Latest News

July 2023

Q class 541 to undergo a ‘Priority’ overhaul at Leaky Finders

A leaflet pdf to give more appeal information is here.

Q class 541 left the Bluebell Railway on Thursday 6th July to undergo a ‘Priority’ overhaul at Leaky Finders in Devon. The overhaul is being funded by the Bluebell Railway Trust and the Maunsell Locomotive Society who own the locomotive; the locomotive being the subject of a long-term operating agreement with the Bluebell Railway.
The Q class was R.E.L Maunsell’s last loco design, and 20 were constructed at Eastleigh works in 1939. 541 was the 54th loco to depart Barry Scrapyard back in 1974 and some restoration work was undertaken at Ashchurch, Gloucestershire, prior to the then owning group merging with the Maunsell Locomotive Society in 1978 and the loco moving to the Bluebell Railway for conclusion of the restoration project. It first ran in service at the Bluebell between 1983 and 1992. After a major overhaul it re-entered traffic in 2015 but had to be withdrawn in December 2022, in need of boiler repairs, attention to the tyres and a new tender tank. In its two periods of service at the Bluebell Railway be it has covered over 70,000 miles in traffic and proved to be a strong, reliable and economic loco to operate. On a visit to the Great Central Railway it was described as being like ‘a Midland 4F on steroids’ by one of their loco crews.
The loco underwent a full piston and valve exam and repair in early 2022 and the bottom half of the loco is reported to be in good condition, other than the need for attention to the tyres. The tender will remain at the Bluebell Railway for overhaul. The tender tank will need to be replaced and the tyres will require attention.
'MLS volunteers will help with overhauling the components of the tender chassis.
541 has run in BR condition as 30541, with late BR crest, in its last period of service. When first restored in 1983 it was fitted with a BR standard class 4 design chimney and blast pipe, which reduced the risk of spark throwing that had been experienced with the Bulleid Lemaitre chimney and blastpipe which had been fitted in SR days. British Railways had fitted the Standard class 4 chimney to six members of the class as a means of improving their steaming.
The Bluebell Railway Trust and Maunsell Locomotive Society are keen to raise funds to help overhaul the locomotive. On-line payments to the appeal can be made by clicking the DONATE button on the Bluebell website and following the online payment instructions. Select Q Class 541 Overhaul in the drop-down box. Otherwise please send a cheque, made payable to the ‘Bluebell Railway Trust’ (and a Gift Aid Form – if appropriate - downloaded from the Bluebell Railway website) to the Bluebell Railway Trust, Sheffield Park Station, Near Uckfield TN22 3QL. Please add a note to say it is for the 541 overhaul appeal.

A leaflet pdf to give more appeal information is here.

July 2022

Stowe – A new way to speed up progress on the chassis

847

30541

• New steam pipes, fabricated by Bluebell’s Boiler Smiths, Simon Blaker and Henry Mowforth.
• The cylinders were bored out by Frank Boait. Alex, Chris and Harry bored out the valves. New piston heads and valve heads were procured. The piston heads were machined off site by Frank Boait, the valve heads by Harry.
• The existing piston rods were worn beyond re-use and the new piston rods were machined by Statfold Barn. The crossheads required new little end pins, which were provided by Statfold Barn, who also bored the crossheads to accept the new small end pins. The big ends were re-metalled by Harry, Alex and Ben Harvey and then scraped in to fit. The slide bars were taken down, checked over and found to not require any attention.

31618

1638

The PMV

928 Stowe

Since the July 2021 update there has been further significant progress with the boiler repair at Heritage Boiler Steam Services. They have:- Obtained some appropriate specification new copper sheet to enable them to form a new bottom half for the firebox throatplate, using a ‘former’ that they had previously fabricated. The new section of copper plate has been ‘tack welded’ to the original top half of the tubeplate. The whole assembly has been refitted into the inner firebox ready for the two parts of the tubeplate to be welded together. HBSS will now proceed to fabricate the new bottom half for the inner firebox doorplate. The steel backhead is ready to be rivetted to the outer wrapper – however HBSS are awaiting some suitable specification steel rivets. The old, worn, safety valve and manifold pads have been removed and replacements are underway. Melvyn Frohnsdorff has got the overhauled exhaust steam injector up into place beneath the cab and is now working on reinstating various pipe runs under the running plate and under the cab floor. Melvyn has also completed work required to secure two new sections of running plate above the cylinders. Our working party have in recent months focussed on the boiler cladding sheets which were starting to go rusty in places. All four firebox sections have been cleaned up and painted on both sides – and at the time of writing the working party are progressing towards finishing cleaning up and painting the four larger boiler barrel sheets. Two of our volunteers have made a good start on re-constructing the wooden cab floor. At the time of writing they have close to concluding construction of the two wooden beams that support the metal fall plate between the cab and tender.

