The Canadian Pacific Restoration project – part 2

Welcome to the second episode about the Canadian Pacific restoration project.

This project, often called the CanPac project, is about the restoration of the Merchant Navy class locomotive, number 35005, Canadian Pacific and also two carriages designed by Oliver Bulleid in the 1940s.

Becky explains that some parts of the locomotive are at Eastleigh works (where Canadian Pacific was originally built) and that the boiler is at Ropley.

Some of the people working on the restoration at Eastleigh actually worked in the works when it was operated by British Rail. The boiler shop, at Ropley, is well equipped and has welders who are certified to work on  ‘pressure systems’.

Becky also talks about the cost of the restoration project and where the funding has come from. There are still many opportunities to donate to the project – perhaps by paying for a ‘boiler stay’!

We then move outside and into the busy yard to see the bogies and frame for Canadian Pacific’s tender. Once we’ve crossed the yard we enter the carriage shop where the two Bulleid coaches are being restored. We discuss the materials originally used for building these carriages. There are a number of photographs of the restoration of the carriages in the gallery.

Please click on a thumbnail to open the gallery:

My thanks to Becky for her time and the members of the team at the Watercress Line for making these podcasts possible.

To visit the Watercress Line website please follow this link Watercress Line

Join us in two weeks for our final podcast about the restoration project for the Merchant Navy class locomotive Canadian Pacific, the pride of the Watercress Line fleet. To visit the Canadian Pacific project web pages please follow this link Canadian Pacific project pages.

Full size copies of the photographs taken by MrT are available from FlickrFacebook and some through Instagram.

The music Steam Railway used in this podcast is licensed from AKM Music. The recording of Canadian Pacific in action is from material published by the Watercress Line.

© The MrT Podcast Studio 2018

Author: Tim D

In the early 1970s Mr Timothy & his Phonograph was a popular mobile disco around Leeds University and Tim was known as MrT. Tim also spent 9 years broadcasting a weekly programme on Hospital Radio in Wakefield. He worked for more than 40 years for large industrial organisations and spent his last 15 years in global commercial management roles. Following retirement he started making podcasts in 2017.