During the weekend of 12/13 April Llangollen Railway held a very successful Branch Line Gala that featured four 'kettles' and a 'Teddy Bear' captured here passing Pentrefelin Yard on the Sunday...
Meanwhile the Railcar Group had arranged an appointment for class 104 vehicle no. 50454 with the lifting jacks so that the collapsed wheel bearing could be removed in readiness for a donor bearing to be fitted in its place. The exercise, which is described below in the 'Class 104' section of 'Unit-specific work', involved extracting the bogie from the vehicle, a wheelset from the bogie, and the faulty bearing from the wheelset, with the latter putting up much more of a fight than was anticipated.
Information about some of the work that has been carried out on our railcars at Llangollen and the Midland Railway, Butterley can be found in the 'Unit-specific work' section below and news about the recent use of our railcars can be found in 'Out and About' below.
Since the previous report, the hybrid class 127/108 unit was used to provide the 'A timetable' service on Thursday 10th April, the class 108 was used for a charter train from Llangollen to Carrog on Monday 14th April, and the two units joined forces as a 4-car for the 'A timetable' service on Wednesday 16th April. The latter turned out to be so popular that 590 passengers were carried during the day (counting each single journey separately).
The following picture shows the class 108 at Carrog after arriving with the charter service on Monday 14/04/25, by which time the passengers had transferred to road coaches for the continuation of their journey...
The following picture shows three quarters of the 4-car Hybrid class 127/108 + Class 108 at Llangollen platform 2 waiting to form the last service of the day to Corwen on Wednesday 16/04/25...
...and if you're wondering what the other quarter looked like here is most of it...
The following picture shows the 4-car unit at Carrog while working the 15.15 Llangollen-Corwen...
The power cars in the above train have different types of transmission. The class 127 (nearest the camera) has hydraulic transmission, for which the driving technique is similar to that of a car with automatic transmission - the driver simply selects 'D' for drive. The class 108, on the other hand, has mechanical transmission, for which the driving technique is similar to that of a car with manual transmission - the driver must select the appropriate gear for the speed and conditions.
When the class 127s were built, they were fitted with gear selectors so that, on occasions such as the above, when units with mechanical transmission are tagged on to the back, the driver can (and must!) use the gear selector in manual mode to ensure that the mechanical units in the train are using the correct gear at any given time.
Finally a picture of the same train, with the class 127 vehicle 51618 leading, waiting to go back to the depot at the close of play...
With Llangollen Railway's Branch Line Gala in full swing and a lot of the rolling stock that would normally be stabled in Pentrefelin Yard playing out on the main line, the opportunity arose to shunt 50454 round to the lifting jacks with a view to removing the faulty wheel bearing. The first steps were to lift the body off the bogies and extract the bogie with the collapsed wheel bearing...
The wheelset was then extracted from the bogie...
It was thought that the removal of the faulty bearing from the axle would be relatively easy following our recent rehearsal with the removal of a donor bearing from its axle, and things certainly started out that way with the removal of the axlebox and outer bearing...
It was hoped that the internal bearing would succumb to the combination of the new puller, 20-ton jack and a small amount of heat just like the donor bearing...
...but this one decided to be difficult. Given that the bearing was already damaged and didn't need to be saved, it was possible to be somewhat more aggressive with it so it was subjected to various combinations of more heat, an angle grinder, hammer and chisel before it eventually admitted defeat...
We certainly couldn't claim that "No components were harmed during the removal of this bearing"! ...
In parallel to the above work, the opportunity was taken to clean the parts of the bogie that are normally out of reach - something that made quite a difference as shown by these 'before' and 'after' views...
We now await a visit from a bearing specialist who will hopefully fit our donor bearing to the 50454 axle and enable the class 104 to become operational again.
Work on the trailer car progressed with the fitting of some timber supports above the ceiling so that the speakers for the public address system have something to fasten to, and the installation of a light fitting section into the main frame of the flat ceiling...
Thanks to Allen Chatwood, Andy Lowe, Graham Parkin and Martin Plumb for supplying the pictures that were used in this edition.
Since the previous report the hybrid class 127/108 unit has been used for three 'Timetable A' duties. Apart from the known issue of the unit losing rather more of its compressed air than we would like during the layovers at Llangollen and Corwen, there was just one additional problem when the buzzer failed in the cab of 51618 and it was necessary to revert to the flag/whistle method of communication between guard and driver/secondman for dispatching the train in one direction. The buzzer was replaced as soon as the unit got back to the depot.
