Boiler Certified

On Thursday March 6th, 2025, Pozieres’ boiler was hydrostatically tested in the presence of the boiler inspector. This process involves filling the boiler with water, warming it to operating temperature, and pumping additional water into the boiler to pressure test it beyond the 160PSI operating pressure. This will expose any leaks in the rivets, seams, and notably any issues with the numerous firebox patches and new washout plugs we have installed.

The boiler passed with no leaks at 200PSI, which is a great achievement after several years of work by our volunteers, alongside the running maintenance of our operational locomotives.

From here, the boiler insulation and cladding will be painted and reinstalled, along with boiler fittings such as the safety valves and turret. The water tanks have been repaired in conjunction with the boiler work, and will be painted and placed back on the locomotive itself, ready for service. Same goes for the cab. Auxiliary components such as the Westinghouse air compressor and turbo generator have also been serviced separately, and are ready to be refitted.

The new ash pan has been cut and shaped, and were loosely test fitted for the hydro test. Some work still remains to fit the ash pan to the locomotive permanently, and connect the damper and flusher. In the smokebox, a small amount of work still remains to refit the spark arrester and baffle plates, while making repairs where necessary.

Once these jobs are complete and the locomotive repainted, it will re-enter service, hopefully very soon now that the big ticket item (boiler) has been completed.

All the patches in the boiler have been completed, and we are currently in the process of riveting them in place, and ascertaining that the boiler will hold water. The brackets on the throat plate have also been reinstalled. We have taken the chance to replace a few life-expired crown stay nuts and washers, as well as a few tubes that were going to fail shortly. To work on the tubes, we have taken the front end (spark arrester etc) apart, to allow access.

Over a year into the Pozieres project now, and we are starting to see some exciting results of our labour. The throat plate patch has been welded and rivetted in, and two new washout plugs have been successfully added to the front corners. Hopefully this will make washing out the boiler much easier in the future. All the stays have been completed, and all that remains is the final fit-up of the inner patches, and riveting them in place.

Over the last several months, work has been focused on the boiler repairs. Thickness testing has been undertaken all over the boiler, to check for any thin spots of concern, and also to compare to our notes from the original 2011 restoration. All seems ok and we have not lost much thickness at all, which is a sign that our boiler treatment plan is working well. The front inner corners of the firebox have been cut out for replacement, as has the lower part of the throat plate. These were the areas that initially sent Pozieres out of service, and we are currently test fitting and aligning the new patches.

Work to strip Pozieres down to the bare boiler is progressing well, with all the cladding removed by our volunteers. Over the past couple of months we have been removing stay bolts from the drivers side of the firebox, with the intention to replace all that need replacing, in the hope that we will not have to return to this area any time soon. The C type air compressor has also been removed for a tune up, and the smokebox has been sanded down to bare metal for a repaint.