SVR General Discussion

In recent days 43106,7812,4566 have all received valve & piston attention whilst work has also been in progress on 7714 & 7802. In the boilershop plenty is happening on the boilers for 7714 & 75069.

 

Out of interest, how long does a P & V usually take you?

 

Depends what is needed. In some cases a rebore in most cases new rings. Those are custom made on site to suit the loco so it is not a straight in & out situation.

 

I was enquiring about a straightforward P & V exam with the usual decarb and new rings. No special work needed.

 

With a GW one a couple of weeks ago the valves were out within 2 hours of starting & no doubt if new rings had been available off the shelf they could have gone back in again within a few hours or certainly the following day. But then we had a big volunteer gang that day so work was possible on several fronts at the same time. The pistons had already been done with one day to strip & half a day to refit excluding ring manufacture. No large carbon accumulations & the GW valves come out fairly easily due to the ring design.

 

Thanks for this. There's an interesting account of doing a P & V exam on a Super D at Abergavenny, told in 'LNWR Eight Coupled Goods Engines' by Talbot. The loco was positioned so that both side rods could be removed, bushes pressed out and new ones pressed in and rods refitted. About 2 hours, so far. Next remove the front bufferbeam, cylinder and valve covers, and split the valve rods. Spray paraffin over the valves and set fire to it to aid removing the valves. Piston rods split with the aid of a 14lb hammer and pistons removed. Valve gear then dismantled, followed by the conrods. The brasses go away for re-metalling. Pistons and valves are cleaned and re-ringed. Everything is measured up and recorded, ready for next time. Re-metalled big and little ends are then machined up and bedded in, as are the crosshead slippers. Everything is then put back together again, ensuring careful alignment, along with new glands. The re-metalled valve gear slipper blocks are filed to size (as there are no facilities to machine them.) Finally, the loco and tender are split and the intermediate buffer springs are replaced before coupling all back up together. All this took about 8 days for one fitter and an apprentice, assisted by a white metaller to do the bearings. The length of time to do P & V exams seems to take a good bit longer elsewhere!

 

Blimey - that reminds me of a Caerphilly works claim that a general overhaul on a 56xx tank was completed 48 hrs after starting!! - but then a boiler change & similar changing of a multitude of other components very likely took place to make that possible.

 

Some more updates on SVRlive showing more of the track relaying and the canopy refurb.
The Eardington relay is ahead of schedule by about 4 days.

 

Chair/GM's 2015-2016 update is at http://www.svrlive.com/Pages/News.aspx

The Friends of Kidderminster Town station have posted June and October magazines to http://www.kfriends.org.uk/

SVR has been nominated for a What's On Readers' Award! If you think the Severn Valley Railway is the Best Visitor Attraction in the Midlands please vote at
http://whatsonlive.co.uk/whats-on-readers-awards

January Express Points *and Web Round Up* ezine are at http://www.svrlive.com/Pages/ExpressPoints.aspx

Patrick

 

The SVR is advertising for a new Operations Manager
http://www.svr.co.uk/Employment.aspx

This is actually an extension as originally it was till the middle of January.

 

Why the extension?

Robin

 

I can only assume no suitable candidate was found but I do not know for certain.

 

A minor update from Kidderminster:
Some of the rather ugly palisade fencing in the car park is being replaced by GWR speartop fencing


First photo taken on the 20th and the other two today.

 

Futher updates on SVRlive about the Eardington relay: http://www.svrlive.com/Pages/Infrastructure.aspx

 

So less than a week till the first day of the 2016 season.
Timetable A is in operation in February, and on the 13th and 14th, the AS2 turn will be steam hauled rather than diesel operated which it will be on all other dates in February.

 

Sorry but Feb midweek AS2 is the DMU, I know becausi I am guard on 16th

 

If you read it again, I say on the 13th and 14th it is steam, while the rest it is diesel.

 

Hoping to make my first visit of the year next week. I rate this railway so highly! I have to say that just one thing niggles me, and it's important to me! I'd love it if they announced the weekend loco rosters a little earlier than late Friday afternoon. It would make planning my visits so much easier! I still haven't caught Taw Valley.....

 

Sometimes it is done on the Thursday before, but yes it would be nice if a bit more notice was available. Most other railways manage it.

 

Roster up for next week: http://www.svr.co.uk/MeetTheLoco.aspx?id=120