March 2016 Engineering Report
Permanent Way
The advertised Outdoor long weekends have been largely very successful. In November the north side stock rail on the Wharf approach point was replaced, a job which had to wait until the Railway closed for the season. The job required some workshop time as well and the whole turnout was hand tamped and levelled by the Outdoor Gang a couple of weeks later. The next working weekend in December was able to attend to a large fencing job above Quarry Siding and clear at least one blocked culvert spotted by the gang as they made their way up the Railway.
The very wet winter has resulted in many other blocked drains or culverts; Tadpole Cutting has proved particularly difficult to clear and several visits have been made there with drain rods, but the water has quickly built up again and it seems that a complete renewal of the lineside drain is going to be needed this year, whilst the drain at the bottom of Cynfal Bank was completely filled up with debris twice and will need the mini digger on site to clear it out completely. The drain under the road bridge at the west end of Pendre yard also blocked, causing some surface water to gather on the east of the bridge. It was eventually rodded through and a large root bundle was hauled out, clearing the problem.
Two hedge laying sessions were held, allowing a useful number of members to acquire the skills necessary to carry out this work, as well as attending to a good length of overgrown hedging. The regular gang were also involved in preparing the sites, moving the portable toilet into position and also attended to the fence opposite the site near 4¼ milepost, after the hedging gang noticed that the posts were rotten at their bases and that new posts were required.
The overgrown orchard to the north of Pendre loop used to have an old walnut tree in it until early in the morning of 28 November, when a storm blew it over and onto the MOD bogie brake van, which had been left standing in the loop. The van is built of quite thick steel plate and was completely undamaged, but the remains of the tree had to be cut up and returned to the orchard.
The flail returned to use; the suppliers advised us that the spare rotor was not going to be available for some time, indeed it was only delivered as these notes were being started, so the old head was put together again and the machine was tried out. It managed a full day’s work, but the head failed again at the start of the following day. Fortunately the complete spare head had been delivered a day or so before and it was possible to use this to get the machine back in action within an hour. As most of the recent breakdowns have been linked to the flail head the presence of a spare should make the job much more efficient in the future. All of the necessary hedge cutting was completed well before the end of December and the machine was also used to help with clearance work at the hedge laying sites. There are still a couple of difficult stretches at the top end of the line to attend to and the grass and undergrowth has not been tackled, although this dies back in winter so is not as much of a priority.
Sleepers have been spot replaced at one or two locations, including one on Fach Goch straight and a long timber under the Wharf run-round point. A damaged crossing timber between the rails at Brynglas was replaced and some of the timbers in Wharf yard have been renewed ready for the various large vehicles which have visited the site in connection with the work on the West Carriage shed. The gang were able to enjoy the task of putting up and taking down the Christmas lights and Christmas trees at Wharf, having to grab the opportunity to do this on some of the occasional calm and relatively dry days we have seen this winter.
Tamping and stone blowing has also been completed as necessary, notably at Big Bend just below Nant Gwernol and on the track between Pendre and Ty Mawr, which was showing some signs of settlement where a group of badgers had been digging holes. A job which got rained off during the Autumn Outdoor Week was the ballasting of the siding at Brynglas with slate waste. The dropside wagon was still standing on site, full of this slate waste and, as it was needed for the transport of materials between the West Carriage Shed job and Wharf, the wagon was unloaded into the sleeper bays, finishing off the ballasting and releasing the wagon for use.
The Outdoor Gang also got involved in an interesting "shunt" at Pendre. The steam locomotives had been put in the shed with the two Christmas service locomotives, Nos. 4 and 6, against the doors ready for stripping down and preparing for their cold examinations. In order to carry out these exams and to steam test Loco Nos 1 & 2 their order had to be reversed. Unfortunately the scaffolding erected to work on the West Shed blocked the headshunt, so the only way to swap the locomotives round was to use the ash road siding, which was occupied by an ex-FR flat wagon and two ash skips. The Hiab equipped Boflat was brought up on the main line then the skips and the flat wagon were picked up in turn using the crane arm and moved to the main line, a practice very familiar to model railway enthusiasts, but not commonly seen on our Railway.
Steam Locomotives
Loco No. 1, Talyllyn, passed the winter cold exam and the ashpan, firebars, boiler plugs and fittings were put back once the ashpan had been checked over and some of the bolts replaced, but the boiler was not refilled until December 30th when it was refilled and steamed: there were problems with Loco No. 4 and it seemed that it might be needed the following day. The work on Loco No. 4 was successful though, so the boiler was drained and allowed to dry out, then refilled ready for the usual formal steam test, which it passed on 5th February.
