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London Bound
After a prolonged weighing session the NRM’s Britannia No. 70013 “Oliver Cromwell” has finally left Loughborough for Southall. I did warn you that weighing a locomotive is a task that takes “as long as it takes” and in this case it took quite a long time, mainly because the weighing showed up a few adjustments that were needed, which in turn meant that after the adjustments were made the weighing had to be repeated. She was finally weighed and adjusted to Tom’s satisfaction at the weekend and was therefore able to be loaded onto a low-loader and set off for Southall yesterday. The last news I had was last night when some of our volunteers were arriving at Southall to await the arrival of the lorry.
Meanwhile back at Loughborough the team have washed out the Arthur. I don’t need to say much about this job: as you know once you prove that you know what you are doing with a washout you go well up the list of people to turn to the next time that someone needs to get wet & dirty. This time we were assisted by Peter Maynard and a new volunteer for the Association. Despite a long pedigree in railway preservation he’d never assisted at a washout before and we hope that being drafted into a washout on his first day with the association won’t put Alan off – thanks for your help! We hope that you enjoyed your first acquaintance with this part of the National Collection and will be back again soon.
Allistair Taylor was at Loughborough on Saturday, looking at the diesels. He’s a man of few words, but the ones I got from him were to the effect that the Peak is well.
While we were trying to get the washout pump started, Hugh spent a bit of time checking out the scope of work needed on the roof of 14055. He was very pleased to find that it doesn’t need as much work as ’64 as someone in the past has already scraped and painted the edges. He came down off his ladder a happy man, and was even more pleased to be greeted on his return to terra firma with the message “come and start the washout, we’ve got the pump started”. Despite having a shed full of people with plenty of experience with external combustion machines and Diesel engines, the petrol engine of the pump proved a step too far and it took a lot longer to get it going than it should have! But we got the job done in the end.