New-build ‘Night Owl' moves to Tyseley for front-end assembly
NEW BUILD GWR 47XX No. 4709 has moved to Tyseley Locomotive Works for its front end to be assembled.
The Great Western Society's Churchward ‘Night Owl' arrived at the former 84E depot in late August, with the move being carried out by Ray Bowern's Staffordshire-based Boat Transport and Cranage.
The work will include the fitting of the cylinders to the front extension frames, a job which will be done – as was the case at Swindon Works in steam days – with the extension frames removed and turned upside down.
This process will be overseen by Mike Solloway, of Dinmore Manor Locomotive Limited, which recently carried out the same task with the new cylinders on its GWR 2884 2-8-0 No. 3850 at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.
Both cylinder blocks for
No. 4709 were cast at the Boro Foundry earlier this year, and are now being machined at Roach Engineering, of Brierley Hill in the West Midlands. With the two cylinders needing to be joined back-to-back, the machining work is being carried out in stages on both castings to ensure accurate alignment.
Dudley's Micron Alloys is casting the front and rear cylinder covers, while the piston valve covers are also at Roach Engineering for machining.
Once the cylinders, extension frames, centre stay and front bufferbeam are assembled and fitted to No. 4709's main frames, the cylinders can then be aligned as the datum point for the wheels and axleboxes.
The engine will incorporate three 5ft 8in driving wheels and the front pony truck from former ‘Barry 10' GWR 5101 2-6-2T
No. 4115, while the fourth set of driving wheels was cast new.
Introduced in 1919, the 47XX was George Jackson Churchward's last design for the GWR, with nine examples built (Nos. 4700-4708). They were nicknamed ‘Night Owls' because they were mainly used on overnight express freight trains, although during the 1950s they regularly appeared on holiday excursions to the West Country.
The last three examples, Nos. 4703/4/7, were withdrawn in 1964 and none were preserved.
More details of the 4709 project can be found at www.4709.org.uk