Loco No. 2, Dolgoch, has seen rather more attention. The corroded smokebox floor mentioned in the last report was replaced with a 6mm stainless steel plate copy, provided by a member The blowdown valve nut was in poor condition so a new nut was manufactured and fitted, the ashpan was rebuilt and the well tank was cleaned out. Following this the boiler was put back together and steamed, revealing a sheared valve spindle on the fireman’s side and a step on the safety valve surface, both of which had to be attended to before the locomotive could pass its annual steam test, which it did on the same day as Loco No. 1.
Loco No. 3, Sir Haydn, has been further stripped at the Vale of Rheidol. The wheels and motion have been removed from the frames to allow the scale of work needed to be assessed, whilst our boiler inspector looked at the boiler and was generally satisfied that no additional work beyond that he originally requested was needed. However he asked for the front tube plate to be removed so that he could examine the inner surfaces properly and we have just asked him to carry out a re-inspection, which we anticipate will be taking place towards the end of the current month.
Loco No. 4, Edward Thomas, had a leak on the driver’s air brake valve so this was stripped, cleaned and re-greased, then the locomotive was used through Christmas. On 29th December a bearing on the rear truck was noticed to be running warm and squealing, so the following day the locomotive was jacked up and the axleboxes were removed. The trimmings and wadding were found to be in poor condition and saturated with water, a possible consequence of the flooding in Tadpole Cutting mentioned above. The driver’s side brass had run warm and closed in on the axle, but fortunately the problem had been quickly spotted the previous day and the damage was not too bad. Both brasses were scraped in, the boxes were cleaned up and then reassembled with new wadding and trimmings and put back under the locomotive.
The loco was then steamed and tested during the afternoon and was able to return to traffic for the following two days when an extra locomotive was needed. The driver’s side injector proved troublesome over these days, so the locomotive was not used again; a subsequent check revealed that a part of the injector, which was not a Gresham and Craven original, had become loose. Since then the boiler has been stripped and cleaned and has passed the usual cold exam.
Loco No. 6, Douglas, ran well over Christmas. The lubricator drive was modified as planned and is now driven from one of the pins in the valve gear. When the new brake gear was manufactured the brake blocks were worn and so the length of the thread on the operating rods had to be estimated; fitting new blocks showed that a little more thread was needed, so this was duly cut using a newly purchased die. The gauge glass washers had disappeared, a problem which had also afflicted Loco No. 1, so new ones were made for both locomotives and fitted.
The well tanks were cleaned out and whilst the access doors were off the tanks the pipework was overhauled, an extra union was added to make future dismantling easier and the brake hangers were removed allowing the top pins to be cleaned and re-greased. The leading springs were swapped over to try and eliminate the lean, mentioned in the last report, but there did not seem to be any difference, so investigations continue. Like Loco No. 4 the boiler has been stripped for and passed the annual cold exam.
Loco No. 7, Tom Rolt, has not been steamed but is in steamable condition. The new safety valves were lapped in and fitted to the new dome cover, once it had been drilled to fit the studs on the dome, for which the old dome cover was used as a template. The new cover was then fitted and the fireman’s side tank was removed giving access to the clack and pipework, which were removed and cleaned out. At the same time the fireman’s injector water valve control rod was removed and discarded, a new pull type control being made up and fitted in its place. A steam test is required for the new safety valves and to check that the joint is sound, but the locomotive has been kept in the workshops and it is not possible to get it round to the running shed because of the scaffolding mentioned in the Permanent Way section of this report.
The opportunity has been taken to re-check the bump clearances on the driver’s side, as there appears to be an error somewhere and the motion has being dismantled. It is difficult to say exactly what the problem is but it is possible that the cylinder is mounted slightly too far back. The simple solution is to make a new piston rod, slightly shorter than the existing one, which will bring the piston back and centralise its operation within the cylinder, so this work has been started. Largely because the locomotive is stuck in the workshops it has been decided to leave the cold exam of this locomotive until after Easter, meaning that it will be available for use over this period.
Mileages for 2015 were as follows:
Loco No. 1 Talyllyn: 2629
Loco No. 2 Dolgoch: 2674
Loco No. 3 Sir Haydn: Nil
Loco No. 4 Edward Thomas: 3151
Loco No. 6 Douglas: 3604
Loco No. 7 Tom Rolt: 3186
... a total of 15,244 for the year.
Diesel Locomotives
Loco No. 5, Midlander, has been running and starting well. The antifreeze strength was checked and found to be well up to the concentration needed.