The following pictures show the unit at Llangollen Station on 22/03/25 prior to forming the 10.00 service to Corwen...
Although it has been a while since I last published any news about the class 104, a great deal has been happening behind the scenes, primarily to work out how to remove the inner roller bearing from a donor axle so that, with good luck and a following wind, it can be used to replace the bearing that failed on 50454 last October.
To recap (aka 'New readers start here'): Shortly before arriving at Corwen on 18/10/24, 50454 failed with a collapsed wheel bearing. It then spent a few days in a siding at Corwen before being taken back to our Pentrefelin depot with the help of a class 08 shunter and some contractors with a wheelskate. In determining how to effect a repair, we discovered that the tried-and-tested method of replacing a wheelset would not be possible because a roller bearing on one side of the donor wheelset had suffered some damage due to water ingress while it had been stored outside. Fortunately, the bearings on the other side were given a clean bill of health and deemed suitable for transplant so the next step would be to remove them, clean them up, and prepare them for fitting in place of the failed ones on 50454. The axlebox and the outer bearing were removed from the donor wheelset relatively easily but we lacked the required tool(s) to remove the inner one and a loaned 'puller' turned out to be unsuitable.
One of our engineers eventually solved the problem by designing a puller for the job and ordering the required components which arrived in time for us to unpack them at the working meeting on 29th March and set about assembling them on the donor axle...
The driving force was provided by a 20-ton bottle jack that is designed to be used on its side...
Although we finished up applying the full 20 tons and bending the 1" thick steel plate that was doing the pulling, the bearing refused to budge. However, the application of a small amount of heat caused it to relax its grip and it then came off relatively easily...
The components were then degreased and cleaned prior to being reunited with the outer bearing that had been removed at an earlier date...
As can be seen in the above picture, the rollers on the inner and outer bearings are inclined in opposite directions to ensure that the sideways thrusts on the axle in either direction are transferred to the axlebox.
The following picture shows the inside of the axlebox in which the bearings rotate...
The following picture shows the axlebox, the roller bearings and the components of the specially-manufactured puller that was used to remove the inner bearing...
At a future meeting the class 104 vehicle 50454 will be lifted with a view to removing the collapsed bearing and replacing it with the donor one.
.An awkward little piece of beading that fits in a corner outside the toilet was successfully fitted after three attempts! ...
The bodywork improvements continued with the painting of the bufferbeam on the power car (50416), seen in the following 'before' and 'after' pictures, ...
...the varnishing of the front of the trailer car (56171), which now looks incredibly shiny, ...
...the painting of the exhaust, silencer and scissors on the driver's side of 50416, ...
...and various other things including the painting of some sections of the solebars.
Work also progressed with the replacement of the desk in the cab of the power car (50416). The new desk is made out of plywood which should turn out to be much better than the MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) that it replaces.
As can be seen in the above pictures, the shape of the desk, the shapes of the cut-outs, and the need to get the cut-outs in just the right places for the components that fit through them involves advanced woodworking skills!
Hybrid Class 127/108 51618/56223
The electro-pneumatic (EP) valves on the power car were serviced in the hope of improving their reliability because there have been a number of occasions when they have become stuck and caused a loss of compressed air.
In response to electrical signals that originate from the driver's controls, the EP valves turn on and off air supplies to components that are driven by compressed air. In the case of the class 127, which has hydraulic transmission, there is a group of four EP valves for the four throttle positions and another group of four for the forward and reverse directions, torque-converter drive, and final drive. The following picture shows the latter group...
Each EP valve was stripped down, greased, and reassembled. The following picture shows one part way through that process...
After everything was reassembled one of the valves had a niggling minor air leak that refused to respond to treatment. On the basis that it was getting late in the day and the air leak should not cause any major problems, the job was filed under 'To be continued...'.
Just in case you would like to experience the same sinking feeling as the person who tackled the job here is the sound of a sample air leak (you may need to tweak your audio volume)...
Work on the trailer car progressed with the fitting of the window frame to a large window in the rear saloon, but only after some modifications had been made to the hidden timbers around the window frames - something that required some of the recently-installed wall panels to be uninstalled and reinstalled (who said that restoration is easy?)...
Some ceiling beads were fitted...
...and more beading, including the piece that has to fit round the light fitting, was prepared for installation on a future occasion.
Thanks to Allen Chatwood, John Joyce, Graham Parkin, Martin Plumb and Craig Robertson for supplying the pictures that were used in this edition.