On Friday, 20th September 2024, D1013's B end bogie was relocated from the TMD Pit Road to No.3 road in the TMD, accomplished by using the 08 to drag/push the bogie. There was a bit of a lash up of wooden sleepers to aid this on the front of the bogie, to act as a buffer.
Once D1013 had arrived on No.3 Road there has literally been hundreds of man hours spent removing 50+ years of 'baked' on brake dust and railroad dirt, at this point I would like to say a very big thank you to all the volunteers who have done any scraping. The frames are being 'scraped' back to bare metal revealing original paintwork, the bare areas are then being coated with red oxide primer, this will eventually be coated with Chassis Black.
The WLA Team have also started to remove component parts; the first items removed were the Drive Shafts, a little 'gentle' persuasion was required, once they were out of the way, the Thrust Brackets were lifted from the Bogie - these brackets are basically used to push the loco along.
Following our in-house procedure, the next items for removal were the Equalising Beams but before attacking these items, measurements were taken for the Primary Spring heights. The 4 Primary Springs were released and then lifted clear of the Bogie. The Primary Springs sit on top of the Axlebox and there is a Locator between the Spring and the Axlebox; this Locator has a Manganese Liner welded to it - it was common for the weld on these to fail and we have evidence of this.
The first Equalising Beam proved quite 'easy' to remove as one of the Pedestal Brackets that supports the Beam in position had 'fallen' apart, a lack of weld penetration during the construction of the Bracket being the cause.
The second Beam proved a lot more difficult to remove and needed more 'gentle' persuasion to get it out. The 2 Equalising Beams have subsequently been taken to our Bridgnorth workshop for assessment and dismantling. The 2 Brake Cylinders serving the Centre axle were also removed.
Attention then moved to unbolting and lifting out the Intermediate Gearbox, which was removed.
The 2 Brake Cylinders serving the Inner axle were the next items to be removed, also at the same time the last 2 Primary Springs which were released and lifted clear of the Bogie. Removing the Primary Springs has exposed the Spring Hangers, one of which has virtually 'welded' itself in place, after much soaking in oil and more 'gentle' persuasion this Spring Hanger has now been removed.
This concludes work undertaken to date!
Thank you
Graham Gant
Please note the above information complete with photographs, may be seen from the PDF Article by CLICKING HERE
Featured Photo by Sally Sheldon
