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eservation" career
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5th January 2009
Happy New Year to you all.........
Much has happened since the last update at the beginning of last month (Including Christmas). The final parts of the intercooler were re-assembled and the water system pressure tested and successfully held its water with no leaks (one more job off the tick list). The fire alarm system has also recieved some attention and after some poking with an electric multimeter a broken wire was eventually found in a plug for the removable roof section, also the suspect fire alarm relay was changed for a repaired spare and this system also now works correctly.
The above jobs done the loco was started-up with a small crowd watching on the 27th December 2008 and after 2hrs running it was deemed a success. So a test run was organised for the 3rd January 2009 and with the hectic festive season now behind us my time has been spent starting to degrease the entire engine room ready for a lick of long over due paint during the summer/autumn period of 2009. The 2nd January was too be a bloody cold day with a fight trying to put water into D5401, having to contend with a frozen hosepipe and small bore pipes on the loco this took 3hrs and after more battery charging (lead-acid cells do not like cold weather) the Class 27 loco was started to be warmed up for the following days test. 3rd January was a good day and 3 round trips to Leicester North station were taken with 2 trips having Class 45/1 D123 as support "in case of failure" and this too was successful with the replacement intercooler allowing the charge air from the Turbocharger to let the power unit wind up to full power on such a small load. So fingers crossed D5401 is fully serviceable for it first booked passenger services since November 2007 (14months ago).
9th December 2008
The last few weeks have seen some good fortunes for D5401 in the 2009 season.
The first and well known piece of information currently on the preserved diesels grapevine is the visit of D5401 to the Nene Valley Railway for its March 2009 Diesel Event. I wish to take this moment to say thank you for the NVR to consider asking for the hire of this locomotive in the first place and I do hope the event will be a success.
Secondly after many months of endless phone calls and various emails we were able to collect our recent purchase, which it is hoped to the overall condition of this machine to be repairable and made operational during 2009 (no specific date).
A complete spare Stones Vapor Steam heat Generator for 27056 (for the technically minded a O.K4616 series machine which has 3 coils arrangement compared to a standard steam boiler with smoke tubes surrounded by water). This item has not been in a Class 27 locomotive for a considerable amount of time and has suffered from open air storage. But the complete condition and it is evident the coils appear to be in sound condition. It has been transported to its new home and initial work has been undertaken to stop any further corrosion. We are lucky enough to have enough spares to make one good machine out of the present steam heat generator currently in D5401 and the recently purchased example. Due to the cold weather no attempt is going to be made to hydraulic the coils to test their condition as this needs to be in warm weather, so the machine is in dry storage until the spring of 2009.
Final work on the intercooler on D5401 is drawing to a close with the small leak on the bottom end plate sealed correctly and the fire alarm fault still needs to be traced and rectified before Christmas.
A couple of photos for the festive season has been added.
26th November 2008
Time has been spent on piping up the recently installed cleaned intercooler core. After a few hours bolting thing together and adding some water. A pressure test later and some battery charging the Class 27 was started successfully on the 25th November around lunchtime(ish), only one small leak worth mentioning which will be sorted shortly. The fire alarm relay/circuit continues to give grief and this shall be addressed shortly. Now with only a small number of "minor" jobs to complete and fingers crossed pending anymore problems/issues a test run will be cobbled together soon.
Once again some of the future ideas/thoughts/plans are going to becoming to a successful conclusion shortly so please visit again soon for an update.
There is no pictures added to this months gallery as there wasn't really anything worth taking a picture of.....
Also other Class 27 related news:
27007 successfully started-up for the first time in 8 years at the Mid Hants Rly on the 23rd November. Many thousands of hours have been spent on conducting an in-depth mechanical overhaul, much bodywork still needs doing and some electrical work but a major milestone in a long term project.
