LOCOMOTIVE NEWS

Our temporarily exiled C.R. 828 continues to provide a welcome splash of Caledonian Blue amongst the green and black locomotives that predominate in Kent. She remains very popular with Spa Valley crews and customers. She suffered a slight setback a few weeks ago when she broke her leading right-hand spring (the first such failure in many thousands of miles). Annoyingly, the springs that we had provided turned out to be unsuitable with respect to the number of leaves. Rectifying this problem kept the locomotive out of traffic for several weeks until a new spring with the correct number of leaves could be manufactured. She returned to traffic at Tunbridge Wells in early July. Hopefully, she will remain in good mechanical health to celebrate her 125th birthday on August 21st 2024; the Spa Valley Railway is planning an appropriate event to mark the occasion.

Good progress has been made on No 9 in the past weeks – the cylinder block has been needle-gunned, protected with heat-resistant silver paint, had all the wasted studs removed, both from the piston front end and the blast pipe, and new ones inserted. The frame has been given a coat of grey undercoat. John Hunt has welded in the new frame stretcher along with the stiffener and they have been protected with primer. The brake rods have been cleaned and protected, although two will need further attention to improve the threads. Some have been replaced in the past, as is evident from welds on one end. Brake and spring hangers will be grit blasted and protected soon, as will the chimney, brake stretchers and way shaft, which have been moved from the bank at the back of the shed. The bushes in the coupling rods have been pressed out.

Alan French has been beavering away from completing the rebuild of the mechanical lubricator, which is a masterpiece, as can be seen from the photos. This was donated by Bill McCarthy, for which we are very grateful. It has been given a coat of Midnight Blue, the final colour of No 9 when she makes her public appearance from the shed. This will aid oiling of more difficult parts of the motion which are hard to get to, requiring stretching in over the running boards. Oil pots on the slide bars come to mind!

As for the wheel set there has been no further advance which is frustrating.

The cab and saddle tank are still out in the weather, and we would like them grit blasted and primed at least. There is a lot of work to be done on them. The tank will be given two access panels on the bottom end of each side to aid in cleaning out detritus. The cab still has its sliding roof to be refitted, which was made from new.

- Roddie McRae/Doug Scott.