Works Repair Regimes

[D1001]

I have a two part question.

Firstly, on locomotive record cards, the level of works maintenance is listed such as H/I which is Heavy Intermediate, or L/C for Light Casual. I have accumulated 30 or so of the codes mentioned on record cards and I wondered if anyone knows where to find a definition: what was the difference between a Heavy Intermediate and a Heavy Casual for instance.

Secondly, I have worked out what most of the codes mean but I have recently come across two codes that have befuddled me: V and V/C - C normally means Casual, so V... Casual?

Actually, while I'm at it, does anyone know of sources of information regarding diesel works visits in the 1970's and 1980's? Dates in, dates out, work done - that kind of thing.

Cheers!

 

[Clarence Yard]

If we are talking pre-CEM (i.e pre 1987) diesel loco works overhauls, Classified overhauls were either Light Intermediate, Heavy Intermediate or Heavy General, also known as LGT, INT or GEN.

Non-classified repairs were classed as Casual repairs and could either be Heavy Casual or Light Casual. Sometimes they were C/H or C/L but I have seen them recorded as HC or LC, a relic from steam days.

The work content for each classified overhaul depended on the workshop overhaul specification for the individual class, as did the sequence between types of overhaul, if there was one. Any repairs arisings were done as part of the overhaul visit. There was usually a planned programme for works overhauls but if a loco needed a significant repair and was due in a couple of months, it would jump the queue and be shopped early.

Shopping periodicities in that era were time based, usually a number of years, although it could include a fraction of a year, say 3, 6 or 9 months. When diesel main line locos were new, overhauls were done at a much more frequent interval than later on. Over time, the shopping periodicities were elongated, both as a result of experience and for cost reasons.

As an example of a periodicity, in the 1970’s I was shopping cl.31 diesels in the KX Division on a 4 yearly basis on an annual plan drawn up by the ER M&EE Shopping Control. That plan would be part of a wider BR CM&EE plan for the annual inputs into BREL Doncaster.

The whole system was thrown up in the air with the introduction of CEM, which introduced a much reduced specification for classified attention, including more hours based component changes which, hitherto, had really only been seen on a few classes, such as the engines on Deltics.