1863 Mountaineer Loco Project

Building  an accurate replica of the original design to allow Mountaineer to live again!


July 2023 Newsletter


Newsletter – July 2023



Dear Friends and Mountaineers

Steady progress has been made towards reaching rolling chassis status this summer.

Having designed a custom burner and framework to hold the wheels, the team at NBR Darlington, made light work of completing both wheelsets and all four crankpins.

The wheelsets were then placed into the axleboxes of the inverted chassis. The purpose for this is to take final measurement of the wheel centres thus allowing us to order the already financed coupling rods.

The next few weeks will see the fitting of the springs, sacrificial bronze rubbing plates and spring retaining system, not seen on the prototype nor visible on the finished locomotive.

Once complete, the frames will be righted, followed by presenting the boiler to the chassis.

We will be rolling chassis by August 18 this year.

All this work is labour intensive and impossible to estimate accurately, however a rough guide of £4000 should suffice.

If you would like to sponsor some of the costs it would relieve pressure on our reserves , thus enabling us to continue.

When rolling chassis is achieved, NBR can allocate us machine time in September, we would like to start machining the eccentrics and the eccentric sheaves . This is estimated at £7000 for the eight items. We would like to start the fundraising early as it is quite a hefty amount to raise.

We are looking for a new web designer, can you help? If so then call me on the number below.

Are you coming to our open day in Shildon and Darlington? It would be great to put faces to your names.

Please dig deep, recruit new members and spread the word.

Thank you for getting us this far, we are on our way.

Kind regards

David RC Wood

07712 584821  July 2023