Friday 2nd of March, Carriage & Wagon Works and test run

Attendance: 10

After the disappointing failure on the test run up to Heywood the previous afternoon, Alan Lee was up at the C15PS support coach bright and early with the original and new power unit governors on the work bench. He took the covers off each to compare the way they were set up and swap parts between the two with the aim of making one reliable unit.

Back at the loco it was all hands on deck to get the finishing touches done, this mostly involved cosmetic work today and Jason made a start cleaning up the aluminium window frames. Joining the crew were Dave Pendleton who had come down to help out from Castlecroft yard and Tom Lahaye, a good friend of the East Lancs diesel group, who had travelled from the Netherlands.

Dave & Tom took over cleaning off the cab window frames while Jason went inside the cab and set about finding and fitting screws for the instrument gauges in the control desk. Alan soon returned from the support coach with a fettled governor and with help from James Bottomley set about refitting it to the loco. Carl holt was on site again, making adjustments to the fuel pumps.

Alan decided that he needed better access to make final governor adjustments so asked Jason to remove the A end horn box from the top of the bonnet which is situated directly over the governor. In the end the governor had to come out again and was further tweaked on a nearby vice.

Meanwhile, Jason had been fitting the handles and locking mechanisms for the cab doors as these would need to be re-hung before long. With the governor finally refitted, Alan started up the loco and moved it outside where he could make further adjustments with the engine running and, once reasonably happy with the governor he arranged to take the loco on another test run. The horn box was temporarily refitted by James & Jason and then the loco went off to collect a test train for a run up to Ramsbottom.

While the loco was away Carl & Matt Lindley had set up a production line making up some modified wiper shafts, arms and blades ready for fitting to the loco when it returned. Ernest returned from Ramsbottom without problems but again Alan had said that the engine temperature had been running a little high and suggested that the coolant be dropped again so that the gauze filter could be checked and cleaned out. With the loco back on shed this was done and again chunks of rust were found blocking the filter, so this was cleaned out once more and the coolant system refilled.

Rob Mason & Chris Baily had now arrived and were busy refitting the cab side windows and then re-hanging both cab doors. Gilbert arrived with the loco numbers and applied these to the cab sides with vaseline, not D9531 but D9556 - a temporary number to signify that this loco was re-built to such a standard as to be a new build.

Ernest, reborn as D9556, was now as ready as he would ever be for his appearance at the ELR Spring diesel gala the next day!