Of the Men from Deutz

30th March 2025

Happy birthday rail chair, a hundred years old this year.

I had to go across to Manchester on Tuesday, and decided that it was as near as I was going to get to my battery supplier (who is back in Yorkshire) so returned over the M62 and collected two batteries to reside permanently in the little minilok. I fitted them on Wednesday so was ready when the men from Deutz (it was him and his son this time) returned and we calibrated the throttle. They also brought another stop solenoid, and out of curiousity I put my meter across its terminals to see what the resistance ought to be (it is engraved on the outside as 24volts, 1.6 Amps which would predict 15 ohms, but the one on the little minilok is only returning 0.5-0.6 ohms). The only thing was this one wouldn't give any reading at all so I presumed it is open circuit, and my visitors admitted that it wasn't the first to be 'duff' straight out of the box. So while controlling the engine should have now been possible, stopping it was still out of reach.

With the laptop informing the ECU that idle was about 0.5 volts and maximum revs about 4.8, we fired up and - the engine went straight to full rpm and stayed there. Yes, the ECU was doing what it was told, the trouble was, the 'hand throttle input' was telling it to go to max rpm. (A fair amount of plant has a separate hand throttle control for use when the operator cannot run the machine while sat in the normal seat - think digger where the driver turns around to operate the back-acter - and the hand control takes precedence). The only snag, this minilok doesn't have a hand throttle. Aha, they said, then you must have a wiring fault. But, I pointed out, looking at the official Deutz diagram, the hand throttle signal goes to pin 21 of that plug. That plug has a location for a pin 21, but the pin itself doesn't exist and there's no wire going to it. Ah, said the men from Deutz, the data set must be wrong, and we can't change it from this software.

You see, the data set is like the factory settings on your phone. You buy it and change them to suit yourself. The difference here comes that when the ECU is commissioned in the field, it is practice that the revised data set is copied back to the Deutz factory so any subsequent replacement can be plugged in and go. What seems to have happened is that the original data set was never updated at factory, so this engine has had a 'factory reset'.

As for the stop solenoid, we tried it (but it didn't work) and they told me there were none in stock at Deutz itself. The men from Deutz went off with the ECU. I don't know whether they or me were the more despondent.

Thursday was taken up with sorting out the paperwork for another despatch to Northern Ireland - I had to ring the Help-line again as it wasn't the same as last time - and then getting the pallet away to the carriers with another pallet destined for the Isle of Man. The IoM one went on a verbal order number, which was confirmed by the 'official' order on Friday morning at 10.00, with the goods being delivered just after noon.

Saturday: Andrew asked me to be in by 10.00 as another of the Transport for London battery trolley sets was due to go to Telford. I had wandered over on to Darley Dale station at about 10.20, to have a natter with Dave L who was Station Master, when the man from Telford rang to say he was stuck in traffic in Ashbourne (he had opted for a back-roads route) and would be with me in half-an-hour. Ashbourne is having major road works and is currently well worth avoiding. He finally arrived about an hour later. I looked at his transport as we drive in and mimicked Roy Schneider from Jaws 'I think you're going to need a bigger trailer'. To be fair, he anticipated splitting the 'powered trolley' into its 2 pieces and putting one half in the trailer and the other in the back of his van, and if the trailer-trolley had also split he might have succeeded in distributing them also, but the trailer-trolley is about 2metres square and was thus bigger than his trailer.

Getting the power-trolley split and aboard taxed us enough: he promises to return next week for the trailer-trolley. I had plied him with tea and was doing the semi-obligatory tour of the grounds when Roger H showed up, he thought just to collect something but Andrew had primed me to tackle him on other matters so he went off to natter with Dave L.

As soon as the man was on his way back to Telford Roger returned and I passed him two carrier bags of 'bequest' from a volunteer of 30 years or so ago who had dropped out before the line re-opened to Rowsley so whose family knew only of Darley Dale and had found Andrew there alone a week before.

Roger and I entered the derelict 'Conference room' which was once the PR mess room at Darley Dale but which now had damp, a hole in the roof, collapsed ceiling, etc. We already had Board approval to demolish it (it could keep the railway in lighting-up wood for a year or two) but what, I had been instructed to ask, about the contents, because apart from tables and chairs, and soggy kitchen units, there's a tv (old CRT type, not flatscreen!), fridge, washing machine, kettle, two water heaters, a sink and so on. Maybe we'll have a skip to empty it all in to.

You will recall last week I bemoaned the misplacement of my strap wrench, and a further look around the shed by me and Andrew had failed to spot it. But I was repeatedly drawn back to one place in the shed by some sixth sense and despite having searched there before, I suddenly saw it hiding amongst some spanners. Hooray, I thought, I can get the fuel filter changed on the big minilok. Ah, no. I can dent the canister, no trouble there but get it to unscrew? Not yet.

My afternoon thereafter was taken up with putting together two more pallet loads to depart on Monday (I couldn't do this on Friday as the van was having a service) and a few other minor tasks of no consequence before packing up and returning home for half four.

Sunday first thing (well, a little later than first thing as the clocks juggled my sleep pattern) I was out the back of the Briddon Country Pile hanging a gate to the gatepost I had concreted in a day or two earlier before heading back to the workshops. The main challenge for the day was to try and sort out the wiring on the little minilok. It would be nice that when the men from Deutz reappear, the throttle pedal in the cab was functioning and a working ECU might give me the chance to drive it. When we had had it running on Wednesday it had tried to build air (you knew because of the loud air leak from underneath) which I suspected might perhaps be a missing valve which I had 'borrowed' for the other one years ago after the ECU went down.

The pipe fitting was not one I was familiar with, so recovered a few pieces of it and took them inside to try and identify the thread. As I suspected, it was a metric (it was close to 3/8BSP but although BSP is used in Europe hey have their own proprietory parts using metric threads) but eventually I pinned this down to M16 x 1.5 (a fine pitch) and managing to find a nipple, blanked this off and refitted it so that it the air can be contained.

With batteries fitted I could at least do further tests with the wiring. The cab throttle pedal makes two relays work, but I know from the other one that these two relays route a supply but do not themselves provide it. I have a feeling that the Emergency Stop loop is a factor - or 'Not Aus' as the Germans like to call it - and this had been in under investigation by someone in the past. I had already replaced two out four of the corner buttons but the Red LED up in Digan continued to illuminate and I'm guessing that this was not a good thing. But jumping switches out with bits of wire didn't restore the loop, and what bits of wiring information I have on this machine weren't very informative, with 4 letters and a number that I couldn't find on any of the plugs and sockets. Then it suddenly registered that 'NAVR' with two wires going to it might mean Not Aus Vorne (front) Rechts (right) and very rapidly I could sketch out the sequence through the connectors. I added a jumper wire to by-pass all of them and the Red LED went out. Had I got throttle feeds at last? I put a weight (actually a Simplex brake block) on the throttle pedal to get throttle up and went searching with my meter at the plug down by the ECU. Nothing, in fact far from giving me a +ve signal for throttle up or throttle down, both pins seem to be permanently linked to -ve.

So I'll have to dig out the wiring for the big minilok, check that the wires coming off the relays are the same, and change whatever to make them work as the big one did (or would if I hadn't put in the new variable pedal and linked it direct (for now). Preferably before the men from Deutz return. As the weather was quite pleasant I broke up the frustration of not being able to bottom my electrics with a few pictures of Waleswood and Cathryn in action.

And what of this week? Month end and (tax) year end loom but all being well some transport work later in the week and next weekend lined up for some progress. Will it happen? Dunno, you'll just have to come back and... well, do whatever you normally do. See ya then.