The Engine Room

Well its the wee small hours and I'm down at the depot preparing my HST to take up to the station and drive it from Edinburgh to Leeds so I have around 55 minutes to prepare it which includes a full walk round both sides of the seven coaches and two power cars on this part of the job you are checking the fuel supply on the power cars along with checking the bogies and brakes then all the air pipes and electrical jumper cables between every vehicle then the air suspension of the coaches as there are small arrow gauges if they line up horizontally then there is a leak as the arrows need to have a gap which lets you know they are inflated ok also checking that there are no isolating cocks in the wrong position then its up into both power cars doing full in cab checks putting the brake through every step to make sure your gauge reads correctly it starts off at 5 BAR/72 1/2 PSI and drops at every brake position when that is done a shunter will go in the rear power car and hit the emergency plunger so the driver can see the brake pipe gauge fall letting him know he has brake pipe continuity then its going into all compartments of the power car where there is 4 sections the first is the clean air compartment containing isolating cocks circuit breakers alternator and electrics then its the engine room next is the radiator compartment then finally the Engine management system along with engine fire bottles and emergency equipment it all has to be checked and signed off before turning a wheel so it is a meticulous method of working that gets done daily every time one of these trains leaves the depot at the start of the day anyhow this shot shows our 2500BHP 16 cylinder engine which has a unique action when idling you have "A" bank and "B" bank sides basically left and right so what happens when its idling is that one side will run 8 cylinders for three minutes then shut down for around ten seconds then the other 8 cylinders will kick in and run for three minutes its done that way to minimize wear and tear to the engine so now you know a little more of a drivers job Yawnnnnnnnnnnnn its going to be a long one today I cant wait to get into the station for my large creme brulee latte from Costa