Loco No. 8, Merseysider, has not yet been sold, but it and the boxes of spares are now standing on Wharf edge.
Loco No. 9, Alf, is also running well and has made several journeys to Wharf and back clearing waste and bringing up new roofing sheets, blocks for the back wall of the West Carriage Shed, coping stones for the same wall and various other bits.
Loco No. 11, Trecwn, has been modified in much the same way as Loco No. 12 was, although it retains the full height handbrake column for now. Steps similar to those fitted to Loco No. 12 have been added to the cab access, although this time the longer cab handrails taken off Loco No. 8 were available, so were fitted to this locomotive, where they look very good and make accessing the cab from ground level easier. Standard drawgear has been fitted and antifreeze was added to the coolant allowing the locomotive to be stored outdoors. It is currently parked on the workshop headshunt as, like the steam locomotives it is trapped by the scaffolding. The remnants of Loco No. 11A, (the spare), were jacked down onto the Smalley transporter and moved away from the west carriage shed to make space for the same scaffolding.
Loco No. 12, St Cadfan, has also been running well, the engine stop cable was snapped during a diesel driver training day; the spare has been recovered from Loco No. 11A, but not yet fitted. The antifreeze was checked before a brief spell of colder weather and needed strengthening.
Carriage and Wagon
Firstly a brief correction to the last report when the creation of a replica wooden wagon was mentioned. Although the part-completed wagon does have an open end at present, the prototype did not have end doors and it is not intended that the replica should either. John Bate is of the opinion that these wagons were locally made using existing slate wagons, probably to carry coal up the line. The first example for which photographic evidence exists is merely a planked out slate wagon, but the wagon we are copying clearly had its own home made body.
Work on the carriage fleet had to come to an end once the Christmas service began, as the paintshop has been unusable since the re-roofing work started and the joiners shop was also unavailable, as it had to be completely emptied while the AIB ceiling was removed and it remains so, as the work to install a new ceiling continues. Good progress was made before this though, as not only was the re-varnishing of Carriage 16 completed, but Carriage 10 was also re-varnished, had some minor repainting and repairs and was still back in service for Christmas. A praiseworthy achievement for those involved, who deserve our thanks. Work on Carriage 22 did progress with trial fitting of the new brass door tread plates and work on strengthening and truing up the doors, although it too was moved out of the paintshop and is currently at the east end of the north carriage shed. A carriage brake working party changed the triple valves on carriages 16, 19 and 23 for the newer diaphragm type, whilst a fitter from the Ffestiniog Railway spent several days with us fitting diesel fuelled warm air heating to carriage 21 in time for the Christmas service.
In the end this proved to be one of the mildest spells of seasonal weather for many years, so the heating was not tested to any great degree. It seems to work well, but there appears to be fault with the control circuit, which does not take kindly to errors in switching the system on or off and which trips out completely when it should not do. The Ffestiniog are going to investigate this, but have had to wait, as we are not able to offer them the use of a pit until the West Shed work is finished. The Railway’s carriage stock is well scattered at the moment, with vehicles squeezed into the South Shed, North Shed and in the Guest House at Quarry siding, whilst the poor opens are standing in the siding at Abergynolwyn, as far away as possible from the corrosive sea air.
The wagon fleet has not needed much attention, beyond the repair of a broken wire on the Hiab control switch. Work is continuing on the new ballast wagon body, which is now standing on its frames and has the redesigned longer ballast chutes to project stone farther from the rails, an improvement only possible now that the ballast dock has been dispensed with.
Building and Civil Engineering
Although the largest job of the winter is undoubtedly the complete recladding and re-roofing of the West Carriage Shed with plastic coated galvanised steel sheet, this job is being undertaken by contractors, so our involvement has largely been limited to the operation of materials trains and the shunting around of these when needed. However the Outdoor Gang had to spend a couple of weeks dodging the rain and wire brushing, treating and painting the upper surfaces of the angle iron purlins before these were covered in new steel sheets. The rest of the steelwork is being painted by contractors, but their staff were programmed to start work once the sheets were fastened down and they could not help out earlier.
The first stage of the job involved the removal of the Asbestos Insulation Board ceilings from the Joiner’s shop and the paint shop, together with the existing rockwool insulation and the timber supporting structures to which the AIB sheets had been attached. The new paintshop roof is made up from double-sided insulated panels, but the Joiner’s shop has retained its old corrugated asbestos roof sheets and needed a whole new ceiling, with new insulation and new timber joists and this is still receiving the finishing touches. A lot of work was needed to remove all the items stacked up outside the west carriage shed, tidy the North Shed to make as much space as possible, clear out the Joiner’s shop, west carriage shed, paint shop and the paint store and all this took up an appreciable number of both paid and volunteer man hours; thank you to all who helped with this mammoth task. Now we just have to put it all back again!
