Extract from ‘Bluebell Times’ by Bob Pamment, acting Locomotive Director.

Terrier No. 672 ‘Fenchurch’ left the Bluebell Railway on 14 April for Statfold Engineering in Staffordshire. The locomotive is undergoing a standard 10-year overhaul with work on both the mechanical condition and a thorough boiler repair.

The current plan is that the frames would be back with the Bluebell Railway between the end of the year and next Easter. That should give us time to re-assemble ‘Fenchurch’ ready for the summer. The aim is to have it running for its 150th anniversary in 2022. At present, we do not know the scope of the work involved in the cylinder block. The contractor is only stripping and removing the cylinder block from the frames at present. We will then decide the way forward: repair or replace. If the decision is to replace, a replacement set of cylinders has gone to Statfold with the frames.

The boiler overhaul requires substantial replacement of material, including replacement of the inner firebox, itself a new item from the locomotives overhaul in the 1980s. We have placed the order for the new flanged and welded firebox from Israel Newton & Sons in Derbyshire. This is scheduled for completion late summer. Most of the work to date has been checking and comparing design options for the replacement parts, gutting the boiler and liaising with the Boiler Surveyor. The new foundation ring has been fitted to the old firebox wrapper and has been sent away to ensure the new box fits it. The rest of the main boiler components are at the Railway already: the barrel extension, barrel patch, smokebox tubeplate, outer wrapper, lower backhead and throatplate pressings. New stays, tubes and rivets will be ordered when sizes and lengths are known.

We aim to work on the Terrier boiler alongside No. 34059 ‘Sir Archibald Sinclair’, which now has virtually all items on site.