34081 92 Squadron by Dr Steve Lacey

Our first meeting of the 2022-2023 season began with a minute’s silence out of respect for her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The chairman welcomed all to the meeting and briefly introduced Dr Lacey who hoped that everyone would enjoy the evening in spite of it being a sad week.  He had brought a number of items relating to 34081 92 Squadron – some historical items for people to look at in the interval, with others available for sale to help towards the costs of maintaining the locomotive.  Steve highlighted that thanks should go to the writer of the original talk – Barry Woods, and to all the photographers and filmmakers who had contributed; the talk would include 34081’s history, restoration, and current situation.

Steve started with OVS Bulleid who was the original designer of the locomotive when he was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern, explaining the process and difficulties of getting a new design approved and the criteria to be considered.  So to achieve approval, the loco was designed for mixed traffic.  Gresley started with the A1 locomotive working through re-iterations up to the A4 before he got it right, but Bulleid only had one chance.  Built in 1948, at first the loco did not work particularly well but it was improved once in service, and did what it was supposed to do.  Mention was made of some of Bulleid’s other designs, for example coaching stock and other locomotives, with some elements such as bogies that could be seen as the forerunner of much later designs.  To increase passenger loading without lengthening platforms, which would have cost Southern a great deal of money, Bulleid designed double decker rolling stock for them which proved to be neither particularly popular nor successful.  Steve showed photographs as illustration and described his own experience of riding on them as a youngster during the short period that they were in service.

There were a number of early photographs of 34081 in service in various locations with information about where she was based, changes to her livery at different points in time, and the first appearance of her smokebox plate.  She was not so well kept in her latter days with BR and photographs showed her looking really scruffy with very battered casing.  This was largely due to the shortage of suitable materials for repairs and the poorer quality steel available at the time.  She went to Eastleigh for withdrawal in August 1964 and was towed to Dai Woodham’s scrapyard in Barry the following year.  Strangely enough, the locomotive hauling those to be scrapped on that occasion was the only one of the consist that did not survive.  There were two sets of 92 Squadron enamel plates which went to the RAF where one set was displayed in the Officers’ Mess.  The other set was intended for the Sergeants’ Mess but was never displayed there on the grounds that it would have been unlikely to survive.

One set of these plates was loaned for the fundraising efforts to raise the purchase price of £3500 to buy her from the scrapyard in 1973.  Then a further £350 had to be raised very quickly when the Chancellor of the day slapped on VAT at 10% with a photograph of the original Bill of Sale as illustration.  34081 finally left Woodhams for Wansford on the Nene Valley Railway (NVR) in November 1976.  Restoration in the beginning was no easy task – outside with no shed or other cover, and it took just over 20 years to complete the work.  She looked splendid shopped out at the NVR once the work was done.  A printed list of dates of historical milestones was available at the meeting which was very useful and included the September 1998 renaming and rededication ceremony.  This was followed by details of her progress running at various railways until she failed with broken stays at the North Norfolk Railway in April 2008.

She was subsequently returned to Wansford on the NVR and we were treated to Steve’s personal experiences with 34081 on his first day as a volunteer, with the job of clearing out the smokebox.  It had been left for about 3 years, with plenty of sludge that had slowly caked up with rain so he explained how he had cleared it all out while trying to avoid damaging the smokebox which he later found out was to be scrapped!  There were some very interesting photographs of craning the boiler and showing the interior of the Bulleid tender with an explanation of the internal structure.  This wasn’t the original tender for 34081 as Woodham’s tended to store locomotives and tenders separately although it is the right type.  Theirs came from a locomotive whose owners had just built a new tender so they offered the original one as a swap for a nice new one.  Needless to say, the offer was declined.  Steve’s next project was to clean the oil bath from the chain driven valve with photographs showing the item before and after.  What a contrast.  It is not often that one sees photograph and film of the internal mechanisms both stationary and whilst working, and this was particularly interesting.  Something else that Steve learned was the art of hot riveting, more of a problem than you might expect as Steve has partial colour blindness and the heat, and colour which indicates temperature, has to be just right for the process to work successfully.

There were further excellent photographs and film of different stages of the restoration work together with explanations and descriptions and it is extraordinary how this brought the whole process to life, showing just how much work was involved.  Steve was rightly proud of using what he had learned in A-level physics to solve one of the problems of fitting the central connecting rod without the use of the pit which was not available at the time, using scaffold boards and rollers.  A simple solution and it worked.  Dismantling, repairing, putting everything back together all has to be done in the right sequence and 34081 finally made it back into traffic in January 2017.  She was re-dedicated by the padre of 92 Squadron in May the same year and has since run with mixed traffic as she was originally designed to do, and is even allowed to get grubby for more picturesque photo charters.  Also worth noting are the problems with the smokebox.  In the days of regular use, steam locomotives would have been kept warm at all times, but now they go cold in between firings and the cycle of hot and cold means that the smokebox cracks.  This entails repairs with new sections to be welded in.  Photographs showed the process and how well the repairs are done so that they are difficult to notice once completed.

34081’s name is 92 Squadron so we were given an outline of the historical links with that squadron of the RAF and their participation in the Battle of Britain.  The original enamel plates had become very fragile and could not be re-used on the restored locomotive, plus there was the danger of theft.  Luckily, however, the original manufacturers are still in business and were able to make replicas – the last two ever made as the person who did the enamelling has now retired.  The originals are on permanent loan to the small museum at the Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel Le Ferne after Biggin Hill declined to take them.

With such an interesting presentation there was little time for questions and answers afterwards but they included the discovery that the NVR has the real Thomas the Tank Engine.  Those holding the copyright for the books etc threatened legal action until it was carefully explained that the Reverend Awdry himself had named it with evidence to prove this, at which point everything went quiet again.  Other questions asked about the possibility of mainline running – answer: it becomes very expensive and not viable.  The vote of thanks highlighted the splendid heavy engineering photographs, Steve’s enthusiasm for the subject, the historical links with 92 Squadron, and that the presentation would be an inspiration to volunteers to work on something like this.

Our thanks to Steve for an excellent, informative and enthusiastic presentation.