Firstly, the ‘Behind the Scenes’ stuff. There has been a number of projects being pursued to promote the group further. the first we can announce is that we will have a stand at the ‘North West Rail and Transport Collectors Fair‘ on Saturday 13 June at Crewe Alexandra FC. We will be bringing our sales stand as well as digging out some collectables from our spares store.
Hopefully, this will be the first of a few events that we head off to so that we can build on the success we had at the ‘Class 37 at 65’ event.
The ‘biggie’ however, should be formally announced in the next ‘The Growler’ magazine so keep your eyes on the post! Social media posts will only follow once the magazine has been delivered. This will be huge for us as a group and will hopefully help significantly to the upkeep of 37215 and D6948.
The Locomotives…..
The start of 2026 has seen a flurry of activity to bring both 37215 and D6948 back into readiness for the new season. Both locos have had their turbo filters and grilles removed and cleaned to remove any congealed oil and dirt so that airflow is improved, but also to remove the associated fire hazards of having too much detritus near electrical or ignition sources.
It was also decided to have a look at both generators and to remove the grilles from both the auxiliary and main generators for a clean. Particularly with D6948 the generator grilles had, as with the turbo grilles, become very dirty and, due to a number of oil leaks, covered in congealed dirt and oil. D6948‘s was bar far the worst as the loco had developed quite a heavy leak from just under the intercooler group that was running down the generator cover and through the grilles. 37215‘s was cleaner, but this too had suffered an oil leak in a similar place – although not as heavy as on D6948, but mixed with a small water leak – and, given the generator issues suffered by 215 a few years back, it was collectively decided to give the armatures a visual inspection and clean on both locos. The engines and covers were cleaned down so that any leaks can be identified from general dirt build up, isolate where the leaks are coming from and then effect a repair as required.
D6948‘s generator, due to the oil leak, was filthy however the good news being that there was no damage to any of the internal equipment. The armature was barred round to enable a thorough wipe down to remove as much oil and grease as possible. The internal equipment was also cleaned to remove as much dirt as possible before the grilles went back on.
Inside ‘215‘ things looked a lot better and the armature and contactor sets showed little ingress of dirt and no signs of any damage. Remember this loco suffered a mild generator flashover which caused some damage to the flash guards, insulator pots and contactor sets, but this inspection showed everything in good condition. Phew!
A quick clean up and the grilles went back on.
As happens with all of the diesel locos at the GWsR at the end of the year, oil samples were taken from all locos to keep an eye on the overall health of the engines, and to get early warnings of anything major on the horizon.
Although, the results for 37215 were okay, sadly, the ones for D6948 showed too much coolant in the sample – an indication of a potentially major failure. Not what we wanted on top of the other work we had planned for D6948 – repairing the low pressure fuel leak and the oil getting into the air system.
An investigation was made just after New Year whereby all the crank case doors were removed and visual inspections of all the cranks and cylinders was undertaken. This showed that water/coolant was indeed getting into the liner on B1 cylinder. After wiping down it was pretty clear that this was a continual, substantial leak and indicative of the liner seals having failed on B1. Visually, all others seemed okay with no water ingress. Hopefully, it meant that only B1 had failed, but the system would need to be pressure tested to make completely sure.
Pressure testing was completed the following week and the end result showed that the integrity of the liners had only failed on B1. This could potentially mean that only B1 cylinder and liner is removed, overhauled and replaced, which is less time consuming and demanding than removing all 12 – this, of course will be decided by the four owners.
Hopefully, this development won’t see D6948 out of traffic for too long but 37215 should be available for traffic come the beginning of the season in March.
Speaking of the new season, and it isn’t too far away now. Things look fairly similar to last year as far as the timetable goes – no surprises either way – however there are a number of new events scheduled where there is some element of diesel running involved. What this will look like….we await the timetables! You can see the events list at https://www.gwsr.com/your-visit/events-experiences
