What about the power unit?

With all these updates, the question you're no doubt asking is "what about the power unit?"

Well, work has been on-going to plumb the power unit in and get everything ready for a start up. When our team went to UKRL to pick up the frost grilles, there was the potential of seeing the loco fire up but, that very morning, an earth fault was detected. Initially, this appeared to stemming from the Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR). Despite being fairly new when the locomotive was withdrawn from traffic, a decade of sitting in a cold loco was thought to have taken its toll. A few phone calls later saw the team take an adhoc trip up the M1 to get our AVR looked at by an expert, who thoroughly checked and returned the AVR to us that same day.

The AVR was refitted and further testing found a wiring fault elsewhere, which has since been rectified. Crisis averted then! This of course highlights some of the intricacies of trying to resurrect a loco that has sat idle for 11 years, but rest assured, she won't be idle for much longer...

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Photos courtesy of Colin Makcrow