This mammoth restoration continues at the East Lancs Railway, and this past year has presented more challenges for the team of volunteers to overcome.

Bogies: With the bogie frames now reassembled, complete with axles, work on these rolling bogies turned to fitting of some of the air pipes. The bogies have two air supplied systems, brakes and sanders. Some of the pipework is in excellent condition and it was decided to overhaul these and put them back on to the bogies. Of the remaining pipes that were not in serviceable condition, replacements have been sourced from a local company, Booles of Stockport. Sanding equipment has been bolted back on too, making the bogies looking almost complete again.

Traction Motors: These were overhauled by Bowers Electrical Ltd in 2021, with new pinions with the correct ratio. Matching up the traction motors with bearing caps was done in 2023, however due to the time they spent outside prior to overhaul, the bare metal surfaces where the motors clamp the plain bearing to the axle journal were very rust pitted and there was some ovality there too. Line boring and cutting a new surface was the only option to correct this. However, this left us with a problem. The plain bearings we sourced from Ireland are now too small, admittedly by a fraction but nevertheless undersized.

One solution is to look for a firm that would make new bearings, including babbitting (white metalling) the centre of each bearing to match the reprofiled journals on each axle. We obtained quotes from £35k up to £90k, utilising different production methods from casting the basic shape to machining direct from bronze tube. To give you the scale of the bearing, the outer diameter that is clamped by the motor is 8 inches, but the widest diameter is 12 inches. The cost is just too much for us, so we are looking at alternative solutions, utilising the plain bearings we already have and manufacturing a thin nylon tube to make up the difference or metal spraying the motors and line boring back to the correct size. These options will not be cheap but possibly cheaper than new bearings.

Electrics: Work on this slowed for the majority of the year, while we worked on the bogies. The electrical frame has almost all of the relays the loco requires, half of them have been restored. Wiring on the loco has started, with wires being pulled through the conduit that was put back into the loco in 2016/17. Marker lights are the first to see terminated wires, these will be fed back into the cab where the switches are located.

The first of the power controllers for the 15 has been stripped down and restored. The next stage is to rebuild it back up and then there will be one to go (2 for the ELR resident Class 24 D5054 have been restored in our workshops)

Body Restoration: Below the solebar restoration is a thankless job, requiring dedication and determination to refurbish the hardest to reach places. One side has had the steel scraped back bare, and many layers of paint added.

The other side is about halfway through the scraping stage and some paint protection has been applied. Almost all of the air pipework is located here, making access here a challenge. The fuel tank and the battery boxes have been fully restored off the loco and are waiting undercover to be refitted at a later date.

Air System: As mentioned in the bogie section, some of the air pipes on the bogies were in poor condition, and this is replicated under the loco. D8233 has two main air systems, compressed air, for all of the locos’ equipment including its own loco braking and vacuum for the train brake. The vacuum system is in essence, simple as it has 1 job to do. The compressed air system on the other hand is extensive, and most of this system is below the locomotives solebar, hidden under the frame, passing through permanent structures such as webbing. This makes removal of the pipes for detailed inspection or replacement challenging.

We have known for the last 15 years, that at least 1 of the air pipes that span the length of the loco is beyond salvageable, and that full replacement is the only course of action here. But how do we get the damn thing out? How many more are in as poor condition as this one? There was only one way to find out: disconnect and pull every single air pipe out from under the loco, one by one through a hole in the buffer beam. Each one to be labelled, then sent for inspection, chemical de-rusting the inside, remove the paint on the outside and repaint. If a length of pipe or a fitting that looked like it could no longer be serviceable then it is replaced with new.

So far, almost all of the pipes that have been removed are in good condition (although we are concentrating on one side at a time) Along with the known air pipe that was unrestorable, several others have been found that also require new, as mentioned above Booles of Stockport have supplied us with new stock. We have also removed a section of vacuum pipe, that was cut during its train heating days to, in all likelihood take extra cabling from the battery boxes to the control boxes. This pipe will be replaced too. With the air pipes removed, it makes the access to the bodywork easier to get to, so the restoration here can be more thorough.

We also have facebook pages too, where we update regular progress - www.facebook.com/d8233

If you are interested in helping out please contact Rob Mason