Restoration diary

No, RRRG has not dissolved and ceased to exist!  Yes, things have been a bit quiet regarding posts here.  The main reason is that we are working frantically behind the scenes on a brand new website which will eventually supplant this Wordpress site as our window to the world.  Much effort is being devoted to this; in fact so much that we haven't had much time to update things here.  A number of RRRG Committee members attended a meeting at Peak Rail on October 14th where we decided on various strategies for the future of the project and the way ahead.  The fruits of this will become apparent in due course.  I can also report a successful sales operation during the recent diesel gala season where thanks to a number of railways kindly inviting us we made some good money.  I can also confirm that RRRG members will receive the next issue of the Group newsletter in early December.

So, yes, from the outside it looks very quiet in RRRG land.  But there's a lot going on behind the scenes and in the words of Shaw Taylor: "Keep 'em peeled!" - there will be some exciting announcements in the near future.

The RRRG sales stand will be out at Wansford station on the Nene Valley Railway this weekend (29-30 September) selling our usual wide variety of books, toys and models. In particular we will have some brand new Hornby Class 56 models at highly competitive prices. We hope to see you there and help us match our takings from the NVR steam gala which provided valuable revenue to progress the restoration of 50029 and 50030. Thanks to the Nene Valley Railway for the invitation to their event where we are pleased to note the effort put in to give a good show.

We were at the Nene Valley steam gala this weekend. Saturday was excellent: warm and sunny with crowds aplenty. Sales-wise we cleared about £310 profit. Today was always looking more risky, the weather forecast was for steady and persistent rain in the afternoon. This duly arrived about half past one and we decided to shut up shop rather than risk getting soaked for the sake of no punters anyway. A bunch of last minute sales took us up to a respectable £90 profit. Worth doing and with £400 profit for the weekend and disposed of some "long term inmates" from the sales stock. We will be back at Wansford next weekend for the diesel gala - thanks go to the Nene Valley Railway for the invitation to both events and for putting on a good show this weekend.

Today I are be mostly...sorry been watching too many episodes of the Fast Show. Dave had spent the week on site as he's still off work following his operation & he's cleaned & painted most of the water & air inlet piping for the ex-008 power unit. Mark B dug out of the stores the two sections of protective shields for the A side generator conduits & cleaned and undercoated them; one each for 29 & 30. He also sorted a third section of the gen conduits, loosened off the joints and began removing years of layers of paint. I and my girlfriend Julie belled out and marked both sets of wiring from the cab AWS sunflowers to the AWS relay box, though removing the lid of the relay box proved difficult as two of the fixing bolt heads had been broken off some time ago, and I had to put an angle-grinder through the one stud to release the lid. I brought away the shaped mounting bracket from No.2 cab and the sunflower dial from No.1 cab to clean the contacts.

Ian & Pete cleared various debris out of the sump of the power unit, and started cleaning & painting sections of inlet air piping. Dave...supervised, as he is still recovering from being under the knife for a hernia and is excused duties for the moment. Mark cleaned & sorted another section of conduit for the generators, to go with the two sections he had previously done, so three down, 13 to go. This is not as easy as it sounds, as most of the lengths of conduits had been separated from each other for easier storage, so it was a case of multiple visits inside Repulse & our stores to find the right sections.

I test-fitted one of the new Z70 resistors, and found it fits the existing brackets perfectly. I just need to properly space the tapping bands, then it can be fitted permanently.

Sharp-eyed Mechanical Officer spotted an interesting addition to the livery of 66030 at Hereford on 11th August.

Our gas bottles on the trolley used to collect them; oxygen (black) and acetylene (maroon).

One of those "must get round to doing that sometime" tasks hanging over RRRG has been to collect a couple of cylinders of oxygen and acetylene with which to power our cutting and welding equipment. Although there is a BOC distributor just across the A6 from Peak Rail's Rowsley South site they have limited opening hours which are somewhat inconvenient for the regular on site RRRG volunteers.  Tim and I decided we would head up to Rowsley last Friday night in order to be on site in the morning ready to collect the gas. So, shortly after 4 o'clock on Friday afternoon I hit the road to drive the 170 miles or so from Reading to deepest Derbyshire whilst Tim got a train from Peterborough to Matlock, where I would meet him. I got delayed by the usual Friday traffic whilst Tim got delayed when 66008 decided to investigate the ballast on the Midland main line near Duffield. (I did however make it through Bletchingdon on the A34 without incident after my two year anniversary earlier this month, and once on site, Dave was as helpful and complimentary as ever that my latest car was retaining its factory-fitted styling so well).

