Since November 2017, when the last update appeared in The Railway Magazine, we have raised around a third of the money required to complete the County of Glamorgan. This leaves around £200,000 still to get her into steam. With the money raised so far we have been able to order the door ring, smokebox door (which has already been made), rear smokebox ring, smokebox and saddle. We expect most of these to be assembled and delivered before Christmas. As we are already in possession of the double chimney rescued from fellow County no 1006 County of Cornwall, this will allow us to recreate the ‘face’ of the engine complete with front number plate and shed plate quite soon.
In July we launched the boiler club with the target of £125,000 to complete the boiler. With an as yet unretrieved legacy of £25,000 this has now nearly reached the halfway mark which will allow us to authorise our contractors HBSS to begin the assembly of the two coned barrel sections, believed to be a first in preservation/new-build in the UK. We are planning to meet with HBSS on 26th November in Huyton to discuss and agree next steps. During the visit we will take the opportunity to check the dimensions of the tubeplate from 48518 so that we can finalise dimensions and order the new tubeplate before Christmas.
Photos from a recent visit to HBSS - the firebox, the kit of parts, and the original 8F tubeplate
Recent work on the chassis involves the fitting of the centre and front driving wheels, with the rear wheelset imminent, which will leave the underside clear to fit the springs and brake gear. The unique crossheads will shortly be ordered and the front coupling rods will be sent for machining as soon as the drawings are completed by our CAD specialist John Williams.
The unique 8’6” wide Hawksworth straight sided tender chassis is now virtually complete, awaiting only the plate for the assembly of the tank, something we hope to be able to order shortly. This will be fabricated over the next six months.
Chassis progress - Wheeling the County on the wheel drop. Thanks to Trevor Jones for permission to use these photographs. © Trevor Jones
With all this activity we are looking to recruit new enthusiastic people to help us finish the job. If you have hands on engineering skills and would like to help in assembling 1014 please contact our Chief Engineer Dicky Boast at dickyboast@hotmail.co.uk or if marketing/publicity is more up your street please contact our Press Officer David Bradshaw on bradshaw.md@gmx.com or 07977 01905.