The Heavy Duty staillage suitable for HCT022 was been collected from Romford yesterday by Allelys Haulage and was delivered to Longhoughton Goods Yard this morning.
Thanks again to ex Amec Spie and Network Rail staff that help us track down the stillage and make arranements for it to be transferred to us.
Following a tip off, Ben went to Romford OTPD on 30 September to inspect the former stillage that belongs to HCT022.
Read the rest of this entry »
The cab of the Matisa was recently gutted – i.e. all the wooden panelling on both the sides and the roof were stripped off and the foam insulation behind has been removed too. This was done as we were aware that water had gotten in to some points and caused a bit of damp.
A quick roundup of what’s been happening with the HCT..
Read the rest of this entry »
A good step forward with HCT022.
A set of 2 ‘065′ type batteries had been charged up again.
The hydraulics were put into manual mode and each solenoid manually actuated and the hand pump used to push a little bit of fluid round. The rail clamps were put down and up and the turntable ram was jiggled about a bit. The brakes were pumped off and the machine rocked slightly to free the axles. All this was done to help just get oil flowing.
Read the rest of this entry »
Last Saturday turned out to be a historic day as Dave & co managed to fire up the Rolls Royce engine on the unique Matisa 68030 for the first time in many years!
Bank holiday weekend and it was time for attention to be returned to the Matisa…
A few words about what has been happening over the last few months…
Read the rest of this entry »
A couple of trips up to Longhoughton over the last 2 weekends…
Read the rest of this entry »
Quite a productive day at the Colne Valley last saturday – fuel tank repair gets underway and a coat of paint on the roof!
We concluded that the only way we were going to remove the leaking fuel tank was to firstly take out a section of the mesh balustrade – which is what we did. We have also since decided to remove all the white mesh fences around the engine bay on the next visit. This will make the painting of these and the remaining yellow areas around the front much easier. The bolts seemed to release quickly down one side so this shoudn’t pose us major problems.
After resolving our water supply issues (!) the fuel tank was cleaned and filled with water – and sure enough we found quite a large crack in the bottom at one end! Mark made a good start on repairing it – cleaning up the surrounding area and welding a new section of metal over the top. This will be finished next time.
Meanwhile I managed to get a top coat of light blue paint on the roof! I think it will need another coat but today’s sunny weather was a perfect opportunity to get it sealed before winter.
Strange to see a gap where the Permaquip had previously stood for so long -
Dave may have an update on this machine soon…..
Our next trip to the CVR will probably be Nov 11th.