35028 Clan Line

It’s great to see younger volunteers getting involved with keeping 35028 running.

 

It’s vital for the the future of the whole heritage railway industry that younger people are encouraged to get involved. MNLPS are fortunate in having a fair age range in the working membership, two of those there at the weekend were still in their late teens, sad to relate that I was definitely the oldest!

 

Another unofficial update having been down in Devon for a couple of days. After a short interval when the Prairie Tank was being painted, needle gunning both the inside and outside of the boiler has made good progress and a start has been made on cleaning and annealing the flue tubes. The Prairie was due to go back to Bodmin yesterday so work will intensify on 35028.
This is one of the younger members taking a well earned break (the inside of a loco boiler is not a pleasant place to be when it's 27c outside) while others do the job sitting down! As I said before donations to get the best engine on the mainline back in service all very gratefully received.

 

Another update on progress for those on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/clanline35028

 

https://www.clan-line.org.uk/fundraising/

 

Things are beginning to move faster now, an update from Leaky’s FB page

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?st...EEjsUSnFQnzuWgWLq4sNcXvu3l&id=100063522582254

 

I agree the loco has been very reliable and I would not want to criticise the loco/group at all, but it has been no more reliable than others such as 45407, 44871, 45212, 45596, 6233, 7029, 5043, 4965 etc. Some of these locos particularly the black fives run far more miles annually than 35028 so in terms of miles per casualty they are far ahead. I recall at least 3 occasions 35028 has failed in service and another occasion where it dropped all 6 fusible plugs on the main line due to injectors not working and could have blown up had the fire brigade not turned up so quickly and extinguished the fire, which they were lucky that didnt lead to other issues.

 

I wasn’t a member then but I think it was one plug that went and there was certainly no explosion risk. There’s no point in speculating now but there is some video of it at Earley just before the incident with all three safety valves blowing with no gap of uncondensed between the valves and the water vapour, an indication of serious priming.

 

I seem to recall the DB report said something different, but even if it was just one plug that melted, with a fire big enough to lift all three safety valves to say there was certainly no explosion risk is a tad optimistic. And given that the fire brigade were allowed to pump hundreds of gallons of cold water into a very hot firebox to extinguish the fire potentially causing other damage, somebody in charge was obviously rather worried too.

 

Rocking grate and hopper ashpan spring to mind. The loco crew would have dropped the fire onto the track, surely?

 

Well, that all sounds rather dramatic! I have visions of the fire brigade on the footplate spraying their hose directly into the firebox onto a ton of burning coal, which I suspect would have been rather exciting ...

It doesn't, though, accord with the descriptions at the time. There was an MNLPS statement (available here: https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/35028-on-oxford-vsoe.24273/page-2#post-349227) which makes it clear that after the loss of "a" (not "six") fusible plugs, the fire was dropped, and subsequently the fire brigade put out the dropped fire. Which is serious, but not indicative of a risk of explosion. Subsequent investigation indicated no damage to the boiler beyond the failed plug, which would seem to show that there was no softening or distortion of the boiler plates that would be the precursor to an explosion.

I'm not trying to downplay the incident - but equally let's not over-dramatise it either. From what I can see, once the water got low, the crew acted appropriately to drop the fire, which removed the risk of a more catastrophic failure. The fire brigade's role was then to control the dropped fire. Serious - yes. Reportable - I believe so. Risk of explosion that was only avoided because the fire brigade turned up so quickly and extinguished the fire - no.

Do you have evidence for that? Because it contradicts what was said at the time, and, moreover, if the fire had already been dropped, I can't see what benefit it would do. (Particularly because even had the fire brigade arrived quickly, that is still likely to be tens of minutes after the incident started, during which time I can hardly imagine the crew just standing around doing nothing while waiting for the fire brigade to arrive).

If, as is likely, the fire was dropped but retained in the hoppers, it is possible that the fire brigade subsequently extinguished the coals in the hoppers - but that is completely different from "pumping hundreds of gallons of cold water into a very hot firebox".

Tom

 

Having been told about this incident by a member of the DB footplate crew on the day, we are not talking about a heritage railway sprinkling of coal on the grate fire here, 1.5 ton of white hot burning coal on a 48 sq ft rocking grate would take some rocking through, particularly the bigger lumps that might jam the grate do you not think?
Then there is the damage to the ashpan and rear truck/white metal bearings with radiating heat from the ashpan? Surely if all the fire was dropped under the loco it would have caused serious damage to the truck wheelsets?

 

I'm told it was quite dramatic! By a crew member.

 

I'm not seeing the reason or need to rake over old coals here - excusing the pun naturally. ;-)

Clan Line is a truly fine example amongst many, of what the heritage movement and those that give their time, has achieved. Let's face it, an injector can fail and a fusable plug blow, on any locomotive and simply isn't an indication of poor workmanship. I personally don't subscribe to the tribalistic berating of one railway's engines over another and see nothing meaningful being gained from so doing.

 

@ Big Al, Thanks, I will leave it to the others that are allowed to do so then. I have no intention on commenting on the reliability of other locos or 35028, other than what I previously said that other locos are equally as worthy of praise as 35028 which seems to keep being singled out on here as something more special than anything else.

 

Indeed, however this thread is "35028 Clan Line" and there are other threads that are similarly positive about the achievements covering other locomotives

 

Do you know anything about the design and actions of a rocking grate? Also a similar question about the hopper ashpan?