On 30th June 1930 No.6024 King Edward I was officially “rolled out” at the GWR’s workshops at Swindon. So, it is Happy Birthday to No.6024!

To mark this day we present five photographs of the locomotive at different points in its life, GWR through to preservation.

Whilst it has not been possible to complete the current overhaul of the locomotive in time for this milestone we hope to shortly restart work on the locomotive so it won’t be too much longer for No.6024 can be seen and heard at work once more. It is a day that can’t come soon enough!

In 2007 Shirley Turner produced a video on No. 6024 in action on the ‘Torbay Express’ trains. This is now available on this website, our thanks to Shirley for making this great record of a good season of operating a train so suited No. 6024.

The video, split into three parts, can be viewed here.

Album number nine from the Bob Robson collection has now been published. Sadly this is the final album in the collection, there are no more photographs to publish.

This selection of Bob’s photographs starts in 2003 with the odd older one also included. We hope you enjoy this final album and all of those previously published. They all provide us with an unique view of No. 6024’s life in preservation.

Album nine can be viewed here.

6024 News – Spring 2020

At this difficult time we feel it is important to bring news of 6024. As you will appreciate all work on the overhaul at Minehead had to cease in March. Government guidelines put the core of our working party in the “vulnerable” group and the West Somerset Railway has rightly closed its doors for the time being.

We had been working towards having 6024 near complete for its 90^th birthday in late June. Clearly this is also no longer going to be possible. It is extremely frustrating that after an excellent start to 2020, following the return of the boiler, we can no longer predict when the locomotive will be completed.

That is the bad news but it is not all doom and gloom! There has been much progress in the past few months, a summary follows spread across several posts which are now available on the news area of the 6024 Preservation Society Ltd’s website.

Cladding & Lagging

Further work has been needed from our volunteers to bring the surface to a condition suitable for obtaining a good paint finish. Each sheet is being given 3 coats of paint on the boiler side and 4 coats on the outside, the last being the first in top coat. We fully expect the sheets to be damaged during fitting but it is best to get as much protection on now as possible. Getting the cladding sheets ready to fit – which is ongoing work – has involved many hours of work from a small team who have worked very hard.

The first rings of lagging, fitted at the smokebox end of the barrel, were fitted on the last day of work before the enforced pause.

Pipework, Handrails, Whistles and so on

The regular Thursday gang, who have stepped up to work more than one day most weeks, have been busy refitting the pipework down the driver’s side of the boiler. All are very thankful for the photographs available of the locomotive going together at the last overhaul!

To aid safe working the handrails have been temporarily refitted. In addition the society has purchased a pair of access stands.

The cab roof air vents have been altered to prevent hands, fire irons and so on being put through them, primarily as a safety feature for when running under overhead wires. Subsequently the cab roof has been painted but is not yet finished. 

Work has been undertaken to make sure our new lowered whistles will fit properly. This has involved some work on the corroded whistle shroud.

The bronze elbow for the blowdown system was being machined for us at Minehead when work paused.

A couple of our firebar patterns are being worked on at the moment to bring them back to a good standard.

Smokebox

Reassembly of the bare smokebox is making excellent progress. We have contracted out this work to speed up progress and reduce the amount of “heavy” work our working party needs to undertake. This arrangement is working very well.

Amongst the myriad of tasks the first undertaken has been riveting the smokebox to the boiler barrel, it being a loose fit as requested when delivered. The smokebox has also been bolted down to the smokebox saddle. Work on the access cover in the top, above the superheater header, is in hand. Assembly of the ejector exhaust down the driver’s side of the boiler revealed that the pad on the side of the smokebox was in the wrong place and was not flat. This has been corrected.

The superheater header, much to our disappointment, has required some crack repairs. This was nearly completed when we had to stop work. Once tested it will be refitted as soon as work can recommence. At the same time it is planned to refit the chimney. As part of the superheater header work the new superheater elements are to be given a fresh hydraulic test.

Electrics

A lot of preparations for work on the engine have been in hand during the first few months of 2020. Serious physical work was just starting when we had to stop work. Had things been different we expect that cable harnesses would have been installed during April ready for a contractor to come in to wire the TPWS and OTMR on the engine.

Air Brakes

This project, which is taking far longer than first envisaged, has made some significant progress recently. Extra help has been brought in to speed up the making and fitting of the pipe runs. It is just a few more weeks away from being as finished as it can be. Final tasks will only be able to be completed once the locomotive itself is nearly finished.

Work on an improved way of mounting the air pump governor is nearly completed.

One of the last tasks ticked off the list before we stopped work was to receive the overhauled set of brake valves which will be fitted once initial testing of the air brake system is complete.

Support Coach

A complete set of bogies are at Arlington in Eastleigh ready for fitting to W35333. Some work is required on the chassis to accommodate the change from Commonwealth to B5 bogies. This was due to commence with a visit from 6024 officers planned. We look forward to rescheduling this visit.

Paperwork

The very considerable task of getting all of the paperwork we need to be able to operate on the mainline up to current requirements is an on-going process with a number of key documents now at the draft stage. We have been fortunate to gain the assistance of someone new to help us with this.

The enforced time at home seems like an excellent opportunity to make some more progress!