During February the hand crane was used to lift the south end of the Queen Mary brake - this photo, from Tom Waghorn, shows the current state of the overhaul of the crane, with most of the lettering now complete.
The black squares for lettering are starting to be completed on the crane sides. The latest two will hold instructions for slew brake operation and front shaft operation.
Nearly all topsides are now black and some, but not all, of the crossbeams on the jib are complete in topcoat. The underframe of the crane is having a lick of paint too.
One of the doors was fixed onto the new toolbox on the matchtruck. The jib was lifted to facilitate the painting of hard to reach areas just underneath it.
The jib nose, hook and handles have all been painted white. The handles require a second coat, but the nose and hook are complete in topcoat. The west side of the crane is now finished with final topcoat in grey and the east side requires one more coat. Some of the underframe is still to be painted black.
For the last year the crane has operated without its tool box, as the original was badly corroded. This has been used as a pattern to make a replacement. The rest of the match truck floor has been re-planked, and the repainting of the steelwork completed.
These three photos from Tom Waghorn show the tool box being fitted last week, using the crane itself.
Up to this point the LNER designed Blue Spot Fish Van has been used as the crane's tool van. Tom and James spent most of Wednesday moving the tools from the fish van to the newly restored SR box van. Thursday was spent planing the doors of the box van so they would open and close (whilst waiting for the shunt to take place), and then Friday was spent setting up the crane to lift the tool box onto the match truck where it is now loosely bolted and sheeted over pending further work.
Repainting was moving forwards as rapidly as possible in May and June, to enable the crane to operate demonstrations for the Day out with Thomas events. Here it is seen over the pit for a check on the mechanical condition of its running gear.
The overhaul of the match truck (including making new sides, and removing the tool box for overhaul), and repainting of the crane into its original grey livery is being undertaken by two of the departments younger volunteers, Tom Waghorn and James Redford. It is mostly now in undercoat.
Last updated 7 April 2007 by Richard Salmon