The Holden F5 Locomotive Trust

Despite the near lockdown of the greater majority of UK engineering facilities, the Trust via the much valued services of our CME Elliot Powick has been successful in obtaining the first of several requested quotes for plasma cutting of  the steel that will be required for the main frames bracketry. This process is proving to be a protracted affair due to the effects that Covid 19 is having on UK engineering however we will publish a more detailed engineering report as soon as we are in the position to do so.

Meanwhile we thank all our members and donors alike for your collective patience and understanding during these difficult times,

The Board of The Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust.

Radial trucks.

During the early years of “The Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust,” our then CME Graham Rowland invested a vast amount of his personal time locating and researching many archives in his quest to amass a full collection of F5 drawings. Despite an exhaustive and very time consuming mission it became apparent that two key sets of drawings were unavailable; they simply did not exist namely the Stephenson’s valve gear and the radial trucks. Nevertheless Grahams persistence in locating what drawings survived enabled the construction of GER 789 (F5 67218) to proceed.

Eventually under Graham Rowlands’ lead the peripheral frame comprising of machined buffer beams and valences, smokebox, chimney, rail-guides, bunker and frame plates were manufactured.

Work commitments eventually deprived Graham of Holden time hence Kevin West agreed to further progress GER 789 resulting in our introduction to polymer patterns that greatly reduced the cost of patternmaking. Soon we had in our possession a machined cylinder block, machined tank supports and the substantial diamond stay that sits beneath the footplate.

Kevin West was to leave due to his commitment to another new-build project to be replaced by our current CME Elliot Powick.

Elliot Powick  set to work initially cross referencing work undertaken by Graham Rowland and Kevin West prior to further developing ongoing 3d CAD models. Elliot’s’ work to date includes  designing the Stephenson’s valve gear, plotting the numerous holes on he frame plates that culminated in their CNC machining, identified the correct design of motion bracket as the original piece tendered four different options. Recently, Elliot oversaw the design and casting of all eight wheels and further progressed the design of the crank axle.

As mentioned above the drawings for the radial trucks are  deemed not to exist hence Elliot has designed 3d CAD models from information obtained from factors associated with his research and development of GER 789’s build.

3d CAD radial truck depicting white machined surfaces.

3d CAD radial truck depicting white machined surfaces.

The two radial trucks represent the final two major castings that will enable GER 789’s assembled frames to accommodate the leading and trailing wheelsets.

The cost of the polymer patterns and castings is quoted as £10,000.00 and we are currently fund raising this amount of monies. To survey how you can offer your kind assistance please click on “Sponsor a Part”

With your valued assistance GER 789 will be advancing towards a steaming date.

Steve Cooper,

Chairman,

The Holden F5 Steam Locomotive  Trust.

Materials for the crank axle have been funded.

Design work for radial trucks has been completed and quotes obtained for the polymer patterns and casting. Please click on ” Sponsor a part” to survey how you may assist.

A more detailed engineering report will be published soon.

The casting of the first of four driving wheels took take place on Monday, January 27th 2020.

The first of four cast driving wheels undergoing inspection. All eight wheels have been cast.

The leading and trailing wheels have been cast by the Micron Foundry of Amblecote, Stourbridge, West Midlands. Casting of all four driving wheels is to follow.

Leading/trailing wheel casting.

Driving wheel pattern.

To survey how you can offer support please click on “How you can help” or “Sponsor a part.” With much anticipation GER 789.

This was the year that was!

As Chairman the achievements of 2019 have far exceeded my well established unbridled optimism with frame plates being shot blasted, CNC machined alongside the motion bracket followed by the frames and motion bracket being temporally assembled and delivered to Tyseley pending final assembly.

Alistair Meanley, Tyseley CME has requested a meeting with our engineer to run through figures regarding the assembly of GER 789’s frames and has mooted that work could commence early in the New Year. The finance for the final frame assembly has been ring fenced.

In addition to the above we have paid in full (£38,800.00) for the driving wheel pattern and casting of all eight wheels for GER 789 with delivery anticipated during the latter part of February 2020.

The next major expense will be the tyres (flanges) for which donations have been both received and pledged.

Fundraising continues for the axles, axle boxes and horn guides.

To survey how you can further accelerate the build of GER 789 please click on “Sponsor a Part;” we look forward to hearing from you.

Steve Cooper,
Chairman.

