31 Jan 2022

Fletcher moorland: promoting major new efficiencies and raising standards in the repair of class 66 locomotives.

At the recent AEMT Awards, three projects were shortlisted for the Project of the Year category, which recognised the most innovative project carried out in the previous 24 months covering the installation, maintenance, repair or service of electro-mechanical equipment. The award, sponsored by EMiR Software, went to Fletcher Moorland for its work refurbishing iBOT PC Cards. Renew magazine looked at the projects that made it to the finalist stage.

Over several years, Fletcher Moorland had developed a relationship as a trusted repair partner for the Electro-Motive Diesel depot close to its workshops in Stoke-on-Trent. As a result, the company was approached to assist in the creation of formal repair procedures and the associated service kits for the repair of Class 66 locomotives in Egypt.

Electro-Motive Diesel had won a contract to oversee locomotive repairs in Egypt and needed to standardise repairs in that country. The task was compounded by the Egyptian government's insistence that all repairs were carried out in the country and by Egyptian railway workers. Due to tight Egyptian government restrictions, there was no possibility of shipping locomotives to the UK to be overhauled.

Standardisation was vital. For years the locomotives had been repaired using random parts and methods. This impacted on safety and reliability, with locomotives breaking down repeatedly.

Fletcher Moorland brought in UK-based Class 66 locomotives and stripped down all engine parts. As the company's engineers went through the processes of stripping down, cleaning and renovating every mechanism, they were asked to write down and video their actions.
This was extremely complex. Fletcher Moorland's work in England with the train company meant it had to strip down, repair or replace engine parts in real-time before delivering them back to the Electro-Motive Diesel depots in Stoke-on-Trent and Darlington working to a normal repair schedule.

This meant that to create the manual, the repair company had to piece together actions on engine parts, as they came and went from its workshops, over several months.

Taking this approach, Fletcher Moorland was able to develop a bespoke repair manual with step- by-step instructions on how to maintain the Class 66 locomotives – the workhorses of the Egyptian railway network.

The manual was the result of hundreds of hours of work in Fletcher Moorland's Stoke-on-Trent workshops. Its engineers stripped down locomotive parts and repaired them, logging every piece of work and then describing each step for the online manual.

The result is a comprehensive guide used by every locomotive repairer across Egypt, which has been placed on Fletcher Moorland's extensive database, and can be easily located via a password. Service kits were also prepared for each part, containing all materials used to work on the Class 66 Locomotives, even down to items such as cans of WD40.

Electro-Motive Diesel believes that the project undertaken by Fletcher Moorland has saved a substantial amount of money and made a significant impact with their overseas repair contracts.

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