:- http://www.watercressline.co.uk/tw/pages/dieselco.htm
:- http://railways.national-preservation.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=17081
18th November 2008
Much progress has been made since the last update last month. The Class 27 suffered an air lock in the main fuel pump on arrival to the GCR after being unloaded so the power unit promptly shut down and eventually was rescued by D5185 (25035) a day later. A little priming of the pump and all was well again. As mentioned before plans have been forged to exchange the intercooler with a cleaned example, this is hoped that the Charge Air created by the Turbocharger is much higher before (2.5psi) and thus the full 1250bhp can be reached. The "old" intercooler core was stripped down and was made ready for removal on 5th November by myself and Martin H and sometime was spent hoovering and cleaning the cabs as well. The "new" intercooler core was collected by John Pepper from the N&LR who spent his spare time making a set of new brass spacers and bolting on the top Water end plate and then transported the completed core to Loughborough. The 15th November was the day we were able to have use of the Type 1 Locomotive Companys large "A" frame at Rothley carriage shed, much organising before hand meant with a excellent team of willing helpers and with John Pepper driving D5185 as the loco to tow D5401 to Rothley.
Once the fibreglass was removed the already loosened intercooler assembly was lifted out of the loco to the ground on two wood horses for stripping. Once again with all the kit to had this job took around 2 hours to remove the large air duct casting and exchange the core and bolt the assembly back together. Before the assembly was returned to the loco we decided to "raid" the recently opened "Ellis Tea Room" at Rothley station and after some food and tea we felt the need to finish the job quickly when John Pepper pointed to the sky at a large black cloud. The only time that Nigel Ball of the T1LC got on the roof to help replace the fibreglass roof section the heavens opened and very quickly we all got soaked (apparently Nigel appears to be a jinx as the same thing happened when the intercooler core was changed on D5185 a year ago). With this well planned job completed it was argeed that D5185 can been drive from D5401 using the Blue Star Multi-Jumper cables, So after removing a few fuses and taping up the fire alarm relay (which went pop at the wrong time) power tests done we got a path back to Loughborough Shed. I must say it is strange thing to be on a leading diesel loco with no engine running, moving the power handle back and the back loco pushing doing all the work. Well at least it proved the Multi-Jumper system still works.
The intercooler assembly still requires final piping up at a later date, the power unit filled with water and the loco started-up for testing, the fire alarm relay needs replacing as the coil decided to burn a small hole and also the fibreglass roof pins that hold the roof onto the loco body are extremely corroded and only fit for the bin, a new set of pins need to be manufactured. Once all this is done the loco can go out for a test run or two.
24th October 2008
On Wednesday 22nd October D5401/27056 was loaded on to a low loader and has left the N&LR for a period. By 9am the following day D5401 was safely on GCR metals. An agreement has been reached where the GCR has accepted D5401 as part of the resident diesel fleet for a period of 10 years. The locos original base at the N&LR still remains but after much work and a great deal of expense over the recent coolant system overhaul we need to start putting some money back in to the kitty. The GCR have kindly offered us the running time we are after and thus the move to the GCR for the foreseeable future.
The work involving the overhaul of the intercooler is still planned for mid-november and this will entail use of the GCR equipment which has been also agreed. Once again more progress on this "little" job to follow in due course
19th October 2008
11 months 3 weeks and 5 days since D5401 was withdrawn during October 2007 after the N&LR diesel event for cooler group repairs. I can safely say that the cooler group overhaul is complete.
Since the last update Martin H has put in some seriously long hours sorting the fiddly jobs and I have spent much time on the roof of the loco drilling,tapping, cleaning the roof panels ready to be refitted once all the internal jobs were done.
The internal air ducting from the radiator fan was re-installed and Martin H has spent much time making bellows, sizing, cutting and hole punching and then the painfully slow job of making each of these bellows fit, thanks to the design of these you need 3 hands and a second joint in each arm and two people for the ticky parts. Some pictures of Martins handy work in in the photo gallery from this period. The final finishing jobs of tidying, final painting, bolting the last few parts together has been the centre of our workload, far too many to mention but the loco is now water tight inside and outside to both coolant and rainwater. The tarpulin has been removed and all grills refitted, a small amount of outside touch-up painting is required as expected with a project like this.
The completion of this project on late afternoon Friday 17th October was marked by a brew!!! and starting the locomotive. Ironically once the loco was ticking over nicely and the correct air pressure obtained a power test was conducted and nothing happened........... other than the Blue fault light went bright........... bugger!!!!!!!!!!.................. no rest for the wicked....................
The next much smaller project that has been planned and started is the overhaul of the intercooler core as this appears to be blocked by too many years of idling and the loco wasn't developing full power while on hire to larger railways during 2007. Progress has already started with the heavy cleaning of a spare intercooler core and associated parts and also being cleaned with protective paint being applied. A date for the exchange of core has been set of mid-november, this is a quite involved "little" job which needs the roof removing and use of a crane. More progress to follow in due course.
