Class 91/Mk4/225 preservation?

It has been said that the time to rebuild a set of engines for the future, is now upon us, as the engineering knowledge to do so is disappearing, together with the tooling.
The one UK company that could do Cylinder chroming, closed about 18 months ago, same for piston manufacturing, etc...

Martin Walker did collect a good set of spares, and had many items manufactured for future generations (£25k of piston rings), but the real problem would be cost.

The only engine re-built after BR days, has not been a success, with a history of leaking cylinder liners. That was done by Paxton.

And you are very correct, most of the engines fitted are way beyond life expectancy, with pistons being the source of at least 1 grenade engine in the past 10 years, the crown (copper) detaches from the piston, with inevitable consequences.

Is it possible to rebuild/ build new, maybe, would it happen, I doubt, the cost would be horrific....

 

It would be costly, but the price per unit would be lowered if several were done at once. Whether a DPS/Hosking/NRM tie up will ever happen is another matter. The buyout of RSG and Gordon gives some hope though. Mr Hosking must have known they need some serious work, which must mean he has a plan.

 

The plan is to get RSG on 2 working engines, then Gordon to go into storage, at the Hornby factory.

A set of marine engines, together with spares is available, marine engines were not a success due to vibration issues, TBH the DPS probably have enough engines, but not the cash (don't know this), to join in on a collaboration.

Be great to see if it did happen though, plenty of triangles, and phasing cases, the difficult items, are available.

 

But they were designed to be run thro the night on freight services as well (hence the second cab) and this hasn't happened so wouldn't you say they've been less intensively used than planned?

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No - because the extra service intensity in the day far outweighs the assumed overnight duties. The idea that Leeds and Newcastle would each merit two trains an hour as the standard timetable was inconceivable back in the late 1980s.

 

Not saying that there aren't bits unique to the version of the Olympus used on Vulcans, but marine Olympus engines remain in service in various Navies and industrial ones also remain in use, so some parts will be available.

Steven

 

Didn't GNER have something like 1 spare set after it recast it's timetable in the late 1990's? Hence hiring in Eurostar sets and buying the Class 89?

 

Yes, of course they will.
People never appreciate things with a nostalgic eye when they are regarded as current, 'common' and 'everyday'.
"You never know what you've got 'till it's gone", as a famous American singer/songwriter shrewdly commented.

 

They might well be, though there might not be much commonality. Non-flying engines tend to have much beefier bits in them, partly because of the need to transmit torque and partly because no-one is bothered about weight saving as much as aero stuff. Even so, to overhaul an engine you need every single bit of tooling and consumable parts-things like stands, locking tools, pullers, everything listed in the manual. Without it, you can't put a legal engine together.

I suspect (though I may be wrong) that the remaining Olympus engines in service may be running from NOS parts left in stock, too.