Members' Monthly Bulletin March 2023

Here is our progress report for March 2023.

Engineering

 The air brake brackets and pipes have been fitted to the new front buffer beam.

After the completion of Magnetic Particle Inspection of 69 chassis frame components in February, an item-by-item examination of the results took place in March with the involvement of our certification body. About 25% of the components have minor defects which are considered to be repairable, and arrangements have been made for these repairs to be carried out at Riley & Son.  A second round of hardness testing was also carried out on site in March by our competent volunteer, thus completing the comprehensive testing of chassis frame components required.

Following the testing and inpection , the horn guides have been refitted to the frames. The main frame weld defect repairs are now planned to take place next week.

On the new driving wheels, William Cook Cast Products have reviewed their production schedule and now report that they aim to complete four in April and the remaining two by the end of May.                   

On 16^th March we hosted at West Shed the third meeting of the Main Line Steam Builders Group which was formed in 2022. We will report on this in the next Warrior Magazine.

Call for West Shed volunteers

With work on the chassis gathering momentum, three volunteer work sessions have taken place at West Shed in recent weeks. We thank Neil Kinsey and his brother Ian for their work on a range of hands-on tasks at the shed, which is a big help to the PRCLT team. We need more volunteers - please give serious consideration as to whether you think you can help, however insignificant you think your offer might be. Contact Neil via the Volunteering page on our website or by email n.kinsey@uwclub.net.  Whatever you can do will be greatly appreciated. 

Finance

Payments via Bank Transfer: if you are submitting our bank details onto your own account to support our preferred method of payment, you will probably see a warning that tells you ‘Account holder not traced or not verified’; this a quirk of CAF’s (our bank) piggybacking on HSBC. Provided you are happy that you have quoted our sort code and account number correctly, it will be heading in the right direction. Please quote your URN number as a reference on the payment 

If you have used CAF Donate to set up a direct debit, it will appear on your account as ‘Charity Payment.’ It will not specifically say ‘The LMS-Patriot Co. Ltd.’

Please enrol for easyfundraising - it is by far our biggest extra earner.

Sales

We attended the KWVR Spring Steam Gala which this year was staged over four days and despite the weather (there was significant snow in the area) we enjoyed a most successful event grossing over £2500 and once again talking to lots of people, keeping them updated on the progress of the build.

The following week we went to a one day event at Statfold Barn and once again things went well.

 You may already be aware that we have a new range of Green garments available in our web shop. More products are planned soon so keep an eye out for these.

Office

Our volunteer office team will be taking well-earned breaks at various times in April.  This will mean that the ‘phone will be manned only intermittently and that e-mails will take longer to be responded to.  Postal mail will take longer to process.  Please be patient – you will receive a response as quickly as is practicable.

Thank you for your support and your interest in our project.