Bluebell Railway Atlantic Group
Latest progress

March 2008

Fred Bailey's photos below show:

Left: The delivery on 11 February of the project's newly purchased (second hand) milling machine. It is a Dufour, with 50Int Horizontal spindle and a 50Int Universal Vertical head. The table is about 63" x 12" with a longitudinal travel of 43".
Right The mill being used for machining a 7.5 degree chamfer on the bottom of the trailing axle horns, the first job on the new machine. Its position in the building is temporary, as some remodelling of the layout is being undertaken.

The new machine is a great bonus for the project, which has an enormous amount of machining to do, since the mills in the main loco works are in very heavy use as well, so is also a useful overall increase in machining capacity.

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13 February 2008

Right: The auxiliary reservoir for the air brake on the tender, fitted in place

Below: Progress on the loco main frames, with some more of the steelwork bolted in place and awaiting riveting:

The boiler cradle stretcher, in the foreground, and the boiler support stretcher behind.
The front buffer beam, temporarily in place.

Below: The inside of the front buffer beam.
The outside of the frames, with the centre footstep support in place.

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Older news updates

• Background and early progress
• September 2001: Repairs to tender chassis.
• More photos of the project.
• March 2002: Modification of front end of tender.
• November 2004: Loco Frames ordered.
• December 2004: Bogie frame components arrive - also Feb.2005 news report.
• 2005 - Loco main frames arrive - tender frames nearly completed - start of construction of the shed.
• 2006 - Loco driving wheel castings delivered - drilling of the main frames and hornguides - building of the shed completed.
• 2007 - Main locomotive frames erected.

Project Funding

A fund raising appeal for the estimated £300,000 required to complete the project was launched in 2000, and a combination of gifts made via the Bluebell Railway Trust, and standing orders set up to provide a steady income to the project have now made over a third of the total available. Whilst this has provided funding for the present work, more is going to be needed to complete the project, and the best way in which you can help is by setting up a small, regular, standing order to the Bluebell Railway Trust under Gift Aid, since this enables the Trust to reclaim the basic rate tax you have paid, and (if you are a higher rate tax-payer) enables you to reclaim some tax as well.

A combined Donation, GiftAid and Standing Order form is available as a pdf document.

For further details contact David Jones.

A donation is made to this project when you buy Historical Transport Film videos from Beulah.