26th February saw a good turnout of members for the AGM. The locomotive is nearing completion and members were able to inspect progress first hand

Over the Christmas holiday period more pipe work has been added to the cab fittings including the condenser coil and the driving wheel sanding pipes. Attention is next turning towards the smoke box

Further work at Tyseley has seen many more of the back head fittings and pipe work added as the locomotive reaches the final stages of completion

The superheater header has been installed. Also work on adding back head fittings and cladding

With Cogan Hall and our containers now at Tyseley we were able to hold a working party once more. The team started cleaning up Cogan Hall and meantime noticed that more pipe work has been completed on Betton Grange. Also work on the superheater header has started

The move of our assets to Tyseley started this week with the movement of Cogan Hall’s tender to Tyseley. Our team helped Andrew Goldman’s men load the tender at Llangollen. Our containers of parts and tools will follow and then Cogan Hall itself.

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The 6880 Betton Grange Society have reached an agreement in principle to relocate their assets, including new-build No. 6880 Betton Grange, to a new permanent home at Tyseley Locomotive Works.
The 6880 Betton Grange Society wish to put on record its appreciation to the Llangollen Railway for providing a home for the project during its earlier stages and wish the railway well for the future. We look forward to taking a fully operational Betton Grange to Llangollen to haul trains there in the future.
The Society’s assets also include unrestored No. 5952 Cogan Hall and arrangements are being made for this to join No. 6880 at Tyseley. The 6880 Betton Grange Society are grateful to Tyseley Locomotive Works for providing home for existing and future projects.
The priority for the Society is the final assembly of Betton Grange which Tyseley Locomotive Works has been commissioned to complete, with a target steaming date in the autumn. It will then focus its resources on building a new tender for the ‘Grange’, with the objective of building a replica Collett 3,500-gallon version, a chassis for which is already in its ownership.
The opportunity is being taken to cosmetically prepare Cogan Hall for display at Tyseley and the Society invites expressions of interest in helping start the restoration of this former Barry scrapyard locomotive

During the latest visit to Tyseley we saw progress on the pipe work underneath the locomotive and progress in painting the LH cylinder covers

With volunteer work at Tyseley still not possible the focus has turned to TLW finishing the locomotive. Various parts have been made at Tyseley in preparation for the day they are needed and fitted to the locomotive.

With our tender appeal well under way, the Society has bought a tender frame assembly as the base for our new Collett 3500 gallon tender No. 2268

The team plan to contract the work restoring the frames and using the wheel sets from Cogan Hall’s tender to Tyseley Locomotive Works.