Peak Patterns Ltd of Sheffield has created several castings for ‘Yeo‘ and ‘Exe’, which are currently with Welsh Highland Railway’s Festiniog Railway’s Boston Lodge Works for machining.
The castings include Driving wheels, Front & rear frame stays, Hornblocks, Bogie frame stretchers, Axleboxes and keeps as well as Slide bar brackets and radius links for the Joy valve gear
As part of the project, enquiries were sent to several foundries, some of which were inundated with work following the pandemic. Peak Patterns Ltd were able to supply the most competitive quotation and, after doing fantastic work on wheels for locomotive ‘Lyn’ and pony wheels for ‘Yeo’ and ‘Exe’ recently, were the perfect fit for the job.
Work at Boston Lodge has seen the completion of machining on the cylinders, end covers and valve chest covers for the two newly built locomotives. Parts for ‘Yeo’ and ‘Exe’ are identified with blue and green paint in order to distinguish which engine will get which parts.
Following the August closure, the driving wheel pattern was set up in preparation for casting and are now at Boston Lodge where work is underway to clean the up and painted blue or green.
It is expected that the mainframes will be needed in the near future, which will allow assembly to get underway.
Locomotive ‘Lyd’ has also had new die blocks CNC machined, the blocks which run in the curved slotted links on the Joy valve gear had worn. Alongside ‘Lyd’s blocks, two sets were also made for ‘Yeo’ and ‘Exe’.
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