By February, numerous complaints had come in on the vacuum brake. It was overhauled, resulting in it maintaining 25” vacuum at 5mph.

A driving spring broke on a Saturday at the beginning of April but it was replaced and the engine was running again by the following Tuesday.

Despite the work carried out at the end of 2018, the injectors continued to be troublesome – blowing back and noisy. After further investigation a split bronze union was found in the water supply pipe from tender. Also a clack cage was discovered to have cracked and a delivery pipe was leaking, but then in July the main fault was finally diagnosed as a cracked ‘lens ring’ securing the delivery pipe against the clack. The whole system was dismantled and rectified, resulting in success at last.

Both piston rod glands were reported to be leaking, thought to be due to a bent gland plate.

Problems were still being reported on the brakes. The ‘pepper pot’ vacuum relief valves, previously fitted with stainless steel springs to avoid corrosion problems, were re-fitted with standard carbon steel springs, preventing them ‘hanging open’ longer than they should. Notwithstanding the optimism surrounding the overhauled vacuum pump in November 2018, it was found that the pump gland was so badly worn as to be virtually non-existent. Replacement gave two beats of the pump per revolution of the wheels for the first time in ages.

In April hydraulic tests showed two superheater elements to be defective, which were repaired.