It takes more than a day to clean the season's accumulated crap off a steam engine. Here I am again, back under the 4MT getting on with cleaning the pony truck.
This week I've armed myself with a bucket of paraffin and a couple of wheel brushes, so I can scrub up the bits I scraped down last week to reveal the shiny red paint underneath.
Though it feels like I'm not achieving very much it is starting to look a bit brighter under there. I've no idea when it was last clean - it might be 6 months or 6 years.
Something you don't often look at - the blast pipe, branching out into (from?) the four exhaust ports:
Moving backwards from the pony truck, it all gets a bit easier. Here, I'm still between the cylinders but there is less equipment to thread yourself through and more red paint to shine up providing a bit of motivation. I've started to realise that if I can crack in a couple more days it might start looking quite good.
After lunch I take my usual walk up to the footbridge to record this week's progress on the crossover replacement project - and what a change there has been. All the track is down and ballast laying has started!
Back under the loco, I've moved to the big open space between the front and middle driving axles. There's a lot of red paint here, mostly just dusty but with a lot of gunge on the tie beams between the axle boxes. This area should be an easy win.
The junction box is for the wiring from the limit switch, also visible, which detects the position of the die blocks and thus allows the TPWS to know if loco is in reverse gear. You can just see the little cam on the weighshaft.
This is the horn guide on the middle axle, fireman's side with the various feeds from external grease nipples and the mechanical lubricator.
This stuff scrapes off easily, drops to the floor and gets stuck in the soles of your boots. You'll later find it on the freshly mopped floor of the wash room.
Outside, Foreman Alan and Fitter Alex have been tapping away with chisels removing burnt oil from the WD's piston valves. It's clear they are having a very jolly time or perhaps they are just delirious.
It's starting to look a little better under there. Next week I'll get some clean paraffin on that to get rid of the remains of the gunge.
Over the next few weeks there are a few more railway activities coming up - two MICs, a recruitment meeting, the annual Volunteer Forum which this year will be at the Little Theatre in Sheringham, a third man turn and another FoBP meeting.
Hopefully I shall be under here again next week!
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