Smokebox: Welding of the front and rear reinforcing rings into the Smokebox Wrapper is scheduled for this week (wk 26/1/26). Once done, the welding of the Smokebox Door assembly, shown in its finished state at the Greatest Gathering, is planned for the following week. As promised, a start was made with the front reinforcing ring welded to the back of the Smokebox Door Ring. The photo shows it initially tack welded into place, after which it will be fully welded into the Smokebox Wrapper.
Cab Construction
Cab: With the CAD drawings of the main cab structure complete (see 2025 updates), an excellent start has been made on fabricating the cab. First, a jig was made to replicate the rear of our chassis in the premises of Elvar Engineering. With the CAD design of the floor also now complete, actual construction has started.
The all weld construction is now underway of the undercab footplate structure and should be complete at the end of the week. Once complete, the cab structure will be ordered from the fabricator and is expected to be assembled by mid-March. The triangular fabricated brackets (originally cast) support the footplate and its under structure from the frames, about 2 ft forward of the cab; the footplate will be almost complete to this point.
The 6" x 3" curved fabricated angle carries the cab weight and defines the shape of the cab. This is joined to the rear buffer beam which will be bolted to the frames via a Gresley stiffening mod, which will arrive very soon from a heavy duty fabricator.
