We start this week’s blog with the breaking news that Furness Railway locomotive No 20 will be visiting the West Somerset Railway from 16th to 21st July to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the opening of the line between Watchet and Minehead. Full details of the event can be found here. There will also be other visiting locomotives including the very recently outshopped Great Western Railway ‘Grange’ 4-6-0 locomotive No. 6880 Betton Grange. A press release is also available here. Let’s hope that we have some decent weather that week!
Some of you who have visited Preston in recent times will have noticed that the paintwork on ‘FRT Towers’ (our portacabin mess room) has started to look jaded – probably because we have been giving priority to painting our rolling stock. However, with the odd gap in the rain appearing during our very British summer, Sim has made a start on cleaning the roof of muck and rust and has been giving it a coat of red oxide. Hopefully the weather will allow the job to be completed before winter!
Back inside the FRT shed, there has been more work on Great Western Railway 0-6-2T No. 5643. Ian Massey spent some time welding up the inner smokebox ring last Wednesday.
Tim has been rubbing down the firebox cladding sheets which have now received grey undercoat on the inner faces.
The next task will be to rub down and paint the outer sides of the frames. John Dixon is seen here removing the vacuum pipe to enable full access to the frames. The steam heat pipe on the other side has also been removed for that same purpose.
This next weekend will see Furness Railway No. 20 in service on the Ribble Steam Railway with Great Eastern Railway royal saloon No. 5 joining in on Sunday, Father’s Day.