At work, on Great Western engines, we rarely had any injector problems, therefore the significance of having cold water in the tanks had never really occurred to me. I also attached a vertical clack directly onto the injector as L.B.S.C. specified. Looking back, I am not certain that this was good practice on a small injector. Although, this did in fact mean that I had a double clack on each injector, which did avoid any steam blowing back from the boiler. However, the 90-degree turn that the water had to make when immediately leaving the injector was perhaps the reason why they never worked dry at the overflow. Yet it never dawned on me to ever try any of these intricate little devices without the 90-degree clack attached to it! Perhaps this stems from the fact that all Great Western injectors were made similarly and this is how I imagined they all were.
At this period of time, I still lacked any advice that would have been available had I been a member of a society. Today, my experience has always been that commercial injectors are usually utterly reliable, that is, as long as basic rules are followed. The tank filters must be clear, offering a plentiful flow of water, and any water connections must be tight. When an injector is working, quite a strong suction is formed at the water inlet. This has a tendency to draw air into the feed supply via leaky connections and water valves, etc. This spells death to reliable working as lifting the clack requires a solid water source, rather like the brakes of a car, which become spongy if air gets into the system.
One of my homemade L.B.S.C type injectors fitted to my Stuart No. 4 steam engine; I never quite got one to work dry at the overflow. Perhaps the right-angle bend the water takes immediately leaving the delivery cone is not a good idea?
Small pieces of gasket compound, which generally enter the injector via the steam supply, can block the cones too if the loco has recently been under repair. Therefore, it is always wise to check this before condemning the injector as faulty. Great care must be taken when poking at the small cones; it is all too easy to damage the wafer-thin edges of the cones.
Over many years I have periodically read much criticism of the methods and writing of L.B.S.C. However, as a total beginner I found his articles invaluable and I was able to make these injectors and many other boiler fittings successfully from his words and music. Yes, his drawings were basic and left the builder with a great deal of ‘licence’, but the model engineering fraternity do have a great deal to be thankful for with his prolific writing. To someone like me his advice really was invaluable.
I now look back at the time when I built ‘Speedy’ and really do wonder how I achieved it with no other machinery but my Myford ML7. Whilst my praise goes to the versatility of the Myford, milling was tedious, coupling and connecting rods seemed to take forever with the necessity to continually take fine cuts. However, making the best use of what is available to you is what the hobby is all about; after decades of modelling there will always be a yearning for additions to any workshop. Ask yourself, where does it end?
Myself with ‘Speedy’ at Avoncroft Museum in later times when I became a member of the Bromsgrove Society.
CHAPTER THREE
With ‘Speedy’ up and running I looked for another project that would suit my circumstances. As I already had the drawings for the L.B.S.C. 3½" Gauge Great Western ‘County’, along with some odd serviceable castings, it did make economic sense to have another attempt at building this engine. As I said earlier, I had found some of the milling jobs on my ML7 for 5" Gauge a bit daunting, particularly the coupling and connecting rods. So making smaller parts for 3½" Gauge would perhaps be a more suitable option. My amateurism at this early stage had already induced a number of catastrophes working with the vertical slide. Feeding the work into the milling cutter in the wrong direction rarely gave me a second chance; it was then a case of hours of work being thrown up the garden! Cheap foreign machinery was yet to become available for the home workshop and a milling machine was certainly out of my price range.
The sixties was not a good time for many railway workers; modernisation plans and the Beeching Report brought vast changes to working practices. The rumour got around that my depot at Tyseley was under the threat of closure, and this brought uncertainty about our jobs. A number of people suggested to me that I could always get a job in engineering, but I didn’t share their confidence. Muddling on in my own time, I felt, would never be tolerated in production engineering and my maths still let me down as I constantly found it necessary to refer to data sheets when turning fractional measurement into decimals. These calculations still do not come off the top of my head today, and metric measurement is also an enigma!
However, despite the uncertainty in the railway industry I was still sent to Swindon to pass the inspector for my driver’s examination during 1960. This was a daunting experience, but I imagine that my love of steam locomotives and avid interest in the railway system helped me clear this hurdle. At this period in time, thousands of men were to leave the railway industry, many made redundant as the diesel and electric trains were introduced. The uncertainty of future employment induced many others to leave; others just did not want to work under the new conditions, particularly the steam enthusiasts.
Training programs were introduced to make drivers competent to work on the new forms of traction and I was therefore immediately upgraded to do driving turns whilst these men were under training, although I wasn’t promoted to driver in my own right until 1965.
I did begin to get a lot of experience as a steam engine driver before that date. Regretfully, the engines were to become more run down and neglected as time went on and it was eventually so sad to see them running around void of names and number plates. The numbers were scrawled amateurishly on their cab sides in white paint, due to the theft of these items by collectors and opportunists. All these identity plates were eventually removed from the engines and I remember the plates being piled up in the stores. They were offered to railway staff for £15 each; a close friend of mine bought two and asked me if I was going to have a couple. I said to him, the time that we had worked on these engines management ought to give them to us! £15 was one week’s wage, but what a fool I was, I should have had my backside kicked!
