September 2018 Newsletter

Even with the wheelsets away for an extended period last year and this there was plenty of other work to get on with as part of 80105's overhaul.  

Earlier this year, Brian Thomson re-installed the slide bars onto 80105's frames. First the rear cylinder end covers had to be bolted back onto the cylinders as one end of the slide bars bolts on to them.

Slide bars
Slide bars

A plastic disc helps  keep the piano
wire in place.
In order to get the spacing between top and bottom slide bar correct Brian first had to set up a centre line from each cylinder to the centre driving axle on both sides, using piano wire. Piano wire was used as it doesn't appreciably stretch.


Wire running through centre
of pseudo axle to an anchor
point
Checking with micrometer

Brian checking measurements

Then using a micrometer, Brian was able to measure the distance from the centre line to both the top and bottom slide bars. Adding or removing shims allowed the slides bars to be set to the correct overall distance apart with each slide bar equi-distant from the centre line. This is to allow the cross-heads to run true.  The cylinders also received attention this year, when some, minor, cracks were found in them. In order to fix them a contractor was brought in to effect a repair using a technique known as metal-stitching. This is used to introduce new metal into the object to be repaired.

July 2018 Newsletter
The biggest news with 80105 this month concerns the tyres. After many rumours/false starts, the new tyres finally arrived from Germany and were put in quarantine at Ian Riley's engineering works, in Heywood; at the beginning of July. Quarantine means they hadn’t been fully signed for. Before that happened they were to be measured and tested to make sure they were satisfactory. The new tyres were ordered way back in May 2017 and our timing was unfortunate. All orders have to go through agents, and the agents we'd engaged, Railway Wheelset & Brake Ltd., were in the process of entering into an agreement with a German firm and this caused Ring Rollers in South Africa to end their agreement. The German company were more used to dealing with rolling stock tyres, so after rolling our larger tyres had to sub-contract the machining to another firm. Before any of that could happen, was the little matter of obtaining the required steel. There is a serious shortage of the high-grade steel that our tyres required; so acquiring the basic starting material for the tyres took time. 
Once at Riley's, the replacement tyre (right trailing) was machined out to the correct inner diameter, then heated and fitted onto the appropriate wheelset. It was then turned down and profiled to match all the other wheelsets. On Thursday, July 12th, two lorries from local Bo'ness firm, Thomas Graham Transport, travelled down to Heywood and stayed overnight. On the Friday they turned up at Riley's, driving into the loading bay within the works so that they could be loaded up using one of Riley's overhead cranes. An uneventful five-hour drive back up to their Bo'ness depot then followed. At around 9 a.m. on Saturday, July 14th, the lorries arrived on site and the off-loading began; quickly and efficiently
The bigger of the two lorries cost £1/4 million for the tractor unit and crane; the trailer was another £25,000. Again the driver wore a remote unit to control his crane, which could lift 2T at 17 metres or 12T at close to the lorry. With our main driving wheelsets clocking in at 4T the crane made short work of them. The basic tyre forgings cost ~ £19,500; machining the tyre ~ £390, shrinking the tyre onto the wheelset £330 and finally machining the profile ~ £380. Not included in these costs is the price for the white metalling work done on the axle boxes which also arrived back from Riley's.