541

541 is currently in the works having its valve bores ‘re-bored’ – new valve heads and valve rings will be required.

847

847 has required some attention during the summer – otherwise it has been working regularly during the year. It has now covered more than 50,000 miles since returning to traffic in 2013 and is difficult to predict how much longer it will remain in traffic before being stopped for its next overhaul. So...do go and see it running when you can.

1618

During June/July 1618 was in an accessible position next to the running shed so some of our volunteers took the opportunity to undertake a limited amount of re-painting of worn areas – such as on the running plates etc.

30925 Cheltenham

It was a pleasure to have 30925 Cheltenham visit the Bluebell Railway for the October Giants of Steam event. The loco proved popular with the crews and it gave the working party a chance to look over a working Schools class loco.

Stowe After a very long pause, because of Covid 19 restrictions, MLS working parties re-started at Sheffield Park on Thursday 18th March, a year on from when the first ‘lockdown’ started. The first priority was to construct a more robust and waterproof cover over the cylinders. We are indebted to Ben Coughlan for donating a good quality tarpaulin which is keeping the weather at bay. Barry Smith and Andy Sparkes have done some good work on needle gunning above the middle cylinder. Barry also checked over the oil trays under the axleboxes for any water ingress.

Melvyn Frohnsdorff has machined the heads of the countersunk bolts that were purchased during lockdown, so the new footplate sheets can be bolted down. The new footplate sheets need to have their holes enlarged, and countersunk and then the bolts can be fitted and the plates secured.
Andy Sparkes and Steve Pilcher have reverted to cleaning and painting various sections of the boiler cladding, to ensure they remain in good order for as and when the boiler returns. Another job on the ‘to-do list’ is to start re-building the cab floor. New timbers to support the fall plate are in the van and hopefully members of the working party can start to re-build the floor this Summer.

Since the boiler was sent to HBSS’s works on Merseyside last October, HBSS have:-

1. Undertaken non-destructive testing of all the components.
2. Undertaken welding repairs to the foundation ring, including filling oversize rivet holes in the foundation ring. A number of cracks in the foundation ring have also been welded up. It has been successfully trial fitted back into the steel outer firebox.
3. I understand all the drilling work is complete on the new steel backhead and the next step is to rivet it into place inside the steel outer wrapper.
4. It has been agreed that the lower sections of the inner firebox throatplate and doorplate will be replaced as their stay holes have been enlarged several times in previous BR overhauls. This will enable smaller size stays to be used and thus give a longer life to the new inner and outer firebox platework. New material is on order to enable this work to take place. However HBSS are encountering difficulties in getting suitable plate, as apparently the usual supplier has had to pause production to undertake repairs to the roof! Hopefully this will be resolved soon.
5. Meanwhile HBSS have fabricated new formers for the additional copper plate that is required for the inner firebox doorplate and throat plate. The formers will be used to manipulate the new copper plate to the correct shape

30541 and 847

Both the 30541 and 847 were available for traffic last Autumn, until the Bluebell Railway had to close again in late December. 30541 was used on the steamlights trains and 847 starred in a photo charter organised by Jon Bowers on the 7th and 8th December. It was requested that it run without smoke deflectors for this event. Although 847 always ran with smoke deflectors from when first constructed – this unusual form of appearance certainly attracted coverage – with images appearing in several magazines etc.
30541 and 847 have been used in Spring 2021 on regular passenger services. In addition 30541 has been used twice for filming recently. First was in ‘The Larkins’ for ITV then later in the BBC Drama ‘Life after Life’.
By the end of 2021 – it will be eight years since 847 entered its second period of service at Bluebell. It has now ‘clocked up’ over 50,000 in this second period of running. This is a high mileage and it is quite likely that it will not be able to run for the full ten years of its boiler ticket. So do go and see it in action whilst you can!

The PMV

When the working party returned to Sheffield Park in March we noted that the inside face of one of the van’s doors had suffered from wet rot in our absence and we are investigating whether friends in Carriage and Wagon might be able to assist with making a new door.