‘P2’ GETS A SMOKEBOX - AND SIX SPLASHERS
The profiled and rolled wrapper plates, top and rear ring were delivered to Darlington Locomotive Works on January 7, while the flat-topped front ring is being machined out of solid plate by Timsons Engineering of Kettering, and is expected to follow in February. Temporary formers will be used to ensure that the smokebox retains its unique shape - with a slanted front, as well as its sloping top - during assembly. With the cab well under way, 3D models have been produced of its side windows and spectacles, which must be modified with laminated safety glass to comply with modern standards - but the computer aided design process is even further ahead of the game than that. During the Christmas shut-down of Darlington Works, one of the group’s volunteers began the 3D model of the tender tank and wheelsets, construction of which is expected to commence next year. The reincarnation of a design lost for over 70 years continues to unearth new information about the Gresley ‘Mikados’, most recently by ordering some components that many may not know they possessed - driving wheel splashers. As the running plate comes together, with the supporting brackets fitted to the frames, the next step has been to order the parts for six ‘splashers’ above the rear driving wheels - not visible above the running plate, but set into sloping platework between it and the frames. The originals would have been pressed steel, but the new items will be fabricated as the cost of tooling for one engine would have been prohibitive. The rubbing block on the rear dragbox has been the latest part to be trialfitted to the frames, while a coded welder has been engaged to fillet-weld the doubling plates beneath the front of the firebox (to strengthen the frames at their shallowest point). Although already riveted on, the welds at the edges will prevent water getting between the plates and causing corrosion. Between the frames, one modification to the original design will be the changing of the intermediate frame stay from a casting to a welded fabrication, which has also been altered to mount the air pump here in place of the vacuum brake cylinder. For more information on the covenantor and donations schemes, see www.p2steam.com, email enquiries@p2steam.com or call 01325 460163.
AS THE cab for new ‘P2’ No. 2007 Prince of Wales takes shape, the ‘kit of parts’ has arrived to build another distinctive piece of the LNER 2-8-2 - the smokebox.