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Keeping 26043 alive....part.....ive lost count


pheaton

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An overdue blog....

 

winter is upon us again.....actually winter has been on us for a while, however we once again run the gauntlet of maintenance that ends up being needed for a 60 year old machine....that should have been withdrawn 35 years ago!!!

 

Observers of 26043 will know that at one end it started to develop a smile...this smile was caused by over-enthusiastic use of filler! that smile was getting bigger and bigger....and it would be long before a rough shunt would have knocked the whole thing out....and also since there was tell tale rust signs it was clear that things were not too good underneath. In addition to this water ingress into the cabs was becoming an increasing problem, so something had to be done....

 

After the "smile" was knocked off (it didn't take much this is what greeted us beneath….

 

 

 

 

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26043 after No2 end had been "attacked"

 

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A close up of the smile....after clean up...

 

Actually its not that bad the metal although pitted is still strong, but what you cant see from this picture is the cause of the issue, to the top left and right of the "smile" you can see 2 circles this was the place of the headlights, when these headlights were welded up the welder put too much heat into the metal (trying to weld too much at once) and the result is the metal expands....and starts to bow inwards....to make up for this large depression (3/4") copious amounts of filler were used.....but wait....there's more...to try and cut down on the filler the area was "padded" out with random bit of steel plate...the problem then is that steel expands and cracks the filler....which exposes the metal underneath to air which causes the corrosion..... we cant have that....

 

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What they should have done....is that cut it out and started again, you are looking directly into the locomotive connecting doors.....the bellows of which are still present...the air tank you see was added when the locomotive was dual braked, consideration was given to re-instating the headlights, but the presence of this tank prevents it.

 

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New steel welded in

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unfortunately that's not the extent of the rot...the centre windscreen has a significant amount of corrosion also...this is caused by the gutter leaking this too will be repaired... the filler above the windscreens isn't filler....its actually a fibreglass strip added sometime between when 26043 had its unique full yellow ends and civil engineers livery, clearly water ingress was an issue on 26s to try and resolve it scot-rail fibre glassed over the join seen below between the cab steel work and cab dome, all this however does is move the problem further up, if the gutter base starts to leak, water can get behind the fiberglass and lift It away, the water can then go where it likes, and in this case pool in the corner of the centre windscreen.

 

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close up showing the extent of the required repairs, all the filler and paint has been stripped back and the leaking portion of the gutter removed.

 

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the boiler room roof has also been removed to repair the seal beneath it.

 

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the area seen earlier now in green primer, the socket in the picture is for the fire alarm system.

 

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Work has also been taking place at No2 where similar horrors were found....

 

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this is where we realised that at some point 26043 has had a "wallop" and doing a bit of research shows 26043 running around in the 70s with a very deformed front end, it was then we realised that No1 end of 26043 is nearly entirely double skinned instead of replacing the damaged metal, they put a new skin over it wrapping round underneath drivers cab side, its possible......the tablet recess still exists underneath, heavy corrosion is present as seen in the bottom right corner this is mostly caused by water pooling, which Scot-rail clearly saw as an issue as they tried to resolve the corrosion by cutting "drain holes" with an oxy torch in the cab base plate which is 3/4" thick.

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it didn't work.....

 

the yellow ends will get a fresh coat of paint and new windscreen seals.

 

Internally over 50 winter jobs have been completed some minor some major, one major job is the fitting of a new AVR.

 

The AVR has one job, and that job is to keep the out put supplied to the battery charging circuits and the auxiliary machines, and control circuits to 110v regardless of auxiliary generator load and engine speed, in the event of either of those two changing the AVR will automatically adjust the auxiliary generators field to maintain 110v. 

 

26043 like all Sulzer type 2s was built and withdrawn with the ABB moving coil AVR.

 

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there is the face of it as you would see it with its glass door open in the locomotive, its a big beast about the size of a dustbin, and towards the rear are a load of resistors.


How does it work.....well im glad you asked....

 

BLACK MAGIC!!!

 

Effectively 2 coils magnetically oppose each other until 110v is seen, when that happens the arms seen in the picture place resistances in the auxiliary generator circuit to change its voltage. Other the only thing I know is that the man who invented in ABB wasn't paid enough, the whole thing is as complicated as a swiss watch.

 

26043s is still in working condition and is for sale for anyone who wants a spare :) however the issue with these AVRs is as follows

 

1,) Its a mechanical device so it has consumables in terms of carbon tracks and bearings and springs

2,) it has no over-volts protection

3,) If it breaks no one in this country knows how to repair them!

4,) they are incredibly difficult to adjust sensibly

5,) they are incredibly sensitive to vibration

6,) most common failure mode is resistor failure in the back of the unit, and the resistors are quite unique.

 

The biggest issue with this AVR is if there is a problem it will quite happily carry on cooking the batteries and the auxiliary machines in your locomotive, its also very slow to react.

 

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so what do you do....

 

you contact a very nice man called Noel. Noel used to work for British rail, namely at Tinsley depot for rail freight distribution, noel came up with a new type AVR fitted then to class 47s to greatly improve reliability over the carbon pile AVR they had when they were built, the AVR you see above is a modern version of it. It is custom tweaked to every type of locomotive, and 26043 is the only 26 to date fitted with this AVR, but lots of other locomotive classes use noels expertise.

 

Noel is in 70s but still offers his services to locomotive owners.

 

The AVR above is a major investment at over £2000

 

all this work needs to be complete by mid-February as the locomotive is due to visit the Somerset and Dorset Railway, everything is on track, and this will be the first mainline locomotive they had at the railway.

 

Thanks for reading...…..

 

 

 

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  • RMweb Gold

Fantastic work Simon - its an unfortunate reflection of the consequences of long term preservation, plainly many short term bodges done in the past. First Class 26 on the S&D then? 

 

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  • RMweb Gold

Brilliant report, it is fantastic to see the old girl getting the well deserved repair and renewal she needs. It must help that she is spending much of the winter this year under cover in the steam sheds. I know that the GWSR has more diesels than it has diesel shed space but wonder how she can be kept dry in future winters which can ony reduce the rate at which she dilapdiates.

 

In your spare time all you need now is to find a second hand boiler to fit so that 26043 can go back to heating trains as she did for most of her life on BR! 

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