Toddington Standard Locomotive Ltd (TSLL) – the owner of Standard class 4 2-6-0 no. 76077 – has launched an appeal to raise the estimated £150,000 cost to overhaul the locomotive’s boiler. This latest step in the locomotive’s rapid restoration, was first announced to shareholders at the company’s Annual General Meeting in November last year.
While the locomotive is at Locomotive Maintenance Services’ (LMS) Loughborough workshops, the boiler, no. 1052 built at Darlington in 1952, is currently at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway’s (GWSR) Toddington depot. Following a professional boiler inspection, a tender document, detailing the work required, is being sent to selected boiler workshops.
While the boiler is generally in good condition, having been overhauled at Eastleigh in 1964 with the engine being withdrawn just three years later, both the parallel front section of the boiler barrel and the front tubeplate will be replaced.
Andrew Meredith, TSLL’s Engineering Director, said: “While it would be possible to carry out repairs, the cost of replacement isn’t too much greater than the labour and material costs of repair. Fitting these new items will help ensure trouble-free operation over the first ten-year boiler insurance certificate and minimise the amount of work that might otherwise be needed at the next overhaul.”
Amongst other work required: repair of some corrosion pitting at the bottom of the tapered barrel section; new studs for the dome cover, cutting out and replacing corroded platework at the front corners of the firebox throat plate; build up wasted metal on the backhead; refinish the pads and fit new studs for manifold, backhead fittings and other boiler mountings; replace rivets and patch screws within the copper firebox and replace Monel stays and stay nuts as necessary; replace crown stay nuts and repair copper stay heads; replace foundation ring rivets and supply and fit the 156 smoke tubes and 24 flue tubes.
Andrew adds: “The boiler has suffered over the past 50 years, being stored outside firstly in the salt sea air at Barry scrapyard and then at Toddington. But it is fundamentally sound and I’m confident that after the overhaul, it will give good service for the foreseeable future.”
The company set December 2026, the locomotive’s 70th birthday, as a target for seeing the locomotive steamed for the first time since 1967. “We are on target to meet that date despite delays during COVID,” Andrew Meredith said. “However, to meet our deadline it’s vital that we raise the necessary money for the boiler overhaul as quickly as we can, so that we can press on with the overhaul without interruption due to lack of funds.”
Marketing Director Ian Crowder said: “The boiler overhaul project has got off to a good start with almost £10,000 banked already. It’s important that we raise a ‘fighting fund’ to get the work started sooner rather than later but we will also launch a component sponsorship scheme to fund specific elements of the overhaul, such as tubes and stays.
“76077 may not be a glamorous locomotive with a fancy name. It spent its working life in handling goods traffic in and around the industrialised North West. But as a modern heritage locomotive it counts among the most useful and easiest to maintain and operate.
“What’s more, the very fast pace of restoration seems to have captured the imagination of so many people: in less than ten years, we are transforming an incomplete and corroded kit of parts into a living, functioning locomotive.”
Once overhaul has been completed, 76077 will join the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway’s fleet, although the owners also expect to hire it out to other heritage railways.
Full information and a brochure can be requested from info@standard76077.com or visit https://standard76077.com/boiler-appeal/
