Submitted by Colin Hall on 2 October, 2024 - 10:30
The rectification work on the outside cylinders was completed at Riley & Son (E) Ltd in September. In a first for our project, they were delivered free of charge to Tyseley on Monday 30th September by a new member and volunteer, using his own crane-equipped truck and trailer.
The transfer to Tyseley is an important step for the project, as the cylinders have to be refitted to the frames before essential frame alignment checks can be carried out. All of the cylinder valve work including design will now be carried out at Tyseley.
The LMS-Patriot Project is delighted to announce that another step forwards towards the completion of 5551 'The Unknown Warrior' took place on the 17th July, when the frames were moved inside the workshops at Tyseley Loco Works.
All being well we expect the movement of our chassis inside the Tyseley main workshop to happen on Monday 8th July.
Further regular volunteer sessions have taken place in June and July at Tyseley. These concentrated on cleaning, polishing and some painting of a range of parts including various housings, expansion links, brake hanger brackets, motion components and tender axles. We have been allocated plenty of space in the new carriage shed for this purpose.
More expressions of interest have been received recently about volunteering at Tyseley, which is most encouraging.
The emphasis in January was on organising the transfer to Tyseley of our many components stored in containers at West Shed. A site meeting back at West Shed on 8th January inspected the contents and agreed a methodology for sorting and transferring components that cannot be simply transported in the containers without risk. An extended team of volunteers has been assembled for this special task. Our original plan to complete the move in late January had to be deferred to February because of temporary vehicular access restrictions at Tyseley (outside the control of TLW Ltd.).