Sunday 11th February 2018.
Unfortunately, 56006 will not be available to work at this weekend’s diesel gala. During checks about three weeks ago, one of the electronic modules was found to be defective and the loco shut down as it could not recharge its batteries. A replacement module was obtained and tested the following week. However, this cured the shut down problem but one of the 3 auxiliary phase lights (which indicate all is well with each of the three phases output from the alternator) was extinguished. This was the same problem that occurred before the autumn gala last year, which we thought we’d cured by replacing a faulty choke on the auxiliary alternator. The technical team have visited Bury on four occasions recently, in efforts to get the loco ready but today’s visit was reluctantly called off as the investigation work will require a megger tester (which wasn’t available) and a couple of days work to check out the systems on 56006.
In addition to the site visits, many hours of telephone calls have taken place to try and identify the possible fault from schematic diagrams and our knowledge but unfortunately we’ve had to advise the ELR today that 56006 won’t be available.
Friday 9th February 2018
56006 has had some of the outstanding repairs completed, including replacing a leaking straight air brake valve and also resolving a low voltage relay which kept tripping out and shutting down the loco. The lost phase fault seems to have returned and the cause could be the cold, damp and wet conditions experienced recently. Work continues to get the loco warmed up and fit for next weekend’s gala.
Watch this space for updates. We should know by Sunday evening if 56006 will be fit for traffic.