Much like the weather, my weekend at the Old Kiln was rather varied. To start with on Saturday, I joined our head of steam to take apart the left-hand steam injector valve on O&K 9998 Elouise which had been reported as not closing properly. I lapped in the valve with fine carborundum followed by Brasso, and inspected the resulting surfaces. Being happy with the results I entered the work in the loco’s log book and signed it off, feeling a sense of achievement that my mentor is now confident enough in the skills I’ve learned from him and demonstrated previously that he didn’t feel it necessary to double check what I’d done this time.

Following that we went to the workshop so that I could start fabricating a new Annett’s key. I’d taken measurements from the existing key, and we found a length of appropriately-sized mild steel rod for the shank and a small offcut that was the right thickness for the bit of the key. I was guided through setting up the rod in the lathe with an appropriate tool to turn down the end to the required diameter. I learned how to centre the tool against the work and set the spindle speed, then got my first experience of turning mild steel (I’d only turned brass before). I took a couple of coarse passes to get down close to the final diameter, checking with a micrometer each time, before dialling in the tool for a slower finishing pass and facing off the shoulder. Finally I faced off the end of the rod to get the reduced diameter section down to the correct length and then used a file to de-burr and chamfer the ends.

A change of scene after lunch. To make the most of the good weather I decided to lend a hand replacing rotten sleepers on our main line. My colleague had already levered out the dog spikes and extracted two of them that morning and she certainly appreciated another pair of hands sharing the labour. It’s hard, slow going trying to dig out old ballast that’s heavily contaminated by soil and well-packed, even after breaking it up with a pick and mattock, but we eventually got the last two out (in bits: they were so rotten in places that they almost fell apart) and dug down to clear the track bed.

On our narrow gauge main line we need at least 75 mm (3 inches) of ballast under the sleepers to provide good support and drainage, and the sleepers are 5 inches thick so the track bed needs to be at least 8 inches below the bottom of the rails. There were a couple of tree roots that had grown between the old sleepers that we needed to chop off and dig out, but by the end of the day we had pretty much got to the point where we can start installing the new sleepers (which are the same kind of plastic used by the Ffestiniog Railway) and ballasting the track. All that remained was to load up the wagon with our tools, and then I drove the Hunslet diesel to propel the wagon back to the yard.

Sunday was rather wet and windy, and I was glad to spend most of the day in the workshop shaping the bit for the new Annett’s key. First off I filed the end of the shank flat where the bit will be welded in due course. Next I used the grinding wheel to give me two flat, square edges on the small block of steel, cleaned up the face with emery paper, and blacked it using a Sharpie marker ready to mark out the shape by scribing it with the point of calipers set to the appropriate width. I checked the accuracy of my scribed lines against the existing key, and being happy that I’d measured correctly I started cutting with a hacksaw. It was good practice for using the hand tools, keeping the saw straight and cutting very close to the lines, then filing to the correct size. Took my time and ended up within 30 thou (thousandths of an inch) of the final dimensions. I’ll finish it off and test it in the ground frame locks after it’s been welded to the shank next weekend.

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