The cylinders are now in situ at RRRG headquarters. One of the main uses we will have for them is to heat up some bolts and pins on our spare bogies which are absolutely stuck fast and won't shift any other way.  In particular there are some arms secured by pins and bolts which prevent the traction motors being removed from the bogies and we want to either free these off, or if necessary, cut them off (we have plenty of spares) in order to free the motors for removal to Bowers for overhaul.

Aluminium air intake manifolds destined for the ex-50008 power unit. The foreground example awaits the removal by wire brushing of years of dirt and grime to reach the standard of the background pair, which Dave Rolfe described as "Rolls Royce quality"!

After treatment with the wire brush, Tim and I set about red oxide primer coating of the manifolds we treated that day, as well as returning to some that other RRRG volunteers had already treated, just to ensure that "Rolls Royce finish"!

With the main excitement of the morning over, and after a few steadying cups of tea and brunch at the Peak Rail cafe, Tim and I set to work on wire brushing and red oxide painting of a number of air intake manifolds destined for the ex-50008 power unit. Chris Bodell's nascent music career meant he was playing a gig in Bakewell on Saturday night so he went home to practice and took his leave of us. Tim was diagrammed for transporting teenagers to a roller disco in Peterborough that evening and so, despite building up some momentum on the inlet manifolds, we reluctantly packed up and I drove us the 100 or so miles back to Peterborough, where the teenagers were transported and Tim and I undertook a mutual debriefing session in The Moorhen at Hampton Vale (Tim's local). Sunday was spent doing more work on the soon-to-be-launched new RRRG website (of which more in due course) and I then hit the road for the final time back to Reading, which was covered in a personal best time of 1 hour 50 minutes and brought my mileage for the weekend to a touch short of 400. But it's all good fun (allegedly!).

A large amount of heavy boulders blocking the path to the container where our purchased spares were.

On Friday 29^th June 2012, Sarah and myself set off together with our trusty hound Toby to meet up with the contacted transport company at a site near Worcester to collect electrical items we had purchased from 50021 Rodney Group, this also included a Radiator Fan Motor and Traction Motor Blower for the D400 Fund.

When we arrived at site, we introduced ourselves to the Lorry Driver Nigel Chapman. The first problem we encountered was that due to the heavy deluge the day before, a delivery of large boulders had been delivered and dumped in front of the grounded curtain-sided truck body that our items were being stored in.

After a little head scratching it was decided we could get into the other side of the body if we removed the site security fencing. When we obtained access to the other side of body, the next obstacle was to release the tensioning mechanism, which through the passage of time had sunk into the ground, and after some digging with spades and persuasion with the site dumper truck which lifted the sunk body out of the ground we gained access.

We moved some fencing to gain access to the other side of the container.

With the transport lorry manoeuvred into position and stabiliser legs down the next problem encountered was a temperamental hydraulic hi-ab which with the technical know-how of Nigel, eventually played ball. The first two items strapped up and lifted out were the Cubicle and Rad Fan Motor. The two compressors and traction motor followed soon after. The items were secured down and we then drove to where the traction motor blowers and spare power unit (ex-50045) were stored. One blower motor was lifted and secured down.

We needed the site dumper truck to force our way in...

RRRG's main purchase, the electrical cubicle, safely loaded onto the lorry.

Once everything was checked to be secure we set off on our journey North, up the M5, M42 etc heading for Derbyshire with Bowers Electrical being our first port of call. We had anticipated the journey to be difficult with the usual Friday afternoon traffic, however also had the added problem of road closures along the A6 between Derby and Rowsley due to the Olympic Torch relay, fortunately the journey went without delay or incident. At Bowers we had the assistance of a forklift and very quickly off-loaded D400 Fund's Rad Fan Motor and Blower Motor together with our two compressors.

RRRG's haul included two genuine Class 50 compressors, ex-50011, seen being guided onto the lorry.


