47401 successfully worked three turns at the MRC on Saturday 14th June, part of a Diesel & Steam Weekend and 401 was rostered on the 1115, 1400 and 1615   ex-Butterley. The loco was not booked to work on the Sunday. We commented in our previous update that this may well have been 401's last run in large logo livery and indeed this would have been the case, however the loco was requested by the MRT at short notice to work again on Sunday 29th June, initially planned to undertake four round trips of the line but on the day a fifth trip (starting with the 1546 from Riddings ex-Swanwick) was added after a steam engine ran out of coal. 401 worked as follows:- 1030 Butterley-Riddings/1052 Riddings-Hammersmith; 1140 Hammersmith-Riddings/1201 Riddings-Hammersmith; 1250 Hammersmith-Riddings/1311 Riddings-Hammersmith; 1435 Hammersmith-Riddings/1456 Riddings-Hammersmith/1543 Hammersmith-Butterley/light to Swanwick Jct; 1546 Riddings-Hammersmith (from Swanwick Jct after steam failure); 1625 Hammersmith-Riddings/1646 Riddings-Hammersmith/1713 Hammersmith-Butterley.

On 5th July 47401 was moved into "C Bay" in the main shed building at Swanwick for work to commence on the long awaited repaint into standard blue as voted for by shareholders some time ago. This mammoth task involves far more than just sticking a brush in a tin of blue paint and slapping it on, as a great deal of preparation work has to be undertaken, sanding, de-rusting, replacement of corroded metal (including an entire cab door pillar) and removal of old numbers, logos, stickers, returning white painted handrails to chrome etc.   Thanks should go particularly to three volunteers, Rich ("Ricky") Ward, Martyn Catlin and Paul Parker who had all booked two weeks off work to tackle this job, also to Ernie, Malc, Rob, the two Daves, John, Pete and Mark who all chipped in at various times.

By 20th of July preparation work was pretty much complete and 401 began to look less like a patchwork quilt and more like a proper loco again, with the application of a coat of green primer, and then blue undercoat. The underframe will be done later as a separate job, in addition the engine room roof section will at some point in the future need to be removed for   substantial repair work, but it was decided that a coat of paint will suffice for the time being, not wishing to start dismantling 47401 again until 47417 is up and running! Photos of the repaint can be seen on the 47401 Gallery page and we will update this page again when the job is complete.

The main job on D1516 during June/July was the preparation of the loco's 17 air tanks for inspection by a qualified pressure vessel inspector. This involved sanding them all down to bare metal. They will all be checked for corrosion, safety of welds etc and if failed will have to be repaired/replaced as required (some but not all would be available in 761). The inspection is due in September and the tanks which pass this test will then be painted and hydraulic tested. Assuming they do not fail this second test they can then be returned to the loco.

The two compressors have been sent away to Bowers Electricals Ltd in Heanor for overhaul. When they return the vacuum exhausters and blower motors will also be sent away, the blower motor at No. 2 end having been extracted from the boiler room in July to join the one from No. 1 end which was already in store.

On the power unit front, work has centred on replacing the rocker gear, rocker covers, water pipes and exhaust pipes and applying new lagging to the latter. The power unit is now pretty much complete.

Spares loco 47761 remains stabled next to D1516 at Swanwick. We have not been able to start the loco up owing to the poor state of the batteries. No parts have yet been removed from 761 however expressions of interest have been received from several other Class 47 owners in various components. Our own initial requirements from 761 are likely to be   six main bearing shells for D1516 (the alternative being a minimum order of 20 at £100 each with a lead time of six months) and also the turbocharger (the one from D1516 will go into store as a spare).

No potential operators or preservationists have come forward or shown any interest in taking 761 in any form of exchange or cash plus spares deal so it seems likely that it will be sold to the highest bidder once we have taken what we need from it. This doesn't necessarily mean that it will be broken up, you just have to put in a higher bid than the scrappies if you think it should be preserved!