6880

Progress update.

I recently spent half an afternoon discovering the delights of the Black Country, first visiting Shentons to collect the two vacuum brake cylinders, one for 5199 and one for 6880, then it was off to Boro Foundry to drop off the patterns for the Hornguides and hornties, they should be cast by the end of March, and then the last stop was Micron to pick up the dragbox.

I did manage a stop off at the SVR to view 7812 Earlstoke Manor being lit up for the first time in many years, this was my reward! I took a trip round the works and had a chat about railways and politics and then it was off to Llangollen to help out at the Thomas event.

The dragbox and cylinders were then delivered to Twinbidge engineering in Burscough to be machined, and are now finished and back at Llangollen. Hornguides and ties next!

We have asked Llangollen Engineering to quote for machining and fitting the hornguides and ties and I will be asking for quote to fit the dragbox and buffer beam. Once these items have been fitted we are then in a position to work on 6880 ourselves which will lead nicely into the planned working week in June.

The cost of it all.

Building 6880 is not cheap and I would like to give you some idea on how we are spending the money.

• Brake cylinder - £399
• Machining brake cylinder - £315
• Hornguides fronts and middles - £150 each and there are eight of them!
• Hornguides rear - £180 four off
• Dragbox pattern in polystyrene - £148 (we were quoted £900)
• Dragbox casting - £1293.00 (again we were quoted over £2500)
• Dragbox machining - £1000 (I did haggle on this and shaved off £150)

We do adopt a transparent policy with 6880 in the decision making, costs etc so I have no reservation in publishing information.

The cylinder pattern has been quoted (this is a fixed quote that will a maximum, but could be less) and is looking set us back a cool £26.500 but it is payable over a period of time. No doubt we will looking into this as soon as the quote for the extension frames comes in this later week.

5199

Just a word of thanks to all those rallying round 5199 in order to get her back into traffic.

Being on your own in the shed is no joke, it is cold, colder than outside, which was -5 at one point, and as Llangollen is not awash with volunteers as most were helping out at the Thomas event, in the event of me having of accident I would not of been found until Monday...

A big thanks to Ste Jones and Gary Roberts who lent a hand putting the brake rodding back, and to Mick Prior on a Sunday for getting stuck with his usual high degree of enthusiasm. 5199 now has working brakes once more after lots of fiddling about unbolting and readjusting. There is still most of the motion to put back, mainly the heavy bits, but this is already scheduled.

At least we're on the home straight .

Regards Will.