We then set off for Rowsley, arriving at site about 4:45pm, where we were met by local “BG” resident Dave Rolfe. Once on site we discovered one of our ETH generators (in worse condition than the others, which is why it was never sent for overhaul) was obstructing the route of the lorry to our storage shed, incidentally we also needed this moving, so with the Hi-ab on site we took advantage and relocated it dropping it near Renown together with the Traction Motor.

A further spare traction motor was also included in the deal.


A short break was had whilst we retired to the BG for a brew. Once refreshed we returned to our storage shed to off-load the electrical cubicle although this was not without problems as the hi-ab could not manoeuvre the cubicle all the way into the shed so with a solid steel bar and some brute force we pushed the cubicle in. Space in the shed being what it was, we had to man-handle the cubicle in at an angle until the doors could be closed and locked.  Everything was then sheeted up, secured and we eventually left for site calling at Frankie & Bennies for a very well earned bite to eat and pint, eventually getting back home some 15 hours after starting out earlier that morning.

After some manhandling to make it fit the available space inside RRRG's designated facility, the newly-purchased cubicle was safely stored awaiting future work. With this final act, a long and satisfying day finally came to an end!

A big thank you to Nigel Chapman the jovial lorry driver, who was a tremendous help on the day, enjoy your retirement!!  Photos by Sarah McCall.

RRRG are holding their Annual General Meeting (AGM) this coming Sunday 24th June 2012 commencing at 13:30 hrs at the 260th Birmingham Scout Group, rear of Scanlons Club, 254 Spring Road, Tyseley, Birmingham B11 3DW.

Current members and shareholders are very welcome to come along and attend to find out how the work on 50029 and 50030 is progressing.

Any non-members are also welcome to attend but would need to become a member or shareholder: this can be arranged on the day.

RRRG has just purchased a traction motor, two compressors and an electrical cubicle (all ex-50011 Centurion) from the 50021 Rodney group/ owners . The items will be collected, together with items bought by the D400 fund, and transported to Bowers Electricals Ltd. at Heanor for assessment and any work that may be needed.

The  electrical cubicle that has quite a few re-usable components will be dropped off at Rowsley where the parts will be stripped for future use or spares.

We will be at Wansford station on the Nene Valley Railway over the weekend of 19-20 April with our sales stand at their diesel gala.  It promises to be a great event and our thanks to the Nene Valley for inviting us again.  We always enjoy going to Wansford and the NVR has put a good lineup together for this event so come along and enjoy rides on their trains, sample our merchandise and have a chat about the RRRG project.

Back in 2002 when RRRG successfully bid and secured Renown and Repulse together with various spares David Phillips was a volunteer at Pontypool & Blaenavon Railway and safely stored a CU1 on our behalf. As Sarah & I were travelling down to Swanage diesel gala this weekend to enjoy recently restored 50026 it was decided to call in to David's home in Trowbridge to collect the CU1 en-route. Whilst there I received a bonus in the form of an Ammeter for one of the cabs. I would like to thank David for safely storing the parts and also for the hospitality he and his wife offered us.

CU1 collected from David Phillips	CU1 Wiring Loom and Plugs	Cab Ammeter

RRRG investors who have earned shares through work parties or purchased additional shares, up to the end of June 2011 will shortly receive an updated share certificate.

The date of end June is chosen because, for historical reasons, this represents the end of the RRRG financial year and so any shares obtained after this date will NOT be counted in this update. Only shareholders whose shareholding level has increased by one or more whole shares will receive an updated certificate - put simply, if you haven't acquired any more complete shares since the last update then you won't get a certificate this time round!

Anyone who thinks they should have an updated certificate but hasn't received one by the middle of next week, please get in touch.

Sarah and I attended site and again met on site by Dave who I now think lives on site full-time as he is always there :-)

Dave continued with clearing and tidying the container a job that when he started thought would take a morning ended up taking three days. Once this was completed he continued with the refurbishment of the radiator grilles. The process takes such a long take as each element is being stripped back to bare metal, prior to priming and painting, and as BR's policy appears to have been apply new paint onto the old there are numerous layers of paint and a rainbow of colours.