Much progress in the back ground in recent months to secure the long term future of this locomotive and some developments that have been "on the cards" will come to a conclusion shortly. More information will follow soon.
5th October 2008
God where does time go!!!! Right a little overdue for an update. Both myself and Martin H had arranged to spend two days sorting alot of problems/issues/leaks on the 27 back on Monday 29th Sept and Tuesday 30th.
Monday 29th Sept
I arrived at the N&LR after lunchtime (had been working night shift the previous night). Martin H had arrived before me and had started a few small jobs until I arrived. The first thing done was to put the batteries on charge, after removing the Tarpulin over the cooler group both of us checked all the joint/radiator elements for tightens and checked the system was complete. This job done the filled the radiator system with water. After 5 mins a few leaks became apparent which need tightening further and we carried on filling the system. As expected more leaks started to show mainly the high balance pipe and the settling tank overflow pipes. We were unable to sort the leaks while the system was full so we drained it again, tended to the leaks with gasket sealant (brilliant stuff at times like these) and filled the system again. One or two more leaks showed again but not as many as expected (good result so far). Knowing the state of the cooler group the crankcase door was unbolted on the power unit ready to check the liner seals and the engine block was filled with water. Only one leak and the blanked off filler point but the liner seals remained dry, all in a good day, now knowing what leaks we had alot of other smaller jobs were also given some attention such as exhauster wiring and the fire alarm system the entire water system was drained and the loco sheeted up/ locked up, we both went home cold, wet but happy.
Tuesday 30th Sept
Early start, time was spent attending to the known leak we found the day before. More gasket sealant and PTFE tap, while this was done Martin H had started to give the Triple pump, compressor, exhausters, traction motor blower and the Main generator comms a good clean, hoovering and an inspection. It was found one settling tank pipe overflow had holes in it, so to effect a temporary repair it was blanked off until we can get new fittings. I finally repaired the fire alarm circuit (eventually found to be dirty contacts). The cooler system was refilled with no leaks worth writing home about and so we started with the pressure circulation testing, as luck would have it only a few radiator element gaskets started spraying water, when this was done and one radiator frame top elbow joint gasket re-sealed we were happy the cooler group was sound so our attention turned to the power unit/ electrical cubicle, the liner seals remained dry with the triple pump running. Each and every relay/contactor in the cubicle was cleaned and any moving parts cleaned and oiled if needed. Around 2.45pm we decided a brew was in order - now knowing the cooler group appeared to be dry on the outside and holding water, power unit barred over and liner seals dry, all auxilary machines cleaned and found to be free moving and the main generator hoovered and inspected and the batteries were fully charged by now. While drinking tea we decided we only had one thing left to do........
After running the triple pump for 2 minutes, all appeared to be well, with Martin H stood next to the start button and myself ready to the fuel rack if needed.............. Martin pressed the start button and at 15:07hrs on the 30th Sept 2008 D5401 fired back into life for the first time in over 11 months. the power unit started quickly and all the relevant electrical systems worked as required (excellent start-up after such a long time out of use) once initial checks were done and we satisfied ourselves all was well we let the power unit warm up, it did sound a bit rough but after so long not being used it was expected. But as things started to warm up it all sounded much better, regular checks on both the cooler group and the power unit/electrical equipment. So we stood back and admired our handy work that took 11 months of hard graft, tears, blood, sweat lots of money, time and endless amount of painting finally reached a successful conclusion.
Given the fact it was a cold day and everything was either cold or damp we decided to let the power unit warm itself up and dry out the generator and electrical equipment, so it was decided to see if the loco would still move another day.... We both went home that evening extremely happy and had a celebration involving beer no less!!!!!!!
A link to Youtube of D5401 running on the 30th Sept 2008 - taken a few minutes of its start-up http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JzTldnG4Cbo
Wednesday 1st Oct
I popped into the N&LR after work mid afternoon and after some additional checks to see if the water system held up well over night (which it had with no visible leaks) and some electrical items, the loco was started once again and all was well. This time I switched in the compressor and let the air system charge itself up. A while later the required brake tests were successfully completed (another excellent result considering the time the loco stood out of use - god bless Westinghouse brake systems) it was decided to see if D5401 would still take power................... and with the "staight air brake on" the power handle was moved to the ON position and the Amp meter needle rose to 400 amps........ Excellent.......... Same result in the other cab so it was decided to go for a short test run and I can safely say at the time of writing this it too was a success.
