It all started on Friday afternoon shunting the stock out of the way in order to release 56101 that was stuck right down number 1 road at Dereham. Myself, Oli, and Josh managed to complete the shunt in two moves and leave the 56 on number 2 road ready for Saturday morning.
On Saturday morning Myself and Josh set to on the removal of the remaining grill and roof panel, as to be expected we did shear more bolts in order to get them off but never the less they were removed without any incident. Armed with a tin of “Gas Oil” I sprayed all of the studs and let them soak, Josh was removing the three access panels that located inside the cooler group tunnel and I made a start on the removal of the first batch of elements. With only 7 out of the 10 elements remaining I managed to shear more of the studs, bearing in mind that the elements are made primarily of copper and the main objective of the exercise was to remove the risk of theft, either way they had to come out and be stored.
Because the loco was positioned in the MoD platform we were in the way, and stock stored in the main platform meant that we had to shunt release the service train when it returned. I was using the ONLY serviceable loco at the time at Dereham, 50 019 “Ramillies”, to shunt the 56 out of the way and perform the shunt release and pick the 56 back up to continue the work, so as you may gather we were a little bit busy during the day. Never the less we managed to complete the task and remove, store and clean out the cooler bay with 5 shunt releases thrown in.
Please do not be fooled into thinking that there can’t be much work for us to do, on the contrary! It is a big job and we need all the hands we get so we can overhaul the cooler groups in turn. If you can spare a day or two, please get in touch with the group via the group email address – class56group@hotmail.com
Mick Doyle
Empty radiator bays on 56101 – note the rear cooler group tunnel covers removed.
Nearly there – 2 of the 3 radiator bays have been emptied of their copper radiator elements.
30 years of hauling MGR trains has taken it’s toll!!
