GER 789 Engineering Excellence
The engineering team involved with the design and construction of GER 789 met at Tyseley Steam Locomotive Works on 16th October 2021 to showcase their achievements with GER 789 to date before Steve Cooper, Chairman of the Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust.
The Tyseley Steam Locomotive Works team is headed up by CME Al Meanly assisted by Bob Meanly, Sam Perry, Nick Morant and others.
Elliot Powick, GER 789’s CME has the task of CAD designing GER 789’s many components ably assisted by Graham Rowland whom undertakes research into missing drawings from various sources such as the National Railway Museum, The Essex Records Centre and The Great Eastern Railway Society. Elliot Powick’s expertise lays mostly with GWR and LMS Locomotive types therefore Graham Rowland’s Great Eastern Railway expertise has proved to be invaluable to the ongoing CAD build and design of GER 789.
Quality control
Elliot Powick, GER 789’s CAD Engineer liaises regularly with Tyseley’s CME Al Meanly to ensure that quality control and value for money remain assured. These regular exchanges are vital due to the working practices of the Great Eastern Railway Drawing Office at Stratford East London, UK. Occasionally locomotive drawings would arrive at the shop floor from the drawing office and deemed to be inaccurate by the engineers. Subsequently the drawing would be annotated in red ink then returned to the drawing office for amendment. Alas for GER 789’s present day engineers this process illustrated above was not guaranteed to happen resulting in our engineers discovering and amending drawing errors that were made 120 years ago. This is why GER 789’s design and build engineers interface regularly to avoid costly and unnecessary engineering errors. Check and balance pays dividends.
The bunker has been trial fitted to the frames to determine if modifications will be required ahead of final fitting.
Under wraps.
All eight machined wheels have been painted and wax-oiled pending pressing onto axles.
The next phase.
Material for the footplate steps has been delivered to Tyseley ahead of fabrication and fitting to the frames. Material for the slide bars has been ordered whilst an order for the axles is imminent.
To explore how you can further assist with the construction of GER 789 please click on “how you can help.“