Lee writes:
Warning: large file to download, 3.7 MBThe rooting around and blowing out the desiccated digital fishmoths from my computer archives is what brought this Photo Essay type article to light. I hadn’t forgotten it, but I had mislaid it and thought I’d accidently deleted it. It’s the write-up of when our Class 12AR locomotive No.1535 ran for the first time after standing idle for 2 years. Yes I know – almost a year ago now in March 2009.
The poor little locomotive in question has had a rough year throughout 2009 though. However, she’s not far from staging another dramatic comeback.
One horrible incident in 2009 was when the crew were distracted during a line-side fire fighting operation, they let the water get too low and the crown sheet overheated. Even with a fast-tracked repair job, it took a while to get the firebox assessed for safety, having the stays checked and then being repaired. It turned out the stays just got stretched but none were broken – and the boiler inspector certified the crown sheet still to be fit for service. (Phew!) The driver accepted full responsibility and paid for the repairs and the necessary boiler inspection and testing work in full.
Several trips later a boiler tube failed in dramatic fashion at the firebox end. The fireman managed to bail as the fire doors were closed. The driver had to exit the cab via the window and hung on while the locomotive discharged steam and copious amounts of hot water from both ends and a lumpy liquid discharge through the ashpan. That tube has since been replaced. It was a badly welded ‘safe end’ bodge job from the pre-1992 preservation days – there wasn’t even a copper ferrule fitted in the tube plate! The hole in the tube plate was roughly finished and nicked up too. Brilliant boiler work which had Andrew King shaking his head in total disgust and muttering dark imprecations as only a Yorkshiremen can
Other faults included persistently loose studs for the axle keeps and several studs had been fitted slightly undersize. So this is more a case of poor fitter’s work rather than a mechanical fault developing on the locomotive – so we can’t really ‘blame’ Suzie for this one,
The 12AR locomotive is to have the front bogie removed and the bearings checked out as the bogie bearings now tend to run hot. She was prone to that in the SATS days because of improperly set springs, but that long standing problem has since been rectified from when Suzie first entered into Reefsteamers’ service. This appears to be a lubrication problem and it is suspected that the chamfer on the edges of the bearings have worn down. This results in the picked up oil being scraped off, rather than being wedged and building up into a hydrodynamic oil film that can withstand the loading on the axle journal. Although it necessitates dramatic-looking jacking, rolling out of the bogie and subsequent dismantling, this isn’t really a major job.
And that’s it – we should have our delightful ‘little Suzie’ back in revenue earning traffic in just a few weeks and she will once again become a common sight on the day-tripper trains. It would please Derek Walker, if no one else, for he is Susan’s biggest fan.
Actually, Suzie has been a reliable and economical little engine to run. The firebox crown sheet story was human error. The extremely poorly fitted boiler tube was a bodge-job ‘bomb’ that would have inevitably failed sometime and we are at least grateful that no one got hurt. It actually happened on the final approach to the destination – even the passengers didn’t get stranded as they could just walk alongside the train and into the station’s picnic grounds. So the dear old girl at least ‘blew’ in a convenient location.
Enjoy the photo essay – which takes you from midnight to the evening of the next day of a full Reefsteamers running cycle. Hopefully future essays will be a little more current ! J
Go well and keep the safety valves a-feathering
Lee D. Gates
Stubbornly unrepentant ferro-equinologist !
Owns 1:12 scale 10BR #750. 'The Empress.'
