This week D123 has been busy shunting, many shunts require the use of more than one locomotive, and in these cases one of the big main line diesels is used as well as the Class 10, the choice of which one is usually dependent on two variables: whether there’s a driver qualified for the class, and which loco is nearest the entrance to the siding, in this case D123 was chosen, and had an unexpected outing. 

The shunt yesterday (4th November) was to enable Boscastle’s boiler to be removed from the frames and loaded onto a lorry for travel to a contractors works, and to release one of the DMU vehicles from the back of the shed. It is far, far easier to write about this sort of shunt than to carry them out. Not for nothing are these shunts known as “mega-shunts” among the shed volunteers. This one ‘only’ involved No. 1 road, although unlike many such shunts it did include every vehicle on the road, but it didn’t really affect anything on No’s. 2 & 3 roads in the shed itself. At one point the Peak had City of Truro, Lord Nelson, 78019, 48305, 63601, the Ivatt 2’s tender, the Jinty, the GUV, a box van and the DMU vehicle in train.

No. 1 road looks very different when you can see straight through almost to the canal. 





While the shunt and craning job were underway work carried on in the shed as normal, Hugh was busy painting the five; he put grey undercoat on the front, red undercoat on some of the frame stretchers and more grey undercoat on underneath the smokebox saddle, aiming to build up plenty of paint in these areas which will be inaccessible once the boiler is back in place. 

Meanwhile Alison was busy bringing some of the brass fittings up to a showroom finish. Some of these castings have never been polished and still show the sand marks from the foundry, so getting them to take a shine is a long process, others just needed a quick buff with brasso to bring them back up to a good finish.

 


Big news on the boiler this week is that Tyseley have sent a list of stay hole sizes, which means that we can begin getting the material ready and making stays for 45305s boiler. We already have most of the material in stock, although we need to buy a bit more bar in smaller sizes to save wastage. But it is a big step forward.

Tom telling Hugh the good news that we are ready to start making stays, but that we need to buy some material.


As you may already know, Oliver Cromwell is taking part in a special Remembrance ceremony this weekend to mark the 100th Anniversary of the Territorial Army, 70013 is being temporarily re-numbered to 70048 “Territorial Army”. As part of the preparations Cromwell has been having a wash and brush up. Part of this included re-painting the smoke deflectors. The brass nameplates have been removed during this process to ensure that paint doesn’t run down behind them and ruin the historic painted names, which were discovered during the overhaul.

These painted names are not usually visible as they are normally completely covered by the brass plates. The photo below shows the painted name plates as well as the cab sides which have already been re-numbered to 70048 ready for the weekend.