Mid Norfolk Railway Diesel Gala 27th March 2015
A well anticipated weekend with A1A Locomotives 31271 being invited early in 2015 to the Mid Norfolk Railway Gala; and what a weekend to pick after some 31 basher had decided to get married that weekend!
The full gala line-up was as follows:
31271 (A1A), 31601 (DCR) and resident locos 47367, 47596 & 73210
31271 was collected from Wansford on Sunday 22nd March by DCR’s 31601 and ran as 0Z31 1700 Orton Mere – Dereham via Norwich and was pretty much right time throughout. Unfortunately 31601 was suffering from low power but managed to get itself and 31271 to Dereham ok; its first run at the diesel gala the following Friday was a different story though!
With a Friday generally being the best day to do a Mid Norfolk Railway gala from a 31 basher’s perspective there was a decent turnout on Friday morning as 31271/31601 dropped the second train of the day into the platform in glorious sunshine. It soon became very evident that 31601 wasn’t well at all and was only developing about 500amps. 31271 ended up doing most of the work for 31601; and to be quite honest it was a bit of a waste of time 31601 being on the train at all, although it did increase the load for 31271 to deal with!
After 31271 did a return trip on it’s own it should have been 31601’s turn to do a return trip on its own but the MNR were persuaded to put 31271 with it for insurance and it was a good job it was with it as it would have likely had to go and assist it anyway. With ‘601 being no good it was left at Dereham after the 1530 from Wymondham arrived for A1A Locomotives technical guys to have a look at it; this resulted in 31271 doing the 1640 Dereham – Wymondham and 1800 return on its own and a fitting end to the day it was too.
As always A1A’s star team managed to find that 31601 had problems with its governor and the fuel rack wasn’t set right, which resulted in the low power that ‘601 developed. It had already been proven that it wasn’t a regulating air problem of load regulator issue earlier in the day. the unfortunate issue for the Mid Norfolk Railway was that the DCR fitter couldn’t rectify it first thing Saturday morning so 31271 ended up doing ‘601’s work and working the trains that should have been pairs of 31’s on its own; with ‘601 appearing for traffic on Sunday morning.
It was a good weekend for 31271 with over 300 miles of work under its belt but not so much for 31601, which really didn’t sound good at all; in contrast 31271 was the pick of the bunch again and didn’t disappoint anyone at the gala at all.
On Friday 27th March 2015 the 31’s worked the following:
31271 – 0940 Dereham – Wymondham (tandem 31601), 1050 Wymondham – Dereham (tandem 31601), 1200 Dereham – Wymondham, 1310 Wymondham – Dereham, 1420 Dereham – Wymondham (tandem 31601), 1530 Wymondham – Dereham (tandem 31601), 1640 Dereham – Wymondham, 1800 Wymondham – Dereham
Photos of the transfer from the NVR & MNR Gala on Friday are below:
