News

1st March 2006:

Decided to purchase loco from present owner. Negotiations under way for new home....watch this space?

11th March 2006:

Heading down to Northants to do the deal and pick up smaller components.

13th March 2006:

Components back up North and started sorting and labelling. Hell of a lot to do here, but excellent work done already. See pictures on Restoration page.

April 2nd 2006: Loco is confirmed as having a home at the Middleton Railway in Leeds. 1795 is 'coming home' to its birth-place on April 20th for the first time since 1912.

April 11th 2006: Found a set of genuine 6mm Manning Wardle injectors. The ones I had with the loco were 8mm Kitson [Gresham] type and far too big.

April 16th 2006: Picked injectors up. Excellent order just like new...in fact I think one is. Ex Stuarts and Lloyds spares supply! An interesting bonus here; when I was cleaning them down I thought they were covered in green verdigrae and corrosion. It turns out that they still had a coat of original Manning green paint on them, which I'm now having matched.

April 20th 2006: Loco delivered by Duncan Milner [highly recommended!] to the Middleton Railway in Leeds. Managed to get some good coverage in the Yorkshire Post as well. I will put the article on the pictures page when I work out how to do it!

July 10th: Got hold of video number 15 from the Ivo Peters Collection - Fantastic 30 seconds of 1795 working in colour in 1965 at Irchester.

10th September: Spring has sprung 6 months late.....managed to swap some whistles for a set of 5 [4 and a spare] suitable springs. Now to rebuild them.

12th November: Its grey...well bits of it are; pictures to come.

13th December: Springs and axleboxes nearly complete. Loco back on wheels for new year.

March 2007: Aquired from Beamish 95 surpluss 1 7/8 boiler tubes. Other than that I'm just crackingon with restoring bits at home as the weather is terrible.

Summer 2007: Very slow progress - loco outside and rain every weekend! Getting on at home but in need of inspiation. Aquired a vacuum brake ejector from Mike at Kirkby Stephen East - thanks Mike. Martin Ashworth supplied me with a 2" non return valve and I have also founda brake valve. Thats most of the braking system taken care of.

1st September: Back on the job again!

December 2007: I can't believe I have been on with this nearly two years already! I now have the bit of paper that means I can progress with the boiler when ready. Just the rest of it to get done. There is no point getting the boiler certified then doing the other jobs whilst the ticket is ticking away - seen that happen before and its a waste.