Latest News

Current news items are listed below. If the Acrobat icon is shown, then click on the icon to read the attachment. If an image is shown, you can click it for a full size image. You can find old news items in the News Archive.

A Kit of Bits!
10/12/2018
	CTL Seal are assembling a kit of bits around the frames in order to plan the assembly. Here the vertical frame stretcher and boiler carrier is being craned. On the right you can see the smokebox saddle, below that the front cast frame stretcher. Bottom right is the dragbox (upside down) with the flange for the centring pin for the pony truck (or trailing truck). In the front left is the rear cast frame stretcher.
Lots of Space
10/12/2018
	We are really fortunate in being able to build Hengist in a factory with lots of room. Here you can see that the British Railways frame drawings have been pinned up on boards so that all of the relevant drawings are easily to hand. The coloured drawings are from our bolting plan document which has been produced from the 3D CAD model of the frames by Keith Greenhow, our 3D CAD expert. You can make out the cross references to each sheet of the bolting plan on the drawing. Here Luke England from CTL Seal - who is managing the assembly - discuss the procedure with Geoff Turner and Keith.
Latest Engineering meeting.
01/12/2018
	First of December saw the 52nd meeting of the HENGIST Engineering team; coupled with the normal engineering meeting an extra earlier Bogie Design Review meeting was held. When more time is required for meetings, as with this one, and when a projector is required we hold these meetings at the impressive Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Sheffield who provide us with a room and projector at their Factory 2050 building and offices. Massive thanks go to AMRC for hosting us once again. The photo shows a section of the central circular office area within the Factory 2050 building. All the meeting rooms within the factory are named after iconic British engineering developments, today we used the HMS Victory room.
Frame Assembly Starts
26/11/2018
	A major milestone has been hit this week as the frame assembly work has started. The main frames have been laid out on trestles as you can see in the photo. A chamfer has been ground on the inside lower edge of the frames as specified in the British Railways drawings. This will allow the cast steel stretchers to fit tightly to the inside of the frames. The first 3 vertical stretchers have been prepared by removing the protective paint from the flanges as we need a metal to metal contact on all connecting faces. The right hand stretcher is the intermediate boiler carrier. The current plan is that initial asssembly is with the main frame plates horizontal as shown. Once a number of stretchers have been fitted, the frames will be rotated through 90 degrees and lowered onto the cast steel strechers.
Frame Assembly
26/11/2018
	A challenging area in frame assembly is at the rear of the main frames. Here a complex fastener pattern joins the main frames, the frame extensions, the front firebox support/pony truck pivot and the feet for the trailing axle keep. Here members from the Clan Project Engineering team discuss the best method of assembly with the CTL Seal assembly team.
Cast Stretchers update.
19/11/2018
	Work on the machining of the three lower cast frame stretchers is nearing an end, two have been completed with the third stretcher only requiring a few hours work before a final dimensional check can be carried out upon it. As soon as the final stretcher has been passed off then the erection work of the main frames can start in earnest. These three lower cast stretchers are large components and also very complex in the number of machined surfaces on each one, the middle and rear stretchers weigh approximately 500kg each. The attached photo of the completed Rear Stretcher shows some of the detail closer up, including the Spring Hangers, please note for ease of storage on the pallet the stretcher is upside down. As our usual Monday work party left CTL Seal yesterday the Main Frame plates had been moved into position in the Erecting Shop in readiness for the main erecting build work to commence.