D1015 The Restoration Story Page 1

This is a long story so it is split into four pages covering the stages of the restoration

Early Days........

D1062 Western Courier had originally been put on display around the turn table at Swindon Works along with Warship D818 Glory.When Western Courier was bought for preservation by the Western Locomotive Association and moved from Swindon D1068 Western Reliance having not long been withdrawn at Swindon after failing in 1976 near the works and therefore not having been robbed of parts was moved onto the spot vacated by Courier as a replacement with 1062 in the headcode. The story at that time has it that the then works manager wanted a Swindon built example on show and Reliance was removed from the turn table.At that time both D1005 Western Venturer and D1015 Western Champion were easily to hand stored together outside A shop with Venturer being the nearest to the turn table and the shunter given the task of moving one of them to replace Reliance being a railwayman took the easy option which was 1005. Once on display a person or persons unknown seem to have decided to make a start on tidying up the external appearance of the loco and over the next few weeks patches of light blue paint started to appear on both bodysides of Venturer.The works were not too pleased about this and within the month the loco had been removed from display and was being stripped in A shop next to D1065 Western Consort having jumped the queue of Westerns awaiting stripping.After a few weeks and having told everyone in no uncertain terms that the loco was not to be interfered with Western Champion was shunted onto the turn table as the 4th Western to occupy the display position and that is the story of how 'The Mule' became the eventual candidate for external cosmetic restoration when in 1978 whilst the DTG were at Swindon with D821 and D7029 we were asked if we would be interested in cosmetically restoring the Western which was on display but was now looking decidedly tatty.  

In order to do a proper job we needed the locomotive under cover and so in January 79 we were put in the old weighshop (now a brewery!). External restoration started and spares were abundant at the time as the scrap yard still had a few Westerns left.To replace the derailment damaged valances we acquired the two corner sections from 'A'end drivers side of D1011 Western Thunderer during Dec 1978 and the front middle Section from 'A'end of D1058 Western Nobleman in July 79.Not content with making it look nice we  tried to make it a goer too! Luckily the loco had been withdrawn through accident damage so internally everything was mostly complete. It wasn't long before an engine burst into life and when it was quite we prepared to move her under her own power. On the first test run in the works complex the transmission would not reverse so we drove it down the line a few hundred yards towards the scrapyard and had to tow it back! As work progressed we began to find more and more problems. 

We had enquired about buying D1015 but were told it wasn't for sale. Earlier we had considered buying D1022 Western Sentinel but this came to nothing. 

During the Summer of 1979 an auditor from Derby Works was going through the books of disposed assets and noticed that one Class 52 Western was still not shown as disposed of and enquired of Swindon as to the reason for this. "Err, well it’s a…….. don't know!". " He instructed Swindon to get ride of it. D1015 was moved into A shop for stripping and with a couple of fitters brought in on overtime to speed up the job work started. It was Friday August 10^th 1979.

On the Sunday two of our members were on a railtour with 50046 Ajax to South Wales. A passing comment from a Swindon employee revealed what was happening to Western Champion. Luckily, the train had yet to reach Swindon and so they got off when it arrived and headed for the Works. At first security refused entry but once this hurdle was over they were greeted with D1015 in A shop with men bashing away and ripping out components. Being a scrapper no care was being taken but after some persuasion they agreed to carefully remove items and leave the remaining wiring intact. 

Paul Koch and Andy Bennett took the Monday off work and headed for B.R. HQ at 222 Marylebone Road. Paul demanded to see Sir Peter Parker to explain our predicament but of course he wasn't available. Paul was spoken to by a member from the C.M. & E.E. office who agreed to get work stopped on the locomotive until a decision was made. Not content to stop there Paul went to meet Sir Peter Parkers usual train from Charlbury at Paddington and pestered the poor bloke all the way across the concourse at Paddington! Considering Sir Peters' position of authority and having this ranting nutter pestering to buy a train from him he took some notes and said he would make enquiries (perhaps he had a soft spot for the old thousand class). 

With work stopped we had breathing space. Efforts were raised to get enough money to put in a bid and we raised nearly £6,000.00. This was accepted and then we had to find the V A T! The total amount came to £6,125.00 and on January 25^th 1980 D1015 Western Champion became the property of the Diesel Traction Group. 

Once Western Champion was the property of the group we were able to carry out a more detailed restoration which enabled the locomotive to move under its own power on two engines. The first invite to a special event was for the September 1985 Old Oak Common open day.  

Unfortunately the event was not without its problems. A bearing fractured in an engine which now meant we had to do an engine change. We had also hoped that the stay at Old Oak would be at least a couple of weeks so we could get a lift to properly inspect the underside. Unfortunately, and unusually, the Railways were on the ball and D1015 was back in Swindon just two days later! 

Rumours regarding a suspected fractured axle surfaced and we could only be sure that it was safe by removing the suspect wheel set. The problem was that a trace had showed on the centre wheel set on a Ultrasonic Axle Test (U.A.T). Being the centre wheel set it was near impossible to get the probe onto the axle end because of the bogie frame, the ones used by the W.R. designed especially for the Westerns having long since been disposed of. We obtained a spare bogie (off D1031) to stand D1015 on whilst we stripped down the bogie and removed the suspect wheel set. Once this was done a proper test was carried out and the U.A.T showed the axle to be 100%.