Significant progress has been made with all the major components being on hand the first boiler (the spare for
Tornado and
Prince of Wales) starting to look like a boiler. The boiler for No. 2007 is scheduled for delivery in December 2021 which is optimum for preparing it to be fitted to the locomotive around the middle of 2022.
Contemporaneously, Ed Laxton, our apprentice machinist, has almost completed machining the components for the regulator stuffing boxes and cross shafts, one set of which will be required to be sent to Germany in the not-to-distant future to enable completion of the regulator assembly and pressure testing of the first boiler. Following welding on the cranks on the cross shafts, they have been sent to Locomotive Maintenance Services (LMS) at Loughborough to have bronze built up on the parts of each shaft where the packing materials in the stuffing boxes bear. This reduces corrosion in this area and provides a bronze sleeve which when worn can be machined off and renewed without scrapping the cross shaft. Photos courtesy of DB Meiningen.
By the end of November 2020, The Boiler Club fundraising campaign had recruited over 60% of its target membership with pledges of over £450,000. For further information download the leaflet
here.
