Good progress was made at Ruddington on 1st February with the first working party of 2025. As part of preparations to lift the old tender tank off its chassis, the nuts and bolts which hold them together were extracted. This may sound simple but some of them required less than gentle persuasion! A cable was also partially removed at the front of the engine, more details below. Meanwhile Steve Andrews carried on sorting out our three containers in the yard; it is a prerequisite to have these nicely organised before we start removing too much off the loco. Nice to have three new volunteers with us today – Many thanks to Jim, David and Jack.

Above and below: Jack Spencer gets to work removing the nuts off the studs which hold the tender tank to the tender chassis.

Above: remains of the nuts and fitted bolts which hold the tender tank to the tender chassis. Varying levels of age and corrosion made this a struggle at times.

Above: David Wright, Jack Spencer and Jim Bailey ponder how best to liberate one of the more troublesome bolts; the answer eventually involved an angle grinder, hammer and chisel!

The ATC box just under the front buffer beam, behind the drawhook, with cover off to reveal the electrical terminals. A heavy-duty five-core cable had to be disconnected in order to free the cable so that a conduit ‘upstream’ could be slightly relocated. This in turn will make it easier to remove a piece of angle (pictured at top of article being held by Steve Andrews) which allows easier access to remove the loco’s pistons and valves, which need to be examined once a year. A classic example of a seemingly insignificant job which ends up taking hours! It is worth noting that the intention is to leave the engine’s chassis largely intact during the forthcoming overhaul since, other than the need for new tyres, there is virtually nothing wrong with the ‘bottom end’. Hence these little improvements can be done now, without being wasted effort for later.