It’s 10 years now since the dodgy diesel dubbed The Cabbage was delivered to the Steam Railway.

And a decade on, new figures have been released proving just useless it has been.

Diesel no.21 was delivered on December 11, 2013, having been purchased at a cost of £420,000.

It was supposed to pull commuter, dining and maintenance trains as well as act as a shunter and recovery loco.

But a catalogue of technical problems was soon encountered, first with its over-heating engine which had to be replaced under warranty and then with its bogies and motors. And the US-built unit has barely turned a wheel since its arrival.

In February 2020, the then Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer told the House of Keys that it had been ‘fully operational during the service seasons for 219 days’, a figure which did not include its availability out of season. It had been out of service for 1,107 days.

He said the loco had been inoperable awaiting repairs from May 2015 to April 2019 and from October 2019 to the end of the 2019 season.

Now a new Freedom of Information response by the Department of Infrastructure states that the machine has been used for just 31 days in the last five years – 29 of these days in 2019 and two in 2021.

The DoI confirmed the loco is not currently in working condition and was last used on June 17, 2021.

It said that £249,000 has been spent on repairs including labour, parts, repairs, additions or modifications and associated costs.

The DoI said the machine still requires a replacement of cracked axle, a repair to the gearbox, motor refurbishment and subsequent bogie reassembly. It said the work to return the loco to service has been estimated to cost £40,000.

The FoI request, submitted by island advocate Ian Kermode, also asked whether there are plans to sell the machine. But the DoI said it could not predict the outcome of future decision making.

Mr Kermode pointed out: ‘The diesel locomotive will have cost a total of £709,000 after the current repairs are complete. However, it had only been used on two days in the last four years.’