Sarah & I continued with the  assessments of the KV10's. Starting with the best we are checking and cleaning contacts and replacing unserviceable parts. We have finished one complete unit having to re-terminate a couple of broken cables connections and replace a couple of components. The next best KV10 selected had sound looking components but the cable terminations at the top of the unit looked a little rusted and three of them sheared off when attempts were made to loosen them even after liberal application of WD40 (other lubricants are available lol). Therefore we had to loosen of the paxolin board from the body of the KV10 and using recovered termination studs from other scraped units these were replaced but this is not easy as unless you disconnect cables going from one side of the unit to the other side the board only gives finger width space.

Our next visit to site to continue with work on the KV10's will be in a few weeks as we will be participating in a railtour with EE Type1's and a couple of galas where it's hoped to sample a certain Mr Spracklen's 50026.

Myself, Sarah and Toby the dog attended site and the usual weekender Dave was there when we arrived. Dave spent the Saturday erecting a shelving unit the group acquired courtesy of one of our volunteers employers (enough said) and having a general tidy up.

We spent the day working on assessing our KV10's. A couple were found to have damaged PCB connectors, I have found a source for acquiring replacements.

The worst KV10 was dismantled to use a template to check the remaining units and to provide spare parts.

A list of spares needed is being compiled and all parts sourced so repairs can be carried out prior to transporting the KV10's and associated PCB Control Cards for testing.

Following a recommendation from The Fifty Fund I made contact with a Mr Noel Craigen, a former Technical Engineer with experience at various British Rail Traction Maintenance Depots, to assess and test our KV10s and Control Cards.



For those who are not in the know a KV10 regulates the voltage of either the Main Generator or the ETH Generator and are otherwise known as CU3 & CU6 respectively (each Class 50 locomotive uses two KV10 units). Each KV 10 has a pair of Control Cards that need testing and pairing also.



I met Noel at Rowsley on Saturday and we carried out an initial inspection of the KV10's and associated Control Cards. Noel has confirmed prices to carry out electrical and function tests as necessary. Once I have ensured any visible damage or missing parts have been repaired/replaced the KV10s will be transported to Yorkshire to Noel's premises for the tests and necessary repairs  to be completed.

This is another important stage of the electrical and control work underway.

After work on the evening of Monday 2nd April Mark and I drove miles and met up off J18 M1 to transfer more stock to me for the Nene Valley Railway Tornado and Thomas event. We have accumulated a lot of steam and generic railway stock over the years and beefed up our toy offering so I saw this as a great opportunity for RRRG and the Nene Valley Railway were happy for us to attend and publicise our attendance.

We also spent an hour discussing a number of RRRG challenges.

Another long drive partly through some new roads to me around Naseby on a pleasant evening saw me somewhat tired but managing some attention for Jack the dog and Frankie and Bella the rabbits before bed to be fresh for the commute and work tomorrow.

 

On Wednesday 5th after work I met up with the Fifty Fund to collect more stock.

We sell stock supplied by the Fund to increase the variety of our offering and we share the profits.

We also spent an hour trying to help each other with the constant challenges of Class 50 preservation groups.

 

I found another 10-12 conduit and pipe clamps that I need for in the generator room. I cleaned these up with wet and dry sandpaper and a wire cut brush, then white spirited them and painted them. Also put another coat of paint on the 40-odd clamps that I did last time I was on site.

I also re-secured 50029’s tarpaulin which was loose and flapping around a bit on one corner.

Dave Rolfe was on site as usual and continued with painting a second coat of paint onto the radiator grilles.  I took a few photos and noted how good they were looking; we will share these here soon.

Dave was on site all weekend working on cleaning and painting one of the bodyside radiator grilles.



Ian and Pete with some assistance from Dave continued working on the ex-50008 engine replacing some of the head covers.



Steve and Sarah assessed traction motor contactor arc-chutes so spares and paxolin to replace missing parts can be ordered.



The long process of verifying all the cables from the electrical cubicle to equipment in 50029 was started. Each cable was to be tested with a multi-meter to confirm continuity. The first cables checked were those from terminal bar TB6 with blower No1 cables testing out ok. Problems were then encountered as we checked Blower No2 but could get no reading and eventually realised this was because the cables and flexible conduit had been cut about an inch from the connection box.



As it is too difficult to pull any slack through we have decided to dismantle the conduits with a view to reinstalling via a shorter route up the front of the blower negating the need to replace the cables.