Great Central Railway Nottingham (GCRN) 6th & 7th October 2012

A1A Locomotives 31162 had seen a busy year in comparison to recent times and its arrival at the Great Central Railway Nottingham (GCRN) soon had it pressed into service at the railways Autumn Diesel Gala.

It was a cold Saturday morning and having not been started sine being shut down at Llangollen on 22nd September 31162 put out some crap when it was, not only the expected white smoke but plenty of water too that had been languishing in the turbo system after the downpours in Wales two weeks earlier. It wasn’t long before things settled down to normal though and 31162 worked the whole weekend without issue, as was the norm for the old girl!

Other locos out at the gala were:

20154, 25279, 46010, 47292 & 56097

There was a bit of late running on the Saturday caused by various little reasons, a bit of which was caught up by the end of the day. Trains were a lot better patronised on the Sunday than the Saturday, possibly due to the Severn Valley Gala on the Saturday and the only loco issue was with 46010, which missed its 1250 trip on the Sunday due to a reverser fault and was replaced by 25279 (which actually never got taken off its previous trip and remained on the stock for an extra run), much to the amusement of the class 31 bashers on board. Most of whom just couldn’t resist a bellow at the 25, which is a bit of a beast.