A Sticky Situation

After the initial rush to progress the frame installation ready for the S&D 200 celebrations at Kirkby Stephen East (an excellent event held over the August Bank Holiday in 2025), it was now time to paint and ‘fettle’ the levers in readiness for their operational role.

In most cases, it was just a case of building up layers of paint, in various colours to suit their intended function…


Demonstration Section

However, after painting, lever No. 9 (facing point lock for No. 8 points, at the station end of the headshunt crossover) had developed a problem with its catch-block deciding to stick in the raised position!

Catch-blocks are heavy and designed to drop into a notch when the lever is in either the normal or reverse position and prevent the lever from accidently moving. If the block doesn’t drop by gravity, then there is a risk of the lever being left in mid stroke.

Since painting, lever No. 9 had developed a sticking point whereby its catch-block wouldn’t drop back down. To overcome this problem, it was decided to remove the lever completely for a thorough investigation…

It was thought that at some point in its life it had suffered a minor twist. The easiest remedy would be to carefully remove some layers of paint with a flap wheel, skim the offending damage to the metal surface and build back up with primer and on to blue enamel. Voilà! It now functions perfectly, along with the others!



Whilst on the subject of painting levers, No. 15 has a story of its own…

The original plan was for the ‘demonstration’ end of the frame (levers 18-22 inclusive) to be locked in/out of use by No. 1 lever, which also doubles up as release for the Junction Ground Frame.

However, it became apparent that there would be insufficient capacity in the locking trays to accommodate this requirement. An alternative suggestion was to utilise the only spare lever, freshly painted white - No. 15. (Note from Tim – a very good suggestion, off the cuff, from Will – it freed up enough space to get the rest of the locking sorted!)

Bingo! Its close locality to the display end of the frame would also work in its favour!

But what colour should it be painted? It wouldn’t function in an operational capacity, and it’s no longer ‘spare’…

Brown and blue? It’s a release lever, of sorts, but not as we know it…

Brown and white? It’s sort of a ‘king’ lever, but different!

Red and white? Why not! After much research and tea drinking the debate was settled! (This stems from some King levers being red and white striped before uniform standardisation, but I suspect there’s a lot more digging to be done to get to the bottom of this!)

Introducing, the “candy stick”!

With all levers now in 1st gloss, final glossing will resume once the weather warms up a bit – although the ‘box does get rather cosy when the fire is lit!






 

Location: Stainmore Railway Company, South Rd, Kirkby Stephen CA17 4LA, UK

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