The postman’s been and it’s finally arrived! After several years of hard work our brand new Garratt boiler has been delivered, ready for fitting out and assembly into NG/G16 Number 129, and our boiler manufacturer, E.R Curtain of Sydney, have done a first class job.
As with all new designs there have been some minor manufacturing issues along the way, including difficulty in sourcing some odd size materials. This has slowed production at times, but as the saying goes, ‘Good things come to those who wait’ and what has been delivered is something to be proud of.
Also delivered were a spare set of flanged boiler plates, and all the formers which have been created to manufacture the flanged plate (Photograph below).
The decision was taken, whilst the boiler was still on the fabricators rollers, to have them align and weld on the smokebox; a job which would have been much harder to do after delivery. We also decided to have the boiler sand blasted and painted prior to delivery, in order to ensure a high quality, durable finish which would last for many years to come.
Under the watchful eye of the Belgrave Workshop Foreman Tony (above), the trailer carrying the boiler eases back into the workshop. It proves to be a very close fit!
Safe and secure on the ground!
Ahead of us is still a huge amount of work before we see the locomotive running, but now we can start to see tangible results from all the years of behind the scenes work already devoted to this project.
