NEW-BUILD NEWS
‘P2’ pledges pass £3 million
Funds pledged to ‘P2’ No. 2007 Prince of Wales have reached £3 million as the Gresley 2-8-2’s coupled wheelsets are assembled. All three plain coupled wheelsets for the ‘Mikado’ were pressed onto their axles at South Devon Railway Engineering during May, leaving only the driving wheelset (crank axle) and the front pony truck to be made as this issue went to press. The news came as pledges towards the locomotive hit the £3m mark, while donations passed £2m – the latter figure meaning that the £5m project is 40% funded, four years after the engine’s frame plates were cut in 2014. Mark Allatt of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust puts these figures into context: “£3m is what we raised in total for ‘A1’ No. 60163 Tornado – so to have that pledged in four years is pretty good!” The ‘Mikado Club’ fund to wheel the engine and tender is now closed, having reached its target of raising £250,000 from 200 supporters. The assembled wheelsets are expected to arrive back at the ‘P2’s’ construction base of Darlington Hopetown Works by the end of June, in preparation for the milestone of wheeling the frames. Fundraising efforts are now focused on the ‘Motion Club’, which aims to raise £210,000 for the ‘P2’s’ rods and Lentz valve gear, and has recruited 36 of the necessary 175 supporters, pledging £1,000 each plus Gift Aid. The other major funding scheme is the ‘Boiler Club’, which has over half of its £600,000 target figure pledged with 155 of 300 supporters signed up; meanwhile the ‘Dedicated Donations’ component sponsorship scheme has raised over £225,000. The ‘P2’ for the price of a pint’ regular donation scheme now has 860 covenantors. For details of the clubs, covenantor scheme, and components to sponsor, email enquiries@p2steam.com, visit www.p2steam.com or call 01325 460163. At Hopetown Works, Ian Matthews has produced the complicated section of boiler cladding where the firebox throatplate meets the boiler barrel, using ‘Craig the Cretaceous’, the boiler-shaped ‘skeleton’ jig built to trial the assembly of the cladding. The front cab windows have also been machined from bronze by Durham Precision Engineering, and glazed with 20.5mm laminated glass by Romag of Consett, to comply with current safety standards. These parts were all sponsored through ‘Dedicated Donations’.