Before the work started the blockpost at Pendre was decorated, but this work had to be suspended while the main shed was worked upon and there has been some water damage to the paintwork on the rear wall and to the ceiling above this, resulting from heavy rain whilst the main roof sheets were missing. Another small job at Pendre has been the replacement of some of the timbers in the pedestrian access ramp leading from the platform to the locomotive shed.
At Wharf the Booking and Control offices have been re-organised and refurbished with a complete redecoration of both locations. There have been several requests for the height of the Control Desk to be lowered, as it was too high for use by anyone in a wheelchair, whilst anyone else had to perch on a quite high stool or chair, which was awkward to clamber on and off, particularly inconvenient for Controllers when no Control Assistant was rostered. Concerns over the state of the wiring to the telephone panel at the back of the desk have dissuaded us from altering the height before, but after some discussions and checks the desk was carefully lowered down, whilst our S&T engineer held his breath; fortunately all seems to be well. The desk was then rubbed down and re-varnished and left looking pristine for the start of the season.
Also at Wharf a door closer was replaced on the platform doors, in the café the extraction duct was removed and cleaned, various shelves were installed and the old counter chiller was removed, a new worktop section was fitted in its space and the hole in the partition wall where the cooler drew air in was bricked up and covered over to match the existing kitchen wall. The wooden shed behind Llechfan, which was installed some years ago to house the washing machine and tumble dryer, was found to be badly rotted and beyond economic repair. It was demolished and the machines were moved across to the Guard’s Room for a few weeks. A new shed was purchased, but the existing one had been sited very close to a retaining wall, preventing access and consequently regular treatment of the timber, in fact the space had filled up with weeds and other detritus, which had trapped water against the building. To prevent this an extension was cast into the concrete base, allowing the new shed to be erected a little farther away from the wall. Gutters and downpipes have been added to the basic shed to carry some of the water away and the manufacturer’s roofing felt has been replaced with a higher specification one. Internally a vinyl flooring sheet was fitted by a contractor then the new shed was provided with a replacement sink unit, insulated, lined and rewired, following which the machines were put back in and tested. It awaits decoration; hopefully some of this season’s residents will be prepared to take on this task.
The publicity store, a converted roadworks living van, stood not too far from this shed at the end of what had once been Llechfan’s lawn. This van has been sold to a member who wishes to restore it, so to replace it a concrete base is being cast in, just to the east of the van’s site, on which a new timber publicity store will be built.
There has been less opportunity to carry out work up the Railway, but a new gate post was provided for the north side access gate at Dolgoch, a new webcam was installed at Abergynolwyn and the café there has been re-decorated. Fire risk assessments have been completed at all the principal locations on the Railway and these are being reviewed to see what work will be required.
Plant and Works
The Transit lorry picked up a screw in a back tyre and already had a slow puncture in a front one so it was taken round to a local garage. Two new tyres were required immediately and as several of the existing ones were wearing down close to their safety limits another three were purchased. Otherwise it is running well and has needed only minor attention and two replacement nearside mirror lenses. The Combo van needed a replacement track rod end, but otherwise sailed through its MOT test; the garage were asked to give the vehicle a full service and to repair the heater blower which had been becoming increasingly noisy and unreliable for several months.
The Matisa was working well until it was shut down at the end of a recent day’s work. The following morning the north unit engine would not start and an examination suggested that the head gasket had blown. Spares have been ordered and the engine will be stripped down once these have been received. We were advised that a local resident had a "BearCat" 1020 chipper shredder for sale. The machine was checked over and the price seemed reasonable, so it was purchased. The vendor had got the engine running, but the machine did not work well, as it was completely clogged up with whatever it had last been used on. It was stripped down at Pendre revealing a little used, but poorly maintained mechanism. The knives had been badly sharpened and then completely blunted, so these were removed, ground true and refitted, whilst the screen needed bending back to shape and the bodywork had been fitted with the wrong screws, which had been forced into the existing threaded holes. All this was corrected and the machine was tried out on the second hedge laying weekend, with promising results, although it needs a little more work to achieve its full potential. Whilst we still have plenty of use, and a few customers, for the logs we produce during tree trimming and felling, the smaller branches and twigs have to be piled up on site, then laboriously collected and run up or down the Railway to one of the burn sites. The use of this machine should avoid the need for these works trains and keep the lineside much tidier.
