July Update

D7535 – Gala Visit!

With 5310 now unavailable for our Diesel Weekend on 28th & 29th of September, we felt it would be a good idea to see if we could source a further visiting loco for the event. We have been very generously provisionally offered Class 25 No D7535 from the South Devon Diesel Traction Group. This would be the first time this machine has visited Wales in preservation and the first Class 25 to work on the LR since 25313 last ran in 2008. The Railway is very supportive of the visit but sadly does not have the funds to bring in this wonderful machine by road.

Photo of 7535 on the SVR in May by “TrainsNearCheltenham” and used with thanks.

We have therefore launched a funding appeal to raise sufficient funds to cover the road transport after a 4 week or so stay in North Wales. Nearly £1,500 has already been raised from donations made by our working members, so an additional £1500 is sought to reach our target of around £3,000.

All funds raised will be donated directly to the Llangollen Railway to pay for the road transport. Any excess funds will be used to fund the operational costs of the loco during her stay.

We appreciate every bit of support. In the event of the locomotive not visiting the railway, we will return all funds donated.  See our Crowdfunding appeal at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/7535-v

31271

The loco has now completed 5 days in traffic and performed faultlessly so far. We are very grateful to A1A Locomotives Limited for all their support. They attended her first two running days and have supported conversion training for 5 LR drivers to operate the loco. Some running maintenance has been performed, with a brake application valve, a brake cylinder seal and a full set of wiper blades all replaced. The latter are particularly useful in our part of the World! She is seen below at Goods Junction during Classic Transport Weekend, 6th July. Photo by Tez Pickthall.

31271 will handle the Saturday 13th’s scheduled B timetable diesel working, covering the 10, 12:15 & 14:30 from Llangollen. We are also expecting her to cover the Sunday 14th July steam diagram – the 11, 13:15 & 15:45, working alongside a DMU. The 21st of July running day is also penciled in for 271.

1566 – AVR Failure

1566 unfortunately failed on 14th June, when called to cover the day’s steam service. The locomotive shut down after arriving in the station to collect her train and would unfortunately not re-start. Investigations subsequently found the Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) had failed in a rather spectacular style, with the brass shunt melted through and broken into several pieces, which were found in a tidy pile underneath the unit!

We have a spare AVR, but it was missing one of the control cards, which we removed from the original damaged one on the loco. Initially the replacement AVR would not operate, leading us to suspect the card we used from the original had been damaged. Much effort is underway to source more spares and make arrangements for repairs to the damaged parts. However, during testing on Tuesday 9th July it miraculously sprang back into life, with the reassuring buzz from the thyristors. We were then able to successfully start the loco and take power. Whilst this is excellent news and shows that no further damage occurred to the loco when the AVR failed, we do need to perform some further careful testing before the loco can work a train. We’re also concerned as to why the AVR started working again when we really hadn’t done anything other than measure voltages. We will therefore to continue to source spares and have the original unit repaired.

The aim is to have 1566 working on the Saturday of our 1960’s Weekend on 3rd & 4th of August.

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