The little digger… she goes!!
Now we’d love nothing better than to tell you we’re not only track builders, we’re mechanic and hydraulic extraordinars, but we’re not exactly sure why it now works but didn’t before. It’s likely that we cleared the issue in one of the many valve cleanings earlier this week and just didn’t quite cycle it sufficiently to remove an airlock, however said issue is no longer and its back to its normal self, actually seems slightly better.
This morning began with another 8 fishplate changes and trimmings near Bendigo Road, however the rain beat us by 9am, so off to Castlemaine we headed.
Once we’d established it was a goer, we very promptly set about putting it all back together. Strangely, this occurred much more quickly than the disassembly.
Prior to putting the covers back on, we did a full oil and filter change (much easier access).
We’re yet to give it a real test. However, just around the Yard at Castlemaine, we were seeing the machine behaving much better than it had for at least 12 months. Tuesday, we’ll give it a proper run, dropping out and inserting sleeper plates out at Boundary Trk. Check back Monday for workday details.
We shared the Castlemaine workshop today. At the other end of the shed, the retubing of the J class was reaching the final phases, a cold water test was being undertaken, with any weeping tubes expanded a little more to seal up the tube plate/tube joins.
By the day’s end, they very successfully had the boiler holding water. No doubt there will be more on this in the Mechanical Blog. However, it’s looking very likely that they’ll be completing a hydrostatic test next week! A big step forward, congrats!
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