Behind the scenes

I am running out of bad puns with the word ‘loco’ in to use in the titles of these posts, which is a relief.

This posting is by way of an update about Locomotive number 6, which for the sake of brevity I am now just going to call ‘6′. Towards the end of last year I visited 6 at Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway. She (I think locos are spoken about in the feminine, like ships, but I may be wrong) has been moved inside the sheds and is currently resting in very good company. She is in the same shed as the Morayshire (a working loco that belongs to the National Museums of Scotland) and (more interestingly) Thomas the Tank Engine and his little green buddy Percy. It is enough to make a 3 year old green with envy. Clearly I have spent too much time reading the Thomas stories, as during a tour of the shed I actually knew what a Giesel funnel is, thanks to the story of Peter Sam.

Anyway, 6 is now being worked on. There are a series of tubes that run the full length of the boiler, one end in the firebox (literally where the fire is) and the other at the front of the loco. The plates where the tubes finish look like rusty Swiss cheese. There are pictures of this on Flickr. To get the boiler into a fit state for the boiler inspector to view it all the tubes have to be taken out. To do this the beading (welding) around the edge of the end of each pipe has to be removed and then pressure applied to one end of the tube, which will then come out. Apparently this will be a couple of days work. The tubes are probably going to need to be replaced to get 6 ready to steam again, but this isn’t unexpected. 

Then we got to the exciting bit, which involved wearing overalls and going into the pit underneath the loco and into the firebox! The ash pan (catches the ash from the fire, like a domestic fireplace only bigger) has been taken out and Brian Thompson (one of the directors of the steam section of SRPS, and our contact and guide on this project) took me into the firebox. This was a cube (with no floor) with the tube plate at one side, the cab to the back of us, and the tank (where the water goes) over the top. Unfortunately I managed to leave the lens cap on for this bit, so there is no film (so embarrassed) of this, which is a shame as it was pretty interesting. To be where the fire ought to be in a steam loco was quite an odd experience. These are powerful engines (even 6, which is small by steam loco standards), and there I was with my head in the business end. The firebox was aesthetically quite attractive (in an odd way) with the regular patterns of nuts and tubes, and the reddy brown rust on the metal. It was almost eerie to be inside something that at one time would have been very, very hot and noisy, and is now silent and being examined in almost forensic detail. In some respects this really convinced me that this is the right thing to do (re-steaming). Although the engineering is interesting (and I surprise myself when I type this, as I didn’t think I would be this interested) the engine is effectively dead at the moment, all we can do is imagine it. I don’t think I am anthropomorphosising a lump of metal, but I would like to see her steam again!

I wonder if there is some way we could recreate the experience of working with the locos one day, and not just driving them, perhaps seeing inside the guts of a loco would help us start communicating some of the engineering behind their operation and maintenance. Afterall at a mine like Prestongrange (6 didn’t actually work there, but others did) much of the day to day maintenance of things like steam locos and other equipment would have been done by skilled people on site. There is more to coal mines than simply coal.

The plan from this point is to remove the tubes and continue to strip down the boiler. Then the loco gets taken apart for inspection, and we really need to see that bit (and get it on film). This all needs to be completed by the end of Feb 2007, to enable us to claim the grant from the Scottish Museums Council, without which the work would not have gone ahead. Then, we really need to look at costing the real work - getting 6 steaming again…