There was a drawback to being upgraded to do driving turns. You could be driving for perhaps three weeks and the following week find yourself back on your own turn and firing a ‘King’ to Paddington and back. In which case you felt rather like an athlete going for gold without any preliminary training!
1011 ‘County of Chester’ at Swindon on her final trip and being the last of her class. The wooden nameplate is visible on this side.
In September 1964 I was rostered to work the final trip of the Hawksworth ‘County’ Class. No. 1011, County of Chester, was the last survivor of the class and I was fireman on this ‘Farewell to the Counties’ tour organised by the Stephenson Locomotive Society. We did a circular tour leaving Birmingham heading north, going via Stourbridge, Worcester, Cheltenham and Gloucester, to Swindon. Our return was via Didcot, Oxford and Banbury, to Birmingham Snow Hill. The engine looked magnificent after thorough cleaning by many volunteers of the S.L.S. Regretfully, she was in shocking mechanical condition. A replica name plate was attached to the right-hand side made of wood, as the original had already been taken by thieves. Someone had done a wonderful job and it was only close up that it was distinguishable from the original. Nonetheless, my regular top link driver Fred Gay and I were extremely glad to get off 1011 after more than 200 miles; the rough ride we had encountered was quite dreadful. However, despite this, I still chose to call my model ‘County of Chester’ and to give her a double chimney.
Building the ‘County’ took half the time that it took me to make my first engine. The quality of my work improved and I really enjoyed working on the project as it took my mind off the depressing situation at work.
While working on my ‘County’ one particular incident springs to mind. When the running chassis was complete I made the lubricator to L.B.S.C.’s design and felt I sho
uld test it by attaching a pressure gauge to the pipework whilst running the chassis on air pressure. The wheels spun round for a while with the oil pressure gauge on zero, and just as I was beginning to think that there was a problem with my work there was a bang. In a split second the gauge needle went from zero to off the scale! When I dismantled the gauge, the Bordon tube had pretty well straightened itself out; it was only the gauge casing that prevented it doing so! Therefore, it pays never to underestimate the power of these wee pumps, as L.B.S.C. really did know his stuff. Once these lubricators are made and working well they fill their role well and give little trouble. Any bother is usually down to contaminated oil. Dirt will get under the ball valves and steam and water will fill the reservoir. I have usually made my ratchet wheels a little bigger than the drawings and made less ratchet teeth. This makes the teeth deeper and therefore less prone to the ratchet pawls missing their target. Many commercially made ratchet wheels, I have found, have given a lot of trouble having very shallow teeth.
My model ‘County of Chester’ ready for display at the 1996 M.E. Exhibition at Stoneleigh.
I rolled up the boiler barrel, flanged all the firebox plates, and then found an error on the drawings. Putting the barrel against the throat plate left a gap on either side. I approached Reeves about the problem and one joker told me it was alright, you just filled the gap with brazing spelter! Nevertheless, I stood my ground and it was eventually agreed that the drawing would be amended. Whether this was eventually done I have no idea as I didn’t follow it up.
Our depot did eventually close in 1969 and I moved over to the old L.M.S. shed of Saltley – we were now totally dieselised. From that time on my fortunes changed and I eventually decided to invest in a commercially made boiler for my engine.
There was one mistake that I made when building my ‘County’ and that was not to paint it as work progressed. Once the brass work was polished, I regret to say, that I never ever wanted to strip it down to paint it. Forty years after completion it is still it the same condition and polishing it has grown on me.
CHAPTER FOUR
There will always be periods of time when model engineering has to be put aside and there will also be times when the interest fades. Our financial situation improved greatly when my wife, who trained has a mature student, went into teaching. My income was also much improved and job security was assured after I changed depots from Tyseley to Saltley. However, this move made it necessary for me to run a car. Whilst I was able to walk to Tyseley in ten minutes, it was a one and a half hour walk to Saltley through a very unsavoury area of the city. After finding this walk a little more than an uncomfortable experience in the middle of the night, I bought a six-year-old H. A. Vauxhall Viva for £230. This car was as basic has any car gets, tinny with plastic seats which burned your bottom if you got inside during sunny weather. Nonetheless, I could maintain this vehicle myself and it did get me to and from work for thirteen years, after which our daughter made use of it for a further period. Additionally, we became a two-car family when my wife became the owner of a second-hand Mini to get her to school.
