Midland Railway in Butterley, Derbyshire, has issued an update on its work on 47401 “North Eastern”.

47401 is a British Rail Pioneer Class 47 diesel-electric locomotive. Brush Traction developed the Class 47s for British Rail in the 1960s, as a result of which the class is also known as Brush Type 4.

The Project is carrying out work on locomotive no. 47401 in the diesel shed at Swanwick Junction, a few miles from Butterley.

It has spent several weeks refurbishing both of the loco’s original radiator headers, and this work is now complete.

The team of volunteers has also replaced badly corroded steel with newly fabricated repair sections, which has allowed it to keep most of the original structure.

The next step for the volunteers will be to reassemble the cooler group. They will then renew the air tanks, which have been removed to allow the work to take place.

In the 1980s, the National Railway Museum at York had intended to claim 47401 for preservation. However, towards the end of the decade, it changed its mind and announced that it would no longer do so.

Following this announcement, the 47401 Project was set up, and by 1993 had raised enough money to buy the locomotive.

The Project arranged for some initial repairs to be carried out in Immingham, and then relocated 47401 to the Midland Railway in Butterley, in the Amber Valley in Derbyshire, where it arrived on 7 July 1993.

Midland Railway’s Butterley site is now an accredited museum. It is raising funds to repair the roof of its Main Exhibition Hall.

47401 hauled its first passenger train in preservation on Saturday, 17 July 1993. The following year, the Project returned it to its large-logo blue livery with a grey roof. It was then renamed the loco ‘North Eastern’.

Since then, loco 47401 has regularly hauled trains at the Midland Railway, and has also visited several other railways and works for open days.

In 1994, the Project also bought another Class 47 locomotive, No. 47417, intending to use it as a supply of spares for 47401. The Project painted 47417 in two-tone green livery as D1516, and in 2002, began restoring it to full working order. The Project is now stripping and painting 47417’s bogies.