Since the last blog post there have been 6 working parties at Ruddington and today (Saturday 10th January) marked the first working party of 2026.

These working parties have continued to focus on preparing the tender tank to be lifted off its chassis, and similarly preparing to lift the boiler out of the engine’s frames.

Activities have included:

Removing all the rivets that hold the tank to a long piece of angle on either side of the tender which in turn provide longitudinal restraint of the tender tank. This was an arduous job which first involved grinding back the solebar to reveal location of the rivet ends under 78 years of accumulated paintwork and corrosion….

…..before centre punching, drilling out gradually in increasing drill sizes, punching and in some cases burning them out…..

…..in order for the angle pieces either side to be removed…..

Then ‘upstairs’ a start has been made on removing the ‘decorative’ beading which is riveted to the top of the vertical tender plates. This beading will be retained and reused on the new tender tank in due course. Again this first involved grinding / slitting the rivet heads off….

….before punching out the remaining rivets….

…..leaving the beading to be gently prised away from the tender sides (it is in several pieces)…..

All of this means that hopefully we should be in a position to lift the tank and send it off to Hill & Webster in the coming few months; the fabrication company in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, who are going to manufacture our new tank. The new tank won’t be an exact copy of the old, but having the old one will help them to check certain details as they go through the manufacturing process.