Austerity Errol Londsale back in service in Belgium
FORMER Longmoor Military Railway Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST No. 3796 Errol Lonsdale has returned to service after a bottom-end overhaul at its Belgium home.
When first restored in Belgium, a time limit was put on the allowed workshop space for the task that had led to some jobs not being done to the desired standard.
Upon reaching the end of the 2021 running season and with a hydraulic test due (required every three years by Belgian law), its owner decided to take it out of traffic for improvements and repairs. The first of these was to replace some stretched studs on the steam dome cover.
At the first overhaul, the Polish twin chamber mechanical lubricator drive mechanism had been quickly made; this too was replaced by a new construction that features bronze bearings and now runs silently in comparison to its predecessor.
Attention then turned to the inside motion, with the white metal on the slide bars having been found to have come adrift. This was tinned, re-metalled, and machined before being aligned and shimmed to the required clearance.
The big end bearings, which had gaps between the bearing halves, were dismantled and had the old white metal melted out before being sandblasted, tinned, re-metalled and machined, overcoming the need to frequently adjust them to avoid them knocking.
Work was done entirely by volunteers at Stoomcentrum
Maldegem-Eeklo, in north Belgium, where Errol Lonsdale now resides, before No. 3796 moved to the Chemin de Fer a Vapeur des 3 Vallees (Three Valleys Steam Railway) in southern Belgium for the Mariembourg Steam Festival, held on September 25/26.
There it made its public relaunch to service and also wore its Errol Lonsdale nameplates for the first time since it was sold and departed from its former home at the South Devon Railway in 2009.