Depot Report - Sunday 17th October 2021

Bethany Marsh writes:

D9015: Work continued with the painting of the bodyside in areas to blend the new BR Green colour into the existing faded colour. The work on painting the engine room floor continued with the middle section where the boiler would of sat been given a coat of paint. In other areas the buffers for No.2 end were pulled out and given a coat of red paint to match the work previously done at No.1 end.

No.8s Cab: With all the preparation completed in the engine room in previous weeks the area was given a good clean down and hoovered out and light rust removed from some areas ready to start painting next week. The second of the engine room windows was bolted in, just a couple of jobs away from the outside being completed now. Other work saw the internal cab light pockets given a rub down to remove flaky paint ready to start repainting in the coming weeks.

Depot: In other areas a couple of volunteers flicked between the jobs mentioned above and manning a sales stand as well as providing a meet and greet stand for the visiting public.

Depot report - Saturday 16th October 2021

Today was the first time since Covid started that we raised our limit on the number of Volunteers from 12 to 15 for a trial period. We had a full house with some great progress in many areas.

D9015......complied from reports by Nigel Julian, Geoff Brain, Peter Vickers.

Pete S and Nigel J were working on fitting various overhauled components to the braking system in the nose ends. They are just waiting for Mick & Martin to manufacture 3 new pipes and this task is then completed. They also fitted the 2 Timing reservoirs under the 2nd man's seat, these will not be required if it goes mainline, as they are AWS related and will be redundant should TPWS be fitted. Whilst waiting for these pipes they will make a start on the 24th October with fitting the Drivers Brake Handles, again recently overhauled, at great expense.

Mick and Martin were busy repairing and manufacturing some new pipework in both cabs due to damage or loss since removal over 24 years ago, they also solved the riddle of how one of the small tanks on the 2nd man's seats are connected to the system. Their next task is to replace a few pipes in No 1 cab/nose end.

Alex has been doing cosmetic work on the ETH Box at no 1 end as well as painting the nameplates on D9009 with supervision from Steve.

Peter V continued replacing the old terminations in Number 1 cab heaters. Completed all but two heaters on the Drivers side. Number 2 end all completed.

Geoff managed to find all the parts needed to complete the seat runners which were cleaned and greased ready for fitting. During the afternoon time was spent cleaning electrical parts from the boxes off 9,s bogies that Richard and Bill had removed.

D9009....by Graham Clarke

No.2 & 5 TM terminal boxes stripped internally, panels, phase barriers, covers, stripped back and re-varnished, until varnish ran out. I’m getting more next week to complete the job. All terminals cleaned and polished. The remaining bits will be varnished next Saturday, ready to refit the following Saturday.

The recently repaired, by SHEAF Engineering, Cast Bogies partly cleaned by Steve P ready for touch painting. These are due to be fitted back under D9009 sometime in the next few weeks. Alex and Steve were repainting and polishing the faded nameplates on 55009 (see pic).

No. 1 end generator cable removed for detailed examination, because it looked like there was a problem with a solder joint. There were no issues found, but flux had not been cleaned off, which is why it was visible on the cable termination, leading to a suspicion of a dry solder joint. It’s taken 2 Saturdays of effort from Richard to find a way to press the cable out of the connector block that attaches to the generator cut out switch. We now have a way to do it. Subsequently, a more serious problem has been found at no.2 end. The 2 affected cables will be removed next week for re-soldering and attention to loose securing screws. I hope there is no burning of the components, which could be the root cause of the solder melting out of the cable terminations. The cable removed today is showing signs of age. It is very hard and will need replacing within a couple of years, along with all the rest of the generator connecting cables.

Old insulator posts for the bus bars in no.2 cubicle were removed, together with one that is part of the starting circuit from each cubicle. The frame and panel work was cleaned and varnished, ready to take new insulator posts next week.

Materials and test pieces assembled for a trip to a supplier near Norwich. This is to try out some decent induction heating equipment for soldering the traction cables, following successful trials of the process with cheap equipment that did not last. The aim is to select the best equipment for our needs and play the charity card to get a good price.

Other tasks...Mike was RO and did some tidying up of parts ready to be fitted to 15. Had a meeting with Guy Middleton who is writing a book on Deltics in Preservation. David S was the Meet and Greet person, he is good at that. 50+ visitors and £65:52p in donations, well done David.

Howard did some painting and cleaning and hosted Bernie from the Ivatt Group who came to take photographs of the complete boiler ex D9015, this is its ex as built original boiler, for their project on installing one of the boilers purchased from the DPS into the 10000 rebuild they are creating.

Quote by Nigel Julian....A great day all round and we left with a sense that a lot has been achieved today.....I support this.

OFF SITE....55019

19 has recently completed 6 Footpalte Experience Days at the Great Central Railway with 2 more pre booked dates and 2 TBC but potentially fully booked.

The Great Central Railway have kindly offered us the 2nd January 2022 as a day for deltics, hopefully D9009 will be there and working by then so we can commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Deltic Scotsman Farewell. The ex Irish Rail ex BR Mk 1 bodied boiler van should be working by then. I have a meeting in 2 weeks to discuss the details, please watch both the DPS & GCR website and media platforms for further details.

There will also be normal running dates in the first quarter of 2022 before she leaves for the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway for a 3 month stay.

Mike Hallam-Rudd

Volunteer Liaison Officer/Loco Hire Manager

Photo: Alex Stojanovic

Depot report - October 9th & 10th 2021

Another weekend of reports...

Saturday 9th October 2021 (From Alex Stojanovic)

D9009: Work continued with replacing the electrics under the loco. The traction motor cables were sorted out before the loco is lifted for the new bogies to go underneath.

Painting continued on No1 ends bufferbeam, this saw it be painted Red. Whilst on No2 end the new coupling was fitted and was painted in Green primer.

The dusty windows on No2 end were also cleaned.

D9015: Work continued on overhauling the cab heaters in No2 end. This is now complete and ready for No1 end to be sorted. Work was undertaken in No1 end to sort out the Air Tanks.

The ETH control box for No1 end was also fitted into place, just needs assembling on the inside.

PU451: The rest of the paintwork was completed. Now looking like a proper power unit!

Sunday 10th October 2021 (From Beth Marsh)

D9015: Work continued with the painting of the engine room floor.

No.8s Cab: Worked started with making an alternation to the door handles previously built. After swapping one half over the other internal set of handles were built up. One full set are now fully fitted to the door, and the other door has the internal set fitted. A start was made with cleaning the edging strips for the internal floor panels. Other work included marking out and drilling the holes ready to refit the second engine room window and the sliding panel from the cab side window from the previous week was refitted. The other jobs completed was the preparation of the engine room, with spending several weeks cleaning off and sanding down the old flaky paint and rust the area is now ready to start painting.

Depot: Other areas of work saw volunteers man a small sales stand and providing a meet and greet service to the visiting public.

The DPS Sales Stand at the depot on October 10th. See anything you fancy? Head over to https://www.thedps.co.uk/shop where we have many items including a selection of new badges.