We all know that Royal Hudson # 2860 was brought back to steam in 2006 after an 18 month or so effort by staff & volunteers at the Heritage Park .Whilst this was a great effort by all concerned that was not the end of the story . As it stood # 2860 was "in steam " but there were many tasks that still had to be done on the locomotive .We know Andy Faris took over as chief mechanic, we had the task of getting the Hudson ready for it's trip to White Rock, which it did very well & with a minimum of problems when it returned to Squamish , and over the past months many smaller mechanical tasks and paintwork repairs have been performed bringing the locomotive up to a better standard.

During the late fall it was decided that the boiler backhead panels were in sad shape as they had been taken off for the restoration , some were left outside during that period & they were painted in 4 shades of black & the brass work was showing signs of neglect, even though cleaning had taken place . As the gauge clusters were to be removed to enable the backhead panels to be taken apart , thoughts came to mind that this would be an ideal time to renovate the brasswork & clean up the backing plates .

When could this take place? - Andy was busy with park projects - I am only able to go up to the park on Saturdays , but cleaning & painting the two clusters would take many hours of prep , paint , polish & they needed to be reassembled ready to install once the backhead panels were repainted , hence the home style preservation/renovation project took shape.

I had spare hours over the holiday period in December , so it made sense to take the project home - I live in an apartment in Abbotsford . One cluster at a time, I carefully packed them into the car , on arrival at home, lugged them up 2 levels & then the spare room was covered with newspaper & cloths & the gauges laid out (cats took a while to figure them out) .First task was to disassemble gauges from backplate , most brass screws came loose ok - there were some that needed persuasion & talking to ! Everything was laid out in order -- gauges / screws & fittings so that there was no confusion when it came to reassembly -- what would Andy say if the pressure gauge was in the wrong spot !!

Next operation was to remove the old paint from backplates - I used a paint stripper as there were several thick coats of black to be taken off , much pasting & scraping with the window open ( December) and finally down to bare metal - that job had not been done in a while ! Next cleaning up of the residue & then we got down to sanding the metal to get a good surface to paint . Now all this did not take place overnight , several days passed between stages , once clean metal was had, we set up for spray painting.

Covering up things in the spare room I started the job of painting - several light coats at first , then a few heavier ones & we came up with a nice gloss finish , now we have the front to do & then repeat for the second cluster. Time wise it's now mid -January, it's taking longer that I had estimated, but we are now committed ( or should be ! ) , time is put in after work in the evenings till we are finished with paintwork , now we have to clean the brass gauges .

On the top & sides the brass was reasonably clean , it was easily accessed & polished , so not much effort was needed to bring up the shine - underneath the gauges were a whole different scenario! It was difficult to clean near the fittings, so the brass had corroded to a hard, almost black surface - remember # 2860 had sat outside at North Vancouver as well at the Heritage Park for several years - so no cleaning in this area had taken place .

Now it was easier to set up at the kitchen table with paper & cloths , cleaning supplies & go at them 1 gauge at a time till they were up to standard -- time line now is later January - thought I would be done by now - but the show must go on ---- So I sat at the table polishing & cleaning till my finger was too sore - I'd quit & then carry on when things felt better again , I even had to resort to using scotch brite pads to clean the most corroded areas, then metal polish to smooth the surface .Finally towards the end of January all gauges were clean & presentable - a simple task to reattach them to the backplates , tighten all screws and -- project is complete .

Once transported back to the Park, I was particularly nervous transporting them, as they would have a good value as scrap and as well - historical value - some gauges even having their original Canadian Pacific branding on them, they were put in storage till the backhead panels were finished painting - that was completed a week or so ago and on inspection of the locomotive on Saturday 23rd February 2008 they had been duly reinstalled to their proper place .

So that ends the tale of the gauge restoration at home - now what ? ------- Not sure I can get a feedwater pump in the car Andy !!!!