Winter came very early to Toddington, but our volunteer workforce endured sub-zero temperatures and worked on, the pace only slightly reduced by the need for 'thawing out' time in the mess room!  Their fortitude is much appreciated, and has allowed further progress to be made on various fronts.

Work has continued on preparing the valve gear and motion rods. The main task has been fitting the return crank rods to the crank pins.  The cranks were a very loose fit on the pins, and in this condition the movement of the valve gear and hence the valve timing would have been 'variable' to say the least - not good.  The worn slot in the rear face of the return crank was built up with weld, then machined back to roughly the correct size. The work remaining is to fettle the slot using the 'blueing up' technique until the crank is a tight fit on the crank pin.  Meanwhile the protective grease has been removed from the crosshead assemblies, and everything lubricated to check that the crossheads still moved freely on the slide bars.  The opportunity was also taken to check that the pistons still moved freely in the cylinders (they did, thank goodness!), and this gave us a chance to clean up the piston rods again and apply more lubricant.  The castings for the big end bearings on the two outside rods have been rough machined to size and are ready to be sent away for the white metal lining to be applied.

We have finished preparing the steam pipe faces on the tops of all three cylinders.  These faces should now be steam tight, but we'll only find out when the pipes are connected and pressurised.  The blanking plates previously used during the hydraulic and steam tests at Detling, have been machined again to turn them into clamping rings for the main steam feed pipes. 

On the boiler, a lot of effort has gone into getting the Brake Ejector to fit in the correct position.  When we had the mounting bracket made, it was left without the fixing holes drilled so we could take the required measurements directly from the loco.  There is very little margin for error, as the exhaust pipe from the Ejector has to pass between the side of the cab and the outside of the boiler to match up with the exhaust pipe that runs along the full length of the boiler on the driver's side.  We used the original exhaust pipe to help get the correct alignment, and after many trial fits we achieved a satisfactory result, but then found that the back head sheets, made accurately to the drawings, fouled the pipe run and had to be modified to fit.

A new length of tube has been delivered to Toddington to make a new brake ejector exhaust pipe (the original is only fit for scrap), but we hope to salvage a tricky 'S' shaped bend from the original to incorporate into the new length of pipe.  Once the pipe reaches the smokebox, it passes through an elbow fitting, and is then connected to the base of the chimney via a short 'S' shaped copper pipe.  We had acquired an original Merchant Navy part for this job, but needless to say it didn't quite fit "P&O".  The copper pipe was repeatedly heated to cherry red to soften the metal, then it could be gradually pulled to the correct alignment by the judicious use of tapered drifts and bolts; it was a popular task on a cold day!

The appearance of the boiler has been greatly improved now that the handrails have been made and fitted.  It's also safer having something up there to hang on to!  The handrail consists of three sections of tube, each one having a slight bend to follow the boiler profile.  Joining pieces were produced in the machine shop, together with spherical shaped end pieces to give each handrail a neat finish.  A brass collar was needed where the handrail passes through the support stanchions, and we'll have to make sure these are all marked up before the handrails come down again for the fitting of the cladding sheets.

Finally on the boiler, after extensive research we've ordered the first rolls of boiler lagging material that we'll need to install before fitting the cladding sheets permanently.  The first areas to be lagged and clad will be the boiler back head and the throat plate (that's the front of the firebox, underneath the boiler).

The tender has been languishing in the Dowty shed, apparently forgotten, but we've carried out two jobs on it recently, to show that we can still remember where we put it!  Machining of the handbrake operating shaft is complete, and it has been installed in the tender.  The holes in the bulkhead for the bracket that supports the handbrake handle had only been pilot drilled so that final alignment could be completed later.  Getting the alignment correct was a tricky task, as the lower end of the shaft has to move in a slight arc when the brakes are applied.  This can only be achieved by deflecting the shaft slightly when operating the brake.  Our early attempts only resulted in the shaft thread seizing in the bracket, as we were obviously deflecting the shaft too far.  After much trial and error and use of packing pieces, the 'sweet spot' was found, and the holes in the support bracket were drilled to their final size.

There are two water supply pipes from the tender to the loco (one for each injector), and each has a shut off valve fitted so one injector can be operated if the other supply is damaged.  These are called Saunders Valves, and we have acquired a pair for our tender. Once we'd got them we could set about machining the flexible pipe connection castings, and the pipe flange that will eventually become part of the water supply back to the tender sump.

In 2011 we hope that a number of 'big shiny bits' will be going on the chassis for their final fit, and that a recognisable loco will start to emerge from the thousands of parts that make up such a complex machine.  We will also be resurrecting our display stand at major events, so please feel free to come and ask questions, find out about up to date progress, and take some leaflets!