WN44 - What a glorious day! Flugal - by Kerry Young - 17th May 2007

17th May 2007

Here we are, the middle of May and we got a lovely warm Nor' West day like this. Oh boy. If only it could stay this way! Ah well, let's see what happened at the glue factory today. I had an errand to do before my arrival, so was later than usual. To my surprise, road one of the workshop was absolutely empty and our Jolly Roger was busy with a broom, doing a sweep while he had the opportunity. In the near distance, 'Tr22' was pushing 'Ec7' towards the empty road. With the locomotive in the shop, its size was readily apparent..........................

Check that out. It sure blocks the view! So why is this being done? To accomplish all the maintenance on the underside. This and the 'Eo' are being prepared for certification. On the underside there is provision to lubricate the motor suspension bearings. (The bearings that align the drive motors with the drive axles and maintain the mesh of the drive gears. These are very big serious bearings.) Also the gear lube can be checked at the same time, along with some of the brake rigging. While in the shop, the drive motor brush gear was checked. Access was through the floor and from the underside also. Want to see through the floor?.................

For those of you who can recognise what's here, (are you there Johan?) you will see that the brushes are near new and the commutator is looking really good. The inside edge of the flange of the drive wheel is seen just below and the outside of the suspension bearing is adjacent to the wheel hub. The gearset being on the other side.

Here's our Roger with a syringe doing the suspension bearings on one side. Roger used to work on the 'Eo' locomotives at Otira and knows far more about these engines than he lets on about. To the far side of the syringe is the casing for the drive gears. Behind his hat is the clever system that ties the motor bogies together so that there is no load transferred through the cab framework of the locomotive.

Sorry about the focus, but here's another pic with something you seldom see. The collector surface of the pantograph shoes. Sadly not clear but obvious just the same.

This is actually the 'Eo' which was done later, but you can see the drive wheels, the suspension bearings looking rather oily, the gearcase on the right and the motor frame housing underneath and beyond. The piece of hose carries the forced ventilation to the traction motor. There you are, everything you wanted to know and more about early electric locomotives.

Outside, the covered wagon and the 'F' sit on road one of the carriage shed.

Outside still, we see roads two ande three are nearly finished. I learned today, that road one is to be done as well. I had hoped to get you a picture of the Heisler during shifting but missed out. I think Sir Colin will come to my aid a bit later on. Note the new point set is operated by the points lever to the left of the next line on the left.

For my part, the first thing in the day was to deal with the injection pump coupling on the air compressor. It was only driving on one bolt, the other having been lost to the wind. It was necessary to make bridging plates to span the breaks in the coupling plate and time it by ear as the compressor manufacturer covered the flywheel timing hole with the chassis rails. How handy can you get?

Meanwhile, across the way......................

............Bob the builder was beavering away on the end boards for the covered wagon. Brian Frost was in the cab of the 'F' I thought, but I see no evidence as I took the shot.

Back inside during the afternoon and I got this one of Joe Pickering doing the suspension bearings in the 'Eo'. Don't ask me what the dog collar is doing. I have no idea!

We were really pleased to have Frank Frayle visit us again. You will remember he drove during that first time we had the electrics at Ferrymead under their own power. Frank is a great fund of information, as he was largely responsible for keeping the electrics going in their final years in revenue earning service with the NZR.

That's it for this week my friends. Let's see what next week brings! Cheers, 'K'.