Press Announcement
The Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust (GER 789) has placed an order with ” Micron Alloy Castings Ltd” of Stourbridge, UK for the following items:
Four driving wheel castings plus one driving wheel pattern.
Four truck wheel castings.
A further engineering announcement will be made soon.
To survey how you may further assist with the construction of GER 789 please click on “Sponsor a Part” or email info@holdenf5.co.uk

Stop press announcement.

The Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust (GER 789) has accepted a quotation from ” Micron Alloy Castings Ltd” of Stourbridge, UK for the following items:

Four driving wheel castings plus one driving wheel pattern.

Four truck wheel castings.

A further engineering announcement will be made soon.

For additional information please click on “Sponsor a Part.”

Overview.

Since the semi-assembled frames were delivered to Tyseley back in Mid April 2019, we’ve been patiently waiting for Tyseley to find room to start work on them. We’d got a slot booked for late 2018 for this but with timing slipping with the machinist we unfortunately missed the window. Having spoken to Alistair and Bob at Tyseley and the group building the new County 4-4-0 it was decided the best way to approach this was to get both kits of parts ready and build the frames up in tandem, this meant less time in Tyseleys workshop and, as both frames needed very similar treatment, it would reduce the final assembly cost for both locomotives.

The frames got a thick coat of grease on all the machined surfaces and along with all the additional castings and brackets are waiting for space to become available for the next stage in the assembly.

Machined motion bracket

Machined cylinder block.

As this is out of our control it was decided to plough on with the nextstages of the build. The two major expenses left on this project are the wheels and the boiler so getting things under way for these are paramount.

Wheels
Seeing as we already have the pattern for the leading and trailing wheels the obvious next stage was a pattern for the drivers. I modified the CAD model to create the pattern model and sent if off for quotation.

Leading and trailing wheel pattern

Driving wheel CAD model (C) Elliot Powick CME

Premier patterns who did the original cylinder patterns were asked to quote for a traditional pattern (like the leading/trailing wheel) and a poly pattern to see which was the sensible option. Once the quote came back it was plainly obvious that at £XXXX the tradition route was the financially sensible option.

Next in the line is casting the wheels. Wheel casting is quite a specialist process, having the combination of large mass of the centre boss and the outer rim, care must be taken not to end up fracturing any of the smaller, quite fragile spokes (Tornado having to have several fractures post welded and quite an additional cost) during casting. Having done some work for the 4709 Night Owl project I approached their project leader, Paul Carpenter for advice as they’d had a successful set of wheels cast for their project. Having successfully cast 4709’s wheels I approached Micron in Dudley (also handy due to the proximity of Premier) to quote for our 4 driving wheels and 4 leading/trailing wheels and they duly came back with a cast price of £7,480. The order for the pattern and 4 wheels will be placed in the coming weeks and put in a safe place to naturally stress relieve until they’re ready for they’re ready for machining.

Wheel casting.

The tyres and axles present a different set of problems. The axles really need to be forgings and the crank axle is very specialist indeed. A company in Sheffield called Railway Wheelset And Brake are the main importers of railway tyres from South Africa (it’s the place all preserved railways go) have been tasked in quoting for tyres for all 8 wheels, they can also do axle forgings so a quotation is expected for the leading and trailing axles and the trailing driving axle very soon. The crank axle is slightly more complex and might need redesigning to suit an alternative manufacturing process if RWB’s company in SA deem it too large for their forge.

Copy of original forged crank axle.

Boiler
The Severn Valley Railway was approached late last year with a view of quoting for the boiler for the Loco. Because the boiler is a relatively simple steel construction with a copper firebox the basic quotation came back at around £200-225,000, seeing as we weren’t ready for ordering and with the price of copper fluctuating this was just a guide price but one they were confident on as they are currently making a batch of very similar boilers for the IofM locomotives they were very confident on the pricing structure at that time. The other problem was also that their order books were full for possibly up to 4 years so an alternative was required, Step forward Heritage Boiler Steam Services. Andy and Robert are currently in the process of finishing the boiler off for The Unknown Warrior and were free at the latter end of 2020 to consider taking on the project but to expedite things I’ve already starting modelling the boiler (old drawings can be a tad difficult to read at times) and this also means I can start doing the flange blocks as required. These are needed whoever does the build and keeping them in house I can reduce the overall cost of boiler production and assisting the boilersmiths in completing the job quicker.

Elliot Powick CME, The Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust.

Boiler assembly (C) Elliot Powick

Front tubeplate former. (C) Elliot Powick CME

Formed plate (C) Elliot Powick CME

The Trust expects to be placing an order for all eight wheel castings before the end of October 2019. A more detailed engineering report will be published soon.