East Lancs February 21 & 22nd Steam Gala

And some pictures from me too can be found at... http://preservedrailway.weebly.com/east-lancashire-railway

 

What happened with 73129 at Heywood Saturday? Declared a failure by driver before the 11.50 to Bury, 44871 sent to the rescue. But it turned up later double heading with 80080 as per diagram, obviously fixed, thank fully.

 

Had to be assisted back to Bury as you say. CME was on site at Bury and problem resolved quickly. Loco fit for service and carried on. Simples.

 

I hand't realised May had been in Bury. I'd have gone to see her.

 

She certainly was fit. My goodness! The way she left Irwell Vale...​

 

At Heywood the driver couldn't get the loco to reverse off the train once uncoupled. It was thought that the loco steam brake had seized. The fireman from 73129 walked forward from the train and platform to meet the rescue loco outside station limits as per the rule book. Initial attempts to pull the train by 44871 were hampered by the brake problem but this was sorted quickly and we got back to Bury with 73129 on the rear about 50 mins late. 73129 was very quickly back from the shed with a change of crew as rostered. The young station staff at Heywood are to be commended with the frequent announcements telling us what had happened and a member of the train crew also walked through he train telling us what the problem was.

This was in complete contrast to the NYMR where the station staff at Grosmont never know whats going on and requests for information are met with "I don't know, 'they' never tell us anything?". Getting on the phone to find out seems to be beyond them.

 

Excellent visit on Saturday

All locos giving a good account of themselves, thanks to the crews and all involved.

Agree with Respite comments above about the frequent updates at Heywood when 73129 failed.

Last train to Heywood with 73129 arriving on time, loud loco !!!!

44871/45407 gave some different photo opportunities facing south.

Looking forward to the small engines weekend next.

 

I was in the first skylight for that run. It was the loudest thing I've ever heard going South over the ski jump.