Spirit of Sandringham building underway again
PROGRESS on building new LNER B17 4-6-0 No. 61673 Spirit of Sandringham has resumed following the project’s move to CTL Seal Ltd in Sheffield and delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic
By the end of 2020, design work on the B17 Steam Locomotive Trust project had produced a revised arrangement for the main leaf springs on each of the coupled axles to suit the larger axleboxes containing roller bearings.
Progress
The redesign of each of the three cylinders has commenced, converting the original cast iron designs, requiring expensive patterns, to a fabricated design, and therefore reducing costs.
Eight hornblock castings have been produced from new patterns, to reflect a further design improvement to the project. The castings will be sent to CTL Seal, where two will be used for setting up the machining and fitting, and the manufacture of the hornblock linings.
As soon as the Coronavirus restrictions allow, the cannonbox and the coupled axlebox patterns will be moved from their location at The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust’s premises in Darlington, along with the wheel pattern, from storage at the Head of Steam museum in Darlington, to William Cook’s premises in Sheffield, for casting.
Once the wheels and the axleboxes have been cast and released, the next tasks will be to machine the cannonbox and coupled axlebox castings, and manufacture the horn stays. The modelling of the two outside cylinders was completed towards the end of 2020 and the modelling of the inside cylinder has started. Detailed design work on all three cylinders will be combined to produce fabricated structures using appropriate welding techniques and materials, providing greater strength compared with traditional castings.
Detail drawings of the springs are currently being reviewed by Owen Springs Ltd of Rotherham, to provide a quotation. This company is considered experts in its field for the heritage sector, having acquired much of the manufacturing kit, test equipment and technical data including drawings and material specifications from the BR workshops at Eastleigh and Derby on their closure in the 1960s.
Education
The B17 Trust has established contact with two schools in the Sheffield area who are interested in its Spotlight on Specifics Teaching and Learning Materials programme currently being trialled in Essex as part of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) studies.
Also, the trust is set to start its first group design project with third-year University of Sheffield engineering undergraduate students and will work with them on ideas for the tender design for main line use.
Several new members have joined from the defunct B17 No. 61662 Manchester United project, which donated its B1 tender to the project.