35006 passes her steam test!

Copyright 35006 Society - Maurice Hastie

Good evening,

Tonight we are pleased to report that yesterday 35006 Peninsular & Oriental S.N. Co, passed her formal steam test with her insurance company. She has had a few trial steamings of her boiler over the last few months, enabling a number of minor niggles to be identified and corrected.This is a very significant milestone as the society can now operate the pressure vessel whenever they want (at the discretion of the GWSRs boiler responsible officer). This also means her 10 year boiler ticket is now live and ticking away. As a fan of the Merchant Navy class and a shareholder in this locomotive I am understandably delighted and my congratulations go out to Maurice Hastie and his team based at Toddington.

In other news the first of the connecting rods has been fitted (the one on the firemans’ side) and the loco was moved up and down to check that the piston moved correctly in its cylinder. Work is under way to press the big end bearing into the second rod (the drivers’ side before we tackle the tricky job of getting the middle rod in position. With a team hoping to get 35006 back into traffic later this year every job they complete makes that date more of a reality

A nice warning fire in the box ensured that the pressure in the boiler rose slowly. Once again the boiler has demonstrated how easily the pressure can be raised. Copyright 35006 Society – Andrew Marshall

The 35006 Society is always looking for new members and with the locomotive returning to traffic soon this is the perfect time to join. Society membership costs £12 per year (at the time or writing) and society members receive an excellent quarterly newsletter, which includes a full and detailed report on the progress of the restoration work.

If you would like more details of the project, please write to:
35006 Locomotive Society
243 Botley Road
Burridge,
Hampshire SO31 1BJ

Once she returns to steam hopefully towards the end of the year myself and Dave will be making a road trip to the GWSR to see her in action.

Thanks for reading.