18/8/19
56006 sucessfully completed a test run last friday (9/8/19) and completed a running day yesterday(17/8/19).
56006 worked the 1145 Bury Heywood , with the rostered loco – 37109 inside for insurance , ran round at Heywood and then worked the 1215 and 1515 Heywood – Rawtenstall trips. If the loco had shown any problems 56006 would have worked more of the turn single handed. As the loco performed well the top and tail mode was used to reduce shunting at either end of the line.
29/6/19
56006 has undergone a lot or work recently to overcome the problems associated with the damp conditions over the winter when the locomotive does not operate.
This has included many hours of work and testing and the use of a small fan heater to drive the moisture out from the sensetive electrical equipment in the control cubicle.
The locomotive went on a test run last night running upto Heywood with 45108, 37109 and 33109 as ballast.
Unfortunately the locomotive is suffering a fault meaning the locomotives protective circuits trip out at very low amps. The loco made the trip , but the fault means the loco is unable to attain even moderate speed before tripping out. We took 25 minutes to do the run which normally takes about 12 minutes.
The loco has therefore been withdrawn from the line up and the Gala days when our small technical team , who would be attending anyway, will try and investigate the fault. The test run did prove that the fault is unlikely to be on any of the motors, as we switched out each pair in turn and the fault still persisted.
We are disapointed to have to make this decision but our team have been working hard to get the loco ready and we were confident the moisture related problems had been overcome.