a picture of the completed fan roof underside now it's...

This post is to continue from the previous article rounding up the progress RRRG has made in the first half of 2017.As we had lifted the radiator fan and its motor out of 50030 in order to remove the radiators themselves for overhaul, it seemed a good idea to get this sent off for overhaul at the same time as the radiators were being d...

We are grateful to a number of railway publications for publishing our press release at the start of 2017 describing the radiator lift from 50030.  We've deliberately held off putting anything on the Group website about this event in order to give the magazines some time to have exclusivity on the story. Now the story is well and ...

On 22nd August Dave Rolfe and I were on site. Dave was having a good sort out of our storage as it had got a bit untidy, which was preventing us from finding items we need for the actual restoration project, and disposing of offcuts of some wood that we don't need. I carried on undercoating in the Thin Man's and a bit round the front of the cu...

The 2016 Annual General Meeting of the Renown Repulse Restoration Group will be held at the Whitworth Centre Darley Dale at 10:00 on Sunday 25th September.  All members and shareholders are welcome.  Tea and coffee will be available for all attendees.  Following the conclusion of the AGM we will hold another open afternoon at our res...