News
Bewdley South Signal Box
The SVR Charitable Trust hosted Simon Evans from the Roger & Douglas Turner Charitable Trust in September to inspect the work carried out on Bewdley South Signal Box.
The work to stabilise the foundations of the structure was paid for by the Turner Trust who manage the Arley Estate including Arley Arboretum. Seen inspecting the work are L to R - Paul Marshall - Chief Signal Engineer, Judith Meredith - Chair of the CT, Simon Evans -Turner Trust, Chris Bond - Head of Infrastructure, Paul Hobson - CT Trustee (Finance).
Class 12099 Diesel Shunter
The Class 11 shunter 12099 has recently returned to service following a major overhaul at Kidderminster TMD. Trevor Davies reflects on what has proven to be one of the biggest challenges in his 50 plus years of volunteering at the SVR.
Work carried out on the locomotive included the removal of the power unit onto a flat waggon for major work to be carried out, within the confines of the TMD at Kidderminster. All heads, pistons, connecting rods and cylinder liners were removed for cleaning and repairing. The whole water space contained within the power unit was descaled and cleaned up and the liners replaced after two coats of paint applied to the exterior and the inside honed out. New rings have been fitted where necessary to the pistons and the locomotive has received a reconditioned set of fuel pumps and injectors. Inlet and exhaust valves have all been machined and lapped to their respective seats in the cylinder heads new copper head rings fitted and the heads torqued down.
The brake gear on the locomotive was extremely worn and many new pins and bushes have been machined to bring things back to size. The locomotive now has two functioning Westslack brake adjusters fitted instead of its old turnbuckle types, this is for two reasons the SVR shunting locomotives are all consistent now in brake adjustment and secondly there is no need to have a person passed out in such procedures, our last group member having practical experience of such matters having retired. Many photos were pored over to check that the class 11 locomotives had this arrangement thus proving it was authentic and acceptable to carry out this change.
During this time we were extremely lucky along with our very versatile and dedicated team of volunteers to have a D.C. electrician on board who removed and stripped down the main electrical generator. More shocks, no pun intended, certain aspects of the generator were in a poor state indeed. The commutator required recutting and skimming up, whilst the main bearing required a new replacement and its housing metal spraying and machining back to size. This was carried out by BT. rewinds in Birmingham.
A replacement radiator unit, new voltage regulator and a battery has been fitted to the locomotive and. An amazing amount of dirt, rust etc has been removed much plate work including virtually all new generator doors have been provided and the locomotive now looks resplendent in its gloss black, British Rail transfers with freshly painted cab numerals.
Thanks are due to the following people without whom the above task would have been impossible. Brian Bessey, Brian Hollis, Mike Norden, Richard Read, Rob Sheffield, Ian Palfry, Tom ,Jon and Frank Shepperd, Martin Barrowclough, Don Shadwell, Richard Sadler, Ian White, Steve Jones, Luke Vines, Dave Blondon, Glynn Bann, Colin Harsley, Colin Astbury, Rowland Bull, Richard Williams, Bob Clegg, Alan Burdon, Alan Gosling Martin Bull, Trevor Tomkins, Hugh McQuade, Jeff Atkins, James Broughton, John Thurston, Trevor Daw and finally James Broughton Kidderminster C and W and Chris Aimes and Steve Reynolds from Bewdley carriage works.
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The Class 11 is owned by the SVR Charitable Trust and Chair of the Trust, Judith Meredith, wishes to thank all those who have contributed to the overhaul and to improving its reliability.
