70000 Britannia on Freight

Talking of stainless steel, didn't William Cook in Sheffield manufacture, or indeed even sponsor, the stainless steel tender interior for "Tornado"?

46118

 

I saw Clan line and support coach pass through Rotherham Central at 14.55 towed by a 66. It stopped for a couple of minutes in the station for a signal.
Brian

 

Reported elsewhere, repairs now completed and will leave Bury by road next Monday...............

 

Good news. Any idea where she's going? I'd guess Southall, but if so, slightly surprised she's moving by road...

 

Should that not be Polish, as from Poland?

 

And staying as in (firebox) stay?

 

Ian Riley, in another place, mentions ( but does not otherwise elaborate) a press release from the current operators of the loco. Anyone seen this, I cannot see anything on the "ownership" website, ie the Royal Scot trust.

 

I was wondering about that as well....Surely if it was all fixed fine it could have travelled back over the Main Line instead of on a low loader...

 

There is a comment in this weeks Railway Herald that problems have been found with a number of copper boiler stays - sorry I've tried to attach a link

I guess that ties in with the cryptic comment above from Sidmouth

 

And mine! There's a batch of rogue copper stay material out there, somewhere, presently being tracked down.

 

Interesting how a dent in the buffer beam finds issues with in the constructs of the firebox.

Next time I slam the my door, I'll check the cigarette lighter still works

 

Locos are rigid things and don't have crumple zones to absorb impacts - so easy to imagine how a bump at one end caused a shockwave through the frames that dissipated at the first weak component it found - for example, the stays, which are strong in tension (for example, as the inner and oter fireboxes try to move apart) but less so to a shearing load (as for example if the outer firebox tries to move longitudinally when the shockwave reaches it while the inner one remains static due to its inertia).

Just a hypothesis, I'd add, but entirely conceivable in my mind.

Tom

 

And, correct me if i'm wrong, similar issues were found within 45305's boiler following her bump at the GCR a few year's back.

 

I don't know enough about the facts of this particular case but I don't think that there is a direct connection between the two. Could easily be wrong, though!

 

Tom, you've more or less hit the nail on the head!

But you could call it whiplash............................................................ the symptoms are pretty similar, ie don't always manifest themselves straight away (and having suffered from whiplash myself, I should know) but become apparent over a period of time.

And I got shot down in flames for suggesting exactly that when the Duke developed valve problems (I think!) sometime after her prang on the ELR. and now the trust and the loco are reaping the consequences

No wonder JH is giving Britany the once over. better to be safe than sorry, especially out on the mainline..................................................

 

Interesting, but a loco is not a rigid item. The back end of a boiler is free to float and is not rigidly tied down to the frames, it is only restricted. The boiler has to expand/contract freely. The boiler is held rigid at the smokebox only.
In a collision there would be two shockwaves, one down the frames and the other down the boiler. I would of thought that the first things to go in a boiler would be the tubes at the smokebox tubeplate, not the stays at the backhead.

 

I think you are on the right lines, James. Firebox stays are amongst the things that always get checked carefully after a collision. Now, breakages after a low-speed shunt does sound a little worrying (to this layman, at least), so maybe there were problems with materials or manufacture - but it's just the sort of incident that will find such weaknesses. In some ways, it might be a blessing in disguise that they've been found now...