The Bury Standard 4 Group has found a split steam tube on BR Standard 4 No. 80097, currently residing at the East Lancashire Railway.
This is the second tube to fail in three years after the boiler was overhauled by a specialist company in 2018.
The bad news is that the boiler inspector has said that all the small tubes must now be replaced.
Work has seen the tubes removed for a full inspection inside the boiler to see what condition the large tubes are in.
For this to happen, the running board, steam pipe cladding, main smokebox steam pipes and the brick arch have had to be removed.
This is a major blow for the group, with the small tubes costing £6500 plus labour. The other blow is that 80097 will not be earning any steaming fees on the East Lancs Railway.
If you would like to donate towards the cost of the replacement, you can do so over on the Bury Standard 4 Group website.
I presume that “a specialist company in 2018” are aware that their overhaul may not have been up to expectations?
It’s probably the supplier of the small tubes, the quality of the metal used is not what it used to be, traction engine tubes are also failing after a few years