We never seem to be short anything to do at the moment.
The boiler surveyor inspector examined FR 20’s boiler last Tuesday and, apart from a couple of issues, found it to be in good health. There are two corner screws to change as the heads inside the firebox have wasted and the ‘J’ pipe needs to be examined further to check against possible corrosion.
The main event on Wednesday was to conduct a wash out on Cumbria. There was a fair amount of scale on the foundation ring so John, Tim and Ade all took turns in blasting it with the water pump lance and scraping out the sediment. 
Ade is pictured here under the frames with the lance.
Ade also received some driving instruction on Sentinel diesels and is seen here about Cumbria ready to do the shunt at the end of the washout.
There was further progress on Fluff with John Davis, Howard and Phil Bell all contributing to the task. We now have two Phils on a Wednesday, the other doing a good job cleaning up Cumbria‘s cab.
Jeff Nixon at CMS Cepcor managed to find a slot on Thursday to undertake the skimming of the journals on FR 20’s tender wheelsets. He kindly sent us some footage of one of the wheelsets in the lathe.
After having gloss painted FR 20’s drag box and underside of the cab floor on Wednesday, John then bolted down the floor on Friday.
Roger kindly took on the task of cleaning Cumbria between the frames, making use of his head torch.
Bob was missing from Friday’s working party (too busy consulting his lawyer regarding scurrilous accusations in a previous blog?!), however Fred spent his time cleaning out scale from the floor of Wootton Hall‘s tender tank.
Bill Norcross has been busy machining the new underkeeps for Wootton Hall‘s tender axleboxes.
After Alan had inspected and cleaned the tubeholes on FR 20’s boiler, Friday afternoon was spent loading the new tubes into place. A supply chain was set up to hand over the tubes to Tim and John Dixon, who placed them into the boiler and applied suitable force where necessary. Meanwhile Alan spent his time in the firebox guiding the tubes into the correct hole and shouting suitable forms of encouragement to those loading the tubes. All in all, a very busy couple of hours!
George appeared on Saturday and did some work on Cumbria‘s steam brake.
The installation of a new overhead safety wire system is booked for this coming Thursday. The rolling stock will have to be moved out of road three in both the heated and unheated sections of the shed by 08.00 to enable access for both a cherry picker and tower scaffold, which are due to be delivered to site on Wednesday. There will also be a need to move various items out of the way on Wednesday to enable the work to take place. There will be training on the new safety system at the end of the day on Thursday, so all are welcome to attend. Hopefully, everything will be back to normal the following week.
We have received details of the funeral of former Live Steam guitarist, Stuart Bennett (see last week’s blog). A service will be held on Friday 1st March at 10.30 in St. James’ Church, Blake Street, Barrow followed by cremation and a wake, provisionally to be held at the Royal British Legion in Holker Street.
Please note that owing to the Blog Putter Upper going off on a jolly abroad next week without his laptop, there will be no blog next Monday.