At Llangollen the Class 104 unit came out for its first week in service yesterday to be greeted with heavy snowfall. Needless to say passenger numbers have been somewhat modest which is in direct contrast to last week when the Wickham carried substantial number of people on Monday to Friday.
At the Midland last week the 108 worked from Monday to Tuesday after which the 141 took over and worked through until Sunday evening.
The worsening weather hasn’t stopped our members progressing the work on the fleet. Sunday saw the team at Llangollen performing an FP Exam on the Wickham unit and also unloading a van full of refurbished seat frames that had arrived from Yorkshire. Spares for the 141 were then loaded up from the stores and dispatched to Butterley where they will be with the unit.
Work has continued on the 127 project, where a new floor is now starting to take shape.
Inside Cravens Driving Trailer 56456 all the vertical timbers for supporting the wall panels have now been fitted and a start made on the horizontal ones. The luggage rack support framing is now being prepared for fitting.
At Butterley the 108 has moved to the workshop area so that a long-standing issue with roof leaks can be investigated. The ceiling in the guard’s van has been dropped down ready for replacement while on the roof it has been discovered that a large number of rivets have fractured or gone missing. So far 150 have been replaced in the power car and this has only taken the team down two-thirds of one coach!
It’s been an active week for the fleet this week, with us running trains every one of the seven days.
The Wickham covered all the services at Llangollen on Monday to Friday and good loadings were reported on most of the trains. On Saturday and Sunday it was the turn of the 108 which was running at Midland Railway - Butterley. The same set also covered a midweek school special trip.
At Llangollen work's been continuing on the Class 127 with more progress being made with the exterior repairs while at the Midland interior work continues on the 108. All the seat frames are now painted in trailer 54490 and about half have been completed in 51907. Some loose ceiling panels have been resecured while repairs have also been carried out the one of the van doors. Two vacuum hoses have been replaced on 54490 and the bogies and brake gear on both cars have been lubricated.
We're heading for a very busy spring running season at both Llangollen and the Midland. At Llangollen we commenced a three-week stint of running weekdays yesterday with the work to be split between the Wickham and the Class 104 while at the Midland we are covering every weekend as well as half term week (Feb19th) using the Class 108 and the Class 141. March promises to be just as busy with 18 days running at Llangollen and 14 days at the Midland Railway.
Photo by Alistair Grieve
At Llangollen this week work has concentrated on Class 127 Power car 51618. The cab dome has been given a good hand sanding while some further metal parts have been painted up ready for installation. Some work has been done to remove defective parts of the floor, both in the cab and the saloon, where water has rotted the wood.
At Butterley the repainting of the seat frames in Class 108 Trailer 54490 has been completed and a start has been made on the Power Car. Several repairs have been done to the ceilings of both cars where missing screws had caused portions to sag. The unit has also successfully covered a further weekend’s services for the Derbyshire line.
Most of the progress at Pentrefelin this week has been on Class 127 Driving Motor Brake 51618 as the pictures below show.
The newly fitted body panels have been rubbed down, the windscreen refitted and a start has been made on repairing the fibre glass dome which sits above the cab and which was damaged. The new wooden door pillars are now almost complete and await shipping back to Llangollen for fitting and there has been a trial fitting of the inner window frames.
At Butterley work has continued inside Class 108 Driving Trailer 54490. The lower portions of the seat frames in the middle section have been repainted while one of the alternators was repaired on Power Car 51907. Several other jobs have also been ticked off the list for the M-Exam on this set.
The 108 worked services at the Midland Railway on both Saturday and Sunday and will continue on this duty for a further three weeks.