BR Swindon Class 14: 14 901 - farther afield

The Elsecar Diesel Gala planned for May 2nd and 3rd 2010 was the next anticipated event, but before that, the locomotive needed to look its best. Unfortunately covered workspace at Elsecar was at a premium, and a slot of only 2-3 weeks was made available for Andrew, aided by Terry, to clean down old paint, repair corroded panels in doors and cab sides, and repaint the loco in Andrew's interpretation of "large logo" BR livery, inspired in part by another '14 being repainted into Railfreight livery at Swanage in the early 90s. See pictures here.This was a tall order and the two of them did well to turn it out looking as good as it did. In the event, a couple of the doors were not ready and the transfers barely ordered, but 14 901 did her bit with only a couple of minor issues which were fixed within a few minutes. A further running day on May 16th preceeded her departure to Butterley on the 18th to take part in their Diesel Gala. This was something of an act of faith - the speed limit at Elsecar was 10mph, and although we were pretty certain all was now well with the Voith and 14 901 would go faster, finally getting a tacho working showed that we were only running to about 1350rpm. It would have been easy to open up the top throttle stop to achieve 1800, but apart from our reservations on the existing engine mounts, we were concerned by a steady increase in vibration from the power unit.

Between trains at Butterley, 22nd May 2010

Our first run on the Midland Railway to Riddings revealed that even on a 1 in 100 gradient 14 901 could achieve 25mph (line limit) light loco, and on the first day of the Gala achieved 15mph with 4 coaches and a Peak in tow (the latter, admittedly, in Notch 1 to take some of its own weight) - still only at 1350rpm max. On the Sunday we had a reccurrence of the filter blockage and were marooned at Butterley for an hour or so - clearly we had missed some of the dirt last Autumn. Read more here. In re-filling the header tank direct, however, we had accidentally introduced some contaminated fuel, and while we completed the May event without further incident, as a precaution we returned and added a biocide to the tank to kill off any bacteria/microbes. Unfortunately, we must have done this too late, as during the MR-B's June event the fuel pump hydraulic governor started hunting and became progressively worse until we regretfully failed the loco on the last run of the day. Read about that here. The fuel pump came off for a second repair (to clean out microbe poo) while the loco moved on to Peak Rail for the "Anything Goes" gala.

Just to keep us on our toes, the locomotive sprung an oil cooler leak a few days before the Gala and it was only late the previous night that we got it back up and running, but double-heading with sister D9525, 14 901 aquitted itself well - see here.

The vibration problem had become noticeably worse at Butterley and again at Rowsley, so immediately after the Gala we took the plunge and removed the torsional coupling on the back of the engine. Fortunately Peter had access to a specialist who used to work at Holset, (who originally made the coupling) and was able to see immediately that when it had been transferred from the 8QT to the DV8, an essential component had been missed out. A new part was made and the result was a substantial improvement, but nevertheless a complete re-mounting of the engine into proper anti-vibration rubber mounts will eventually be carried out.

Page Navigation

• BR Swindon Class 14: 14 901
• BR Swindon Class 14: 14 901 - first steps in preservation
• BR Swindon Class 14: 14 901 - developments in Yorkshire
• BR Swindon Class 14: 14 901 - operational at last!
• BR Swindon Class 14: 14 901 - 2011
• BR Swindon Class 14: 14 901 - 2013
• BR Swindon Class 14: 14 901 - facts & sundries