This Mini, I found to be a nightmare to do any repairs on, as it was one of those vehicles fitted hydrolastic suspension; the extra pipework in an already restricted working space under the bonnet made repair work exasperating. Also, if ever I had to do work on the suspension the pressurised system had to be deflated. Then, after the repair work, the car had to be taken to a garage to have the system re-pressurised. Garages were reluctant to do this if you had worked on the car yourself and therefore tended to deliberately inflate the price out of all proportion for doing such work. Here, my model engineering experience helped me to beat the system, as the pressurising point on the suspension was a model engineering thread, indeed the same as a normal tyre valve. I then realised that a 5" Gauge L.B.S.C. type tender hand pump would probably do this job adequately. A few hours’ work saw a jig made, rather like a locomotive boiler testing kit. This proved to do the job with little trouble; in fact, friends and neighbours tended to then come to me for this service! It wasn’t rocket science, I watched garage mechanics do it and the gauge for getting it right appeared to be simply putting four fingers between the wheel arch and the tyre to get the correct height.
I had always longed for a good workshop and now I also needed somewhere where I could work on the cars in comparative comfort. Getting home from work during the night meant that my wife’s car had to be reversed out of the wooden garage, as cars were not left on the roads without parking lights at that time. This was an awful bind, therefore my wife and I decided to invest in a double garage-workshop, as we did have sufficient room for the cars to come in side by side.
Having the building plans approved was followed up by getting three builders’ quotes. We chose the middle-priced quote as this was the only document to bear the insignia of the Master Builders Federation. Little did I know that the experience that followed would nearly drive me to the end of my tether.
I cleared the old timber garage from the area, leaving just the concrete base, as I felt this would be useful for the men to work off, mixing the mortar etc. Work had already started on digging the footings for the two L-shaped walls when I arrived home on the first day. The footings had to go down a metre in depth, therefore there was a great volume of soil to come forth from these excavations. There was no alternative but to throw this earth into the centre where the garage would eventually be.
I arrived home a few days later just as the building inspector came to check the footings and the two men on the project were now most disgruntled. The inspector was dissatisfied because the trench went narrower towards the bottom. The inspector wanted the hole squared off at the bottom to a uniform width. I was young and fit and used to shovelling, so during that evening I got into the pit and squared off the footings as they should have been. I was already feeling a little wary of these two characters doing the work.
The next day when I got home, although I expected the area to look like a building site for a while, it did look rather like a bomb had hit the workings. All the materials had been delivered and the delivery lorry had destroyed my fence and hedge on the entrance to my drive. All the sand, cement, bricks, etc., were piled high amongst this great heap of soil. In addition, the men were mixing the cement for the base of the footings and each time they needed to tip the cement into the trench it was necessary for them to get the barrow over the bank of soil. Consequently, large amounts of earth were falling back into the pit with the concrete. Getting more irritated at what was going on, I did ask the workmen if it would not be better if the soil was moved off-site. His reply was that they needed it to back fill. Nonetheless, it obviously did have to go away in the long run.
A day or so later these two workmen were remonstrating with each other regarding whose job it was to mix the mortar. I then gathered that the younger of the two, who was about seventeen, was indeed the bricklayer. The older man in his forties was the labourer, despite the fact that he was far more adept with the trowel. I was to now to learn that this was this young man’s first job, following a crash course at the local college. Bricklaying in the hole for the foundations was obviously a new challenge to this new ‘tradesman’, little doubt he was finding it back breaking work. I watched his activity from our landing window, which overlooked the area. He was indeed spreading the mortar and then pressing the bricks down with his feet!
My next course of action was a trip to the Citizens Advice Bureau, a journey which didn’t give me a great deal of satisfaction regarding what steps I could take. A further visit to the offices of the Master Builders Federation was to give me the clear impression that the logo on the builders’ quote meant little or nothing. Being almost sick with worry, I now seemed to have nowhere to turn.
Meanwhile, the work continued and it was to take this pair a full six weeks to build the two walls. The weather was lovely and on arrival home from work it was nothing to find these men in just their bathing costumes lyi
ng on my lawn sunbathing! I counted the bricks this young man laid one afternoon, which amounted to no more than thirty. At the end of the day, he picked up his tool bag, tripped over the heap of soil and knocked over all he had done during the afternoon.
This company was also doing work on Urban Renewal at this period, and wasn’t a small firm. However, a stiff letter to the manager did eventually improve matters. The carpenters and roofers were fine and I did get a large discount from the final bill. Nevertheless, I still look at the monument these ‘bricklayers’ left us with, which constantly reminds me of that young man’s unbelievable arrogance, bearing in mind that my old mother could have laid bricks better. Fortunately, his work can only be seen from inside the garage, most of the outside of the wall adjoins my neighbour’s structure.
The final job brought some satisfaction; it did become a nice dry place to work with ample room. I then began to set up my workshop and put in a good stable workbench, but putting two wet cars near my lathe and other engineering equipment was soon found to be a problem. There again, this was a large area to attempt to keep heated whilst I was working inside during the following winter. I therefore put in a brick partition to section off my workshop from the cars to make it quite snug. Without doubt, this was the answer, as I have never experienced any problems with rust since and the smaller work area has since given me countless hours of sanctuary and interest whatever the season. I have to say that I have always made a point of never going into my workshop during the evening, or on Sunday afternoons. These times my wife and I have always spent together.
The Mettle for Metal Page 3