January 2020 Progress Report

On the engineering front, work on the chassis has been underway at the West Shed by the Princess Royal Class Locomotive Trust. The drain cock assemblies have been fitted to all three cylinders, the splashers have been adjusted and refitted to the correct clearances. The wheelsets and frames continue to receive the attention of the painters to exhibition standards. The new crank pins for the centre driving wheel set have been manufactured at Riley & Son (E) Limited and have now been approved ready for fitting. All of the motion will shortly be moved from Statfold Engineering to the West Shed to allow a complete dimensional check of rod centres to be made.

Heritage Boiler Steam Services have fitted the 30 transverse stays into the firebox and have been installing the crinolines to the boiler barrel whilst making good progress with the firebox door plate cladding. An order has now been placed for the longitudinal stays. The replacement dome has been cast and has passed the radiography and MPI tests. Boiler work was paused temporarily in January.

Some great progress has been made recently by Leaky Finders with the tender frames. Components for the intermediate buffers have been manufactured and the front dragbox is now fully riveted into position. This means that in terms of riveting, other than the rear dragbox and buffer beam, the frames are a complete assembly for the first time.

Away from the metalwork, on 27^th January we signed up with the Derby- based Ricardo Certification to provide us with Independent assurance as an Assessment Party, to allow the The Unknown Warrior to be meet the certification requirements for its eventual main-line running.

A first site meeting with Ricardo took place on 29^th January at West Shed. 

Finally on 25^th January our Board appointed a new Chairman, Colin Hall, a Director since November 30^th. Colin had a full career in the railway industry with a range of general and senior management experience. 

Members can read more about about these developments in the next Warrior magazine..