The work on Tornado continues in Loughborough and Darlington. At LMS's works, we are now on the final straight ahead of re-wheeling the frames. During the overhaul we were aware of a minor alignment issue with the Cartazzi frames which needed to be resolved during the work. This has now been carried out and final alignment checks are being completed on the frames and cannon boxes before re-wheeling. The pipework on the locomotive frames is now all but complete, with some tasks only possible once the boiler is refitted. The current easier access means all the more difficult work has been completed without the need for our team to discover their inner contortionist, leading to a better-quality outcome. It is planned to re-wheel the locomotive using the Matterson jacks, moved down from Darlington for the task.

The motion is being fully refurbished at the Severn Valley Railway and the work is progressing well. This will allow swift installation on the locomotive soon after the re-wheeling when Tornado will become a Pacific once again. Final fitting up of pipework and other smaller components can then be completed to give an almost complete rolling chassis ahead of the boiler being put into place.

After a few logistical issues we eventually took delivery of the new boiler tubes and stay material, and the following images show you some of things we have been doing since. Using the newly delivered stay material our volunteer team of Steve Wood and George Bee immediately set about cutting the new boiler stays to length, the ends where then finished off by Ed Laxton in the lathe, before NSEL’s Jack Harper tacked them all in position. Jack has just tacked the stays; they will be fully welded when the coded welder visits. This leaves only two stays to fit, a new flexible on the LH upper firebox side, and a new rigid in the throat plate which passes through the Everlasting blow down valve flange, both will be fitted when the coded welder visits.

NSEL have completed welding, inspection and adjustment of all boiler internal pipework and brackets.

When fitted the tubes are welded into the firebox tubeplate and expanded into the smokebox tubeplate, the smokebox ends of every tube need to be annealed and both ends need polishing to remove all scale before they are fitted. This process has been completed for the small tubes, and we will do the flue tubes when they return from swaging. All the small tubes in the main nest area have been fitted to the boiler.

The process involved fitting every tube, setting each tube to the correct position (we made a gauge) so that they stick out into the firebox by only 3/16”, they were then all measured and marked at the smokebox end to give 3/8” protrusion, each tube was then numbered before being removed from the boiler and cut to length, before being refitted in the boiler.

All the tubes were then lightly expanded at both ends to fix them into position before the firebox ends were tack welded into the tubeplate. The tubes will then be finally welded by the coded welder followed by a further and final expansion of tubes in the smokebox. This work will be completed by NSEL with assistance from DLW staff and volunteers.

Our new BES boiler inspector visited last week, and he is happy with the boiler and how we are proposing to complete the repairs. Other work mainly involved sorting and packing for the move to the new works, plus Keith Martin has completed the painting of the chimney. Ed Laxton also made a trip to LMS in a van to deliver the overhauled superheater header, the blastpipe, and several smaller items, the van was then used to deliver the first items into DLW2 - so we had officially started to move in.

At our supplier’s depot in Bolton, the new flue tubes were loaded onto a lorry ready to be delivered to Techniswage in Dudley to have their ends swaged. Techniswage duly completed this work and they were delivered back to Darlington and installed in the boiler.