It's been a busy weekend over at Llangollen with the 109 in use on five days of the week.
At Butterley work has continued on the Class 108. The final three retrimmed seats have been fitted to the trailer saloon just before the toilet cubicle.
While inside the guard's van work is under way to put back the ceilings, now that all the leaks have finally been sorted out. New hardboard panels have been made and have been painted on the rear to help keep them safe from damp.
The fault with the AWS unit in the power car has been cleared, and it now cancels. However the long period out of use of the equipment has left the on/off switch unreliable and so this has had to be left for another day.
Meanwhile the Class 141 had been noted to have been using a lot of water recently and the fault has now been traced to the heater on 55533. The coolant is leaking through the heater can into the combustion chamber and is coming out of the exhaust.
During the week a replacement can has been taken out of the stores and the wiring and the mountings modified to that they are the same as the one fitted to the unit. Fitting awaits the availability of suitable labour.
The Class 141 worked some school specials the early part of the week with the 108 taking over later and continuing to work throughout the weekend.
Although the weather has once again taken its toll on the country this week we have managed to keep the services going at Llangollen with the Wickham unit providing a welcome shelter for passengers from the wind and cold on Monday to Friday.
On Saturday the 141 worked at the Midland but the blizzards of Saturday night made the museum complex unsafe for visitors and so Sunday's running was called off.
Despite the cold the work has continued on the Class 127. The cab roof dome now has a new coat of white gell and is now ready for refitting.
A couple of the new wooden door jambs have been fitted as have some of the wooden supports round the window openings. Hopefully this work will mean an end to those pesky sticking doors!
At Butterley work has continued on the Class 108 set. The mammoth job of fitting rivets to the roof has been completed, and there has also been work to remove and reseal a number of the ventilators. This seems to have paid off as all the leaks have now been eradicated. Much loose paint has also been removed from the roof.
Underneath the unit the gearbox, final drive, fan drive and other levels have been checked and topped up as required and new gearbox oil filters have been fitted. Battery and electrical checks have been carried out and a few more items ticked off the M-Exam. The final two seats and backs for the trailer have now been retrimmed and are being fitted leaving only the single seat near the toilet to fit.
A fairly quiet week for all of us this week, although there has been some progress. At Pentrefelin Class 104 Driving Motor Composite 50528 has been given replacement batteries, as the 17-year-old ones fitted have all but given up. The 104 set also had an FP Exam after its two week stint on passenger services.
The Wickham was moved into 'pole position' as it will be used all this week and in preparation for this it had a good mop out.
At Butterley work has continued on the Class 108. Another 100 or so rivets have been replaced in the trailer car’s roof, the first class seat frames repainted, and a seat which was attached incorrectly to the floor has been refitted so that it is in line with all the others. Work is now under way to scrape off all the loose paint from the roofs of both cars.
Despite all the roof work there is still a leak to the guard's van and so the ventilators are now being investigated to see if they are the cause of the problem.
What a week it has been! Whilst the snow came down in buckets we carried on at Llangollen and successfully completed all five days of running, reaching the end of the line on each trip - something that defeated our colleagues with their steam engines at the weekend! Not that it was an easy week and we wouldn't have been able to even get out of the shed without help from the Permanent Way and Signalling departments. Thanks also to our drivers who swapped shifts around so that those who could get in covered for those who could not.
Elsewhere the snow defeated attempts to run a service at the Midland Railway on Saturday. On Sunday the 141 started off its day’s diagram but running was abandoned early due to a lack of passenger numbers.
The poor weather has meant that we've not been able to do much in the workshops or to the fleet this week. Some homework projects have been progressed, particularly to woodwork for the Cravens Class 105 56456 but we need better weather before we can claim much progress has been made.
The only job that has been done is a quick repair on a set of window scissors in the guard's van of 50454, as these were preventing the window being shut - not ideal in this weather!