The National Railway Museum in York is nearing the end of a £1.6 million project to restore the Flying Scotsman locomotive and get it back on the mainline. Danny Holmes, mechanical engineer and machinist in the NRM workshop, says:“ We are restoring Scotsman using the original 1926 drawings but using modern material equivalents — mainly steels, cast iron and bronze — where appropriate, and we are doing as much as we can in-house. Our machines are not necessarily the newest on the market, but we are breathing new life into them by using Heidenhain’s modern DRO technology.
“We are now achieving efficient and effective machining of a whole range of components in varying quantities, from one-offs to batches of 100. This includes bolts and bushes, as well as axle-box seal retainers — the list is exhaustive.” The Heidenhain ND 780 is a three-axis DRO that can be used on mills, drills and borers, as well as turning machines. Its functions include 10-datum memory, 16-tool library, distance-to-go display, scaling factor and mm/inch switching. The refurbished locomotive is expected to be on show in May, during a preview weekend at the museum. It will then be unveiled in all its glory in the summer, before its operating schedule on the mainline begins.