Back to work today after a week off due to a combination of various factors.  Jim and I spentr the day working on the upper deck floor planks. The first job was to fix the B end canopy bend and bed it in mastic.  We nearly finished the detailing on the A side edge plank and its associated moulding.  That should be fitted next week.  We also prepared the first three normal planks for C side.  The ends of these cover the canpoy bend and the undersides were grooved to make them look like the ceiling planks which are half the width of the floor planks.  This means cutting a V groove down the centre of the last 2' of the plank and planing the edges.  We'd never used the router before but after experimenting on some off cuts got it to cut the V groove easily.  Hopefully these planks can be screwed down next week. 

Meanwhile away from the tram the final Oilers have been delivered and the first of the axlebox castings have been machined.  Hopefully the others will be redy next week.

Great news,  the wheelsetw have been delivered.  The first set of loose wheel, chilled ron tram wheels manufatured for a century (We think) and all don in Yorkshire.  Yesterday a small group assembled at Multitech Engineering at featherstone to take delivery.  here they are being brought out to us after being weighed.

The locking collar holding a loose wheel can be seen nearest the camera.

They were then loaded onto a lorry and made a fine sight.

Then it was a quick trip to the tram shed where they were craned off onto some temporary track.

Jim Soper is seen steadying them.

They were then carefully lowered and rolled into the garage for storage.

Jim and Dave Tanner (ex test pilot) checking the wheels before we rolled them carefully along the track.  A great day.

Todat we got the axles painted and the bearing protected with a layer of grease and then spent the rest of teh day fitting the brackets for the second canopy bend and doing some of the detailing for fitting the edge board on A side.  We also test fitted the bearings in the axleboxes and surprise surpise they fit beautifully.  All in all a great start to the New Year.

Not a great deal achieved today but we did get some work done.  Jim and I spent a couple of hours this morning measuring up some pre drilled holes in the solebars.  These take the ends of truss rods that connect across the tram to the tie bars that run between the axleboxes.  The tie bars are needed for assembling the axleboxes so the data was needed for the drawing to get them made.  Then we finished screwing down the first upper deck plank.  Hopefully we'll get some more planks fitted in the new year.  The edge ones are coples as they have mouldings atached and various small pieces that detail the joint with the canopy bends.  A Happy New Year to you all.

A Happy Christmas and New year to all my readers.  Not a lot to report on progress with the tram body today but a lot of progress on the engineering side.

The big news is that the wheelsets will be delivered in the new year.  They were assembled at Multitech this week and looked great.

These have just been non destuctively tested for cracks and found to be good. (That's the white coating on the tread and the journal.  There are still a few adjustments to be made but I was surprised at how easily the loose wheel rotated on it's bearing.

here is a picture of the bearing area for the loose wheel with the locking collar shown.

The very distinctive 'knuckle thread' can be see.  This is the same thread that is used on fire hoses as it is nearly impervious to dirt and doesn't jam.

The Phosphor bronze bearings were also delivered for machining.

The LTHS think that this is the first time that a wheelset of this type has been designed and manufactured by a society like ours.

I also collected the trunnion castings from H Downs and sons.  These look very good and just need a small amount on machining before theya re ready to be painted and fitted.

You can see the area inside where the oiler, axle and bearing will go. One of the sliding colalrs that are designed to be scarificial is shown on the left hand side.  This will also need a small amount of machining.

The only work we got done on the tram today was to measure the wheelbase accurately so that I can finish the running gear design.  We need two tie bars making that connect the base of the axle boxes and obviously these need to have the same length as the holes that are already drilled in the solebars. Things are really coming together.  The wheelbase turns out to be 4' 9 7/8" quite how this was arrived at we don't know but two of the mounting holes are very close to window pillars so that might be the reason.

We spent the rest of the day stuffing envelopes with flyers for Leeds Transport Volume 5.  Then it was time to pack up and leave a very cold and snowy tram depot.

More reports in the new year.

A fairly short day for me as my wife has just had a knee replacement so I was needed elsewhere in the morning but after Lunch Jim and Stephen and I actually managed to get the first upper eck floord board installed.  This looks good and we just need to put a few more screws in next week to finish the job.

Away from the tram much has been happenning.  The pattern for the axlebox was finished much earlier than expected by gerald at heritage patterns in Lockwood.

here the various parts of a very complex pattern can be seen.  In the right foreground is the pattern for the sliding collar that the axlebox slides on.  this is spearate so that it can be replaced esily.

Here are two more parts of the pattern that form the corebox for the interior of the axlebox.

The patterns were then taken to H Downs and son Foundry and there is a chance that we will ahve the finished product by Christmas.

The wheels are to be asembled as wheelsets on friday this week and weather permitting we will get them delivered early next week.  This is real progress woth the running gear.

The other great news is that Volume 5 of Leeds Transport by J Soper which is published by the society is ow at the printers.  This is to be published in February 2011 and details of the pre publication offer are here.