The GWR running season has now come to end with the conclusion of the ‘Mince Pie’ trains. 37215 worked the final train from Cheltenham Racecourse on Monday 02 January, in the moonlight, to bring the curtain down on the 2022 season. However, that wasn’t the last turn for ‘215’ as it was also rostered to work stock moves on the 3rd; taking rakes 1 and 2 to Winchcombe for maintenance, taking rake 3 to Toddington and then dropping off a flat wagon full of sleepers at Didbrook ready for the P’Way team to complete their winter track works.
With services now complete, Winter maintenance can now begin in earnest. 37215 will have it’s round OLEO buffers removed with them being shipped off for overhaul. So that the loco can still be shunted safely, a temporary oval set will be fitted – a look the loco sported way back in in 1987! There are also a couple of other outstanding jobs to complete that were side-lined when the loco was stopped with its generator flashover earlier in the year which includes the replacement of the two compressors, which have been leaking oil for a little while.
‘215s’ sister loco, D6948 is well on the comeback trail and it is hoped that ‘The Green Machine’ will be back and ready for active service before the start of the 2023 season in March. The list of repairs outstanding gets ever shorter and it shouldn’t be too long before we can look at a test run. With the body back on its bogies, work has been undertaken internally with the timing chain checked and renewed as well as a few other jobs that were lingering since it was taken out of traffic.
Once all maintenance tasks have been completed on both locos, we will be able to complete the B Exams ready for the locos to be ready for the 2023 season. Here’s hoping that we will have both locos fighting fit and ready to go in March.
