Back in May/June time, we covered the dismantling of the ex-South Africa bogies which were acquired to go under the Ffestiniog Coach no.117. You may recall that the FR coach was only available without its Welsh bogies - these have been re-used under Boston Lodge's latest masterpiece. The SA bogies had two real issues. Firstly, the wheelsets were a bit tight on the back-to-back dimensions and clouted the check rails on some points. Secondly, the bogies are going under passenger carrying rolling stock and hence need to be spot-on in terms of condition; the idea of finding some long-forgotten assembly error when the coach is in passenger service at Apedale is not appealing. So, three bogies thus far have been dismantled with varying mixtures of cunning and brute force. The wheelsets have been machined to sort the back-to-back issue, and all the bogie components have been inspected and repaired as needed. Re-assembly of the bogies has proved to be fairly straightforward, and we now have two shiny black bogies. The next step is to install the air brake cylinders on them, and then they're ready to go back under the coach. There's a bit of an issue on the coach underframe which will delay things slightly, but the coach continues to make good progress. As ever, get in touch here.
