14/07/2026
Time for an update!
Often it's the small things that happen in the background that people tend to overlook when considering the restoration of something as big as a locomotive.
One of our issues early on was the lower cabsides, where water ingress behind the windows had sat and rotted out the body panels.
As built, the locos had drain holes built in to allow water to escape out under the body, but the trays that sat below the scissor frame mechanisms for the drop-down windows had suffered over the years and even those that had been spot-repaired were now showing signs of deterioration.
To prevent future issues, we've fabricated four new trays, complete with drainage holes, and replaced the fixing point for the window mechanisms where these had rotted out. The first of these has now been reinstated, with tubing running through the drainage hole to allow water to pass through the floor of the loco without sitting in the frame (the pipe in the video will be cut back to hide it, the video is simply demonstrating it works!).
This also means that the inside of the driver's cabside of No.2 end can now be rebuilt.
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Photos courtesy of Colin Makcrow and James Powley