In the workshops batches of new brake blocks have been drilled, a jig was assembled to make drilling of locomotive blocks easier in future. A stainless steel Wharf café kitchen table was modified by the addition of a stainless steel sheet back and sides to convert the space under the top to an open cupboard, a large roll-under tray was been made up for the Colchester Mascot lathe to store spare chucks, tooling etc. and the Wharf stock rail mentioned in the Permanent Way report was drilled to take MOD style ‘U’ brackets, which were then welded to the baseplates, replacing the traditional half inch rivets normally found on Talyllyn points, but which can work loose in time.
The JCB fork lift has been quite busy with loading and unloading, but probably its most interesting and challenging job recently has been the loading of the old publicity store van onto a beavertail lorry ready for its journey south to its new owner.
Electrical and S&T
A problem developed with the Pendre to Brynglas token machines. Various minor faults were found and fixed, but the problem seemed to be getting worse until eventually the machines failed completely. This allowed the problem to be traced to a failed wire in the cable run somewhere on Cynfal Bank. The fault was easily fixed by swapping over the pairs used for the token machines, but this stretch of cable now needs checking over to locate the failed area, in case there is cable damage, which could get worse. All the tokens for each section are being steadily repainted by a member, a very necessary but not particularly exciting task, whilst in the S&T workshop the spare token machines are being re-wired and refurbished so that they will be available if a working machine suffers a catastrophic failure. The telecoms cable was also in the wars just below Quarry Siding where the Outdoor Gang had a very, from their point of view, satisfying bonfire, but which obviously got hotter than planned and melted a short length of cable, shorting out the exchange connections between Pendre and Abergynolwyn. Fortunately this was during the closed period and a new section of cable was spliced in before the Christmas trains ran.
At Quarry Siding itself the new point leading to the Guest House sidings was connected back up to the lever frame, whilst at Pendre the rodding to the shed headshunt point was found to be distorted, possibly due to an unreported run-through. Fortunately some straightening and adjustment quickly put things right.
Electrical work has kept the department travelling up and down the Railway. At Wharf new sockets were needed in the café kitchen, both to allow the moving around of existing and the installation of new equipment. The heated cupboard also needed some repairs, which were completed. Elsewhere at Wharf an extra socket was provided on the lower floor of the Museum, for use by the CCTV system and the Llechfan shed was disconnected and rewired in connection with the work mentioned above; new low energy led fittings were used to replace the elderly single fluorescent fitting, giving much better lighting for less energy use.
At Pendre there were a few problems with the works compressor unloader valve which stuck, causing all the supply trips to operate every time it was switched on. In the mess room one of the new led fittings failed and was replaced, the suppliers replaced it free of charge, but only after a few weeks, so the innards of two in-stock fittings had to be swapped around to keep the automatic switching operational. Rewiring of the locomotive shed has progressed well. When the locomotive shed gas heaters were reconnected after the rewiring had got far enough they would not relight, but a bit of cleaning and adjustment of the pilot lights got them working before the November cold spell. Since then the one in the middle of the shed has become very temperamental. The West Carriage shed job has also caused work for the department as the existing light fittings had to be removed once the scaffolding was up. This work was unplanned and some of them got damaged as the scaffolding went in, so the fittings needed repairing, or at least checking over and some replacements will be needed. The biggest job is still to come as all these fittings will need putting back and the building has been standing, with power isolated, but without a roof through some very heavy rainfall, so all the switchboards, cable runs and equipment will have to be dried out and tested before any of it can be re-connected. The carriage lighting batteries have worked well for some years, but they were second hand when we installed them and over the Christmas period they began to fail, so new batteries were purchased and fitted.
Work has also been needed at Abergynolwyn where all the routine PAT testing has been completed and various bits of wiring have been tidied up and clipped down in the roof space. A supply was also provided for the new webcam, which has now gone live and can be accessed through the Railways website. The usual routine work testing equipment and circuits has continued, whilst the annual boiler exams also provided a job for the department who had to collect both the tea boilers from the cafes at Wharf and Abergynolwyn, strip them for inspection, then re-assemble them and give them a steam test in the presence of the inspector. Both boilers passed this year, after one pressure gauge had been replaced, which is good news for train crews and passengers. It was interesting to see that the Wharf one had once again scaled up inside, reinforcing the message to locomotive crews to use the down water column at Dolgoch whenever they can and to take as little Tywyn mains water on board as possible. The tea boilers will be swapped over, which should very quickly clear all the lime scale off the Wharf one; this will probably become necessary every year from now on.
Dave Scotson