Much more work is need to finish and tidy up the remaining jobs and we can "see the light at the end of the tunnel" so to speak. We are aiming to get all the work completed by the end of October (fingers crossed)
23rd September 2008
Since both radiator frames were re-fitted into the locomotive a few weeks ago, Martin Harris has been working hard to secure the radiator frames and refit just about everything other fixture/fitting we removed in 2007 back into its rightful place, Martin has also become something of an expert in making gaskets for all manner of different pipe fittings. The point has now been reached that some replacement water hoses and some nut/bolts that have been purchased are waiting to be delivered. Once the last of the pipework is re-connected the water system can be filled and circulation tests can be conducted with any issues found to be attended to.
No pictures this time but all being well the next update should have some.
11th September 2008
Basically due to a Event at the N&LR the lifting date we chose for the 20th September was considered to be a non-starter so it was re-arranged at short notice to fit the completed radiator frames on the 10th September instead. The whole process took a few hours to complete but much prepartion was done before hand.
I spent the morning replacing the cleaned floor panels, this was a jigsaw puzzle and took a bit of head scratching to make the bits fit in their homes and the odd bit of hammering to make them fit again. Once this was done time was spent preparing the settling tanks for the fitting of the radiator frames, later on in the day a small group of N&LR volunteers who were bascially in the wrong place at the right time were collared into helping and with there assitance the whole process went extremely well considering the issues we could of had.
Much more work is need to be done to secure the radiators and pipe them up but progress is steady with no real deadline to work for. Not many photos as I was spending more time moving parts/fitting them but the whole project finally taking shape and the day we are able to start-up the loco after nearly a year out of action is getting much closer.
3rd September 2008
On the 1st September both myself and Martin H spent another day battling to get these brand new settling tanks plumbed in. Additional modifications were done to Side A tank during the last week and this enabled us to put a lick of paint on the back of the tank and put it in its final resting place and praise be........ it fitted (bloody close mind but it fitted).
A brew later we decided to fit all the pipework for that recently fitted tank and connect it to the triple pump, this on its own took us a few hours, with the bottom water filler needing some additional attention but at least it is water tight (he says fingers crossed). Side B tank already in place and bolted down and piped up with its final lick of gloss paint the other week we thought it was best to position the Side A exhauster back in its home, a little huffing and puffing and a few screams of pain later it was moved. I also got a few of the water and vacuum pipes out of storage and refitted them with new gaskets and sealant where required.
One problem created was while I was hoovering the debris out of the Side A settling tank I broke the water gauge float but after a hours worth of tinkering and using our spare gauge for bits it was replaced, resealed and replaced in its home. The Cooler group is looking more and more complete every day we spend on replacing bits where they belong, the day was finished off by giving the floor that already had one coat of protective red floor paint (which had become scratched and scuffed) another coat and when we locked up the loco in the evening it look very good, clean and sparkled with fresh paint (it won't stay like that once the loco is running again but at least we can admire our handy work for the time being!!!)
We have organised 20th September to replace the already completely overhauled radiator frames using the resident diesel team crane and fingers crossed this is go well and I shall post any updates when something worth while happens until then.
13th August 2008
Today was organised so that the brand new settling tanks that have under gone various tests and successfully passed were due to be installed into the Class 27. Before these new settling tanks could be installed the Side A exhauster had to be unbolted from it fixings and moved to gain extra space when placing the new tank. Much more preperation work was done before hand and this will if not already pay off.
The day brought nothing more that constant showers and this is did make things difficult but not impossible. With help from various working members of the N&LR and T&H engineering the tanks were lifted into the loco and placed in there rightful homes. Side B tank does require an amount of modification before it will secured but this was expected as these tanks were built from scratch. Both tanks were extremely heavy and had to man handled into the engine room via the side door, this took some time with lots of swearing/cursing and sweating but we won and duly celebrated with a brew!!!!
My thanks go to Nick Gilbert (N&LR steam Dept), Simon Jenkins and Mick Hooper of T&H Engineering for their help.
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