Static Chassis Manufacture
The B17 Steam Locomotive Trust (B17 SLT) is pleased to be able to report further significant progress on the static chassis. All the components of the static chassis are now on site at Llangollen Railway Engineers Services and the assembly is virtually complete.
On Thursday 29th November, the B17 SLT hosted Ricardo Rail at Llangollen (see the earlier report of the B17 SLT appointing Ricardo Rail, the accredited Independent Assessment Authority) and their Principal Consultant – Eddie Draper B.Tech, C.Eng, MiMechE, MIDGTE and Senior Consultant Alistair Leach M.Eng, C.Eng, MiMechE, for a review of the progress so far.
The meeting reviewed our processes covering engineering design and control, procurement, manufacturing control and non-conformance management. Each were backed up with examples of the documentary record held for all parts that make up the Static Mainframe. The work package for steel castings was selected by Eddie Draper for particular scrutiny from start to finish and was fully representative of our model. Each of the steel castings and fabrications were checked to relate back to the documentation audit earlier. This brought into focus our use of 'Sheet Technicals', which is a design document fulfilling the need to specify information not present on LNER drawings from the 1930s, and also our own particular requirements as the job evolved - so that was clearly understood. The Inspection concluded that all was well up to the point reached and would reconvene when the chassis is virtually complete to witness the torque tightening of fasteners including torque setting/measuring equipment and supporting calibration records – a matter of only weeks.
