Goodbye 2021, Hello 2022

To misquote the late footballer and TV presenter Jimmy Greaves, ‘it has certainly been a funny old year’ and one we think we should not wish to repeat.

Lockdowns and other restrictions have, of course, impacted on our progress and fortunately our funders allowed us to extend the time we were allowed to spend their kind support on specific projects.

We thought it would be useful to give a quick resume of what we have managed this year and to record our spend to date and funding source for each project. On paper it may not seem a huge amount has been done but we only have a very small work force (always room for more – all skill levels) and, of course, the activity details and costs do not illustrate the many, many hours of volunteer labour that go into each item – we do not try to put a cost on these!

** these items were included in a project part funded by grants from The Rowlands Trust, The Swire Trust, The Garfield Weston Foundation, The Veronica Audry Charitable Trust, The Pilgrim Trust but the bulk of funding came directly from our supporters (some for specific items).

The Big Give funds are made up of 25% pledges from a small group of our members, 25% from an external match funder and 50% direct donations from our supporters.

We do make a contribution to the overall HLF project from our own resources – this will amount to a total of £8000.

Clearly, without your help and support we could not make any progress at all – so a very big

“Thank You”

In addition, we have been working on the frames, removing rust and other wasting and preserving and painting.

We think, in view of our enforced lay-off, we have achieved a reasonable amount of progress and in anticipation of a restriction free 2022 let us hope we can move the restoration on more rapidly.

We do think it appropriate to record thanks to our friends at Dinmore Manor Locomotive Ltd.  They were instrumental in helping the 2874 Trust get off the ground and have continued to assist in many ways.  Though we are separate legal entities, we work very closely together and as well as sharing our volunteer pool with them (and with the GWSR steam department) we have many members from their shareholder ranks.   They also provide us with the technical expertise we need as well as the benefit of their many years’ experience as both restorers and operators of Great Western locomotives

Early in the New Year, 2874 should be moved to the corner of the Toddington shed and be rested on stands ready for levelling, optical alignment and horn grinding (lots of training in this process has been done on Dinmore Manor’s heavy freight No. 3850 so we can get off to a flying start!)

Please keep checking in on our progress and don’t forget to visit us either on-line (including at our new on-line shop) or at the GWSR galas.

Once again, Thank You to our funders and to you for your continued support

A few images of the year's achievements:

 

 

Keith removing a bracket to allow the riveting tool to fit - the cross-member to be riveted is the green piece -

you can see the limited space for the riveting, the bracket is riveted to the frames

and the new cross-member will be riveted to the bracket.

 

 

Here, Dave is cleaning up the horn faces to remove the worst of the rust - the horn grinding itself is to follow 

 

 

 

 

 A new smoke box casing borrowed and trial fitted - we now own this casing and

are arranging the manufacture of the front door ring and the door 

 

 

 The GWSR Gala in November gave a good opportunity to show off our project,

meet some supporters and sell a number of items from our new clothing supplier

(see the range through the website "Support Us) 

 

 

 

A mould prepared for one of the axlebox underkeep castings -

thanks to Bridport Foundry for the image

 

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The four castings - these will now go into the machine shop at Toddington for finishing 

 

The cab roof just back from rolling at Tyseley and prior to fitting in place 

 

 

The roof is now fitted and the cab itself trial fitted onto the frames

 

We aso have a new shop partner for our on line shop, joing forces with pixel shack

 please follow this link to find out more

 https://pixelshack.co.uk/collections/2874-trust