Of entering the tenth year

5th January 2020

This blog, as has often been said, first went public in July 2010, so it is nearing its 10th anniversary. Given that, and the fact that a new decade has dawned, it seems appropriate to extend a bit of a review.

For that matter, this week has been something of a wash-out, even a quiet New Years eve night in ending up as a dash-out to bring back (almost) 7 year old grandson back from Andrew's where he was feeling unwell. Yes,. I have been down at the shed a few times: mostly on fencing work as our neighbour has been very patient but the blue temporary fencing has become a little too long-standing (and long-flopping). There has, to be sure, been a lot of planning going on. A pump has been located that should fit the Hatz and provide hydraulic power for the winch, and the bracket for the latter has had further paint applied.(Andrew swears he will not use that brand of paint ever again, as it took two or three days to dry properly last time!)

Meanwhile a job lot of t&g boards have been lined up to provide the roof material for the box van. And while putting in an order to the profilers for a quantity of laser cut shapes, I've dug out and tacked on a set for one of the planned new step assemblies for Adolf.

(I'm not sure I've reported this before, but around Easter last year my regular profilers suddenly announced that they had implemented a new accounting system under which they had insurance for all their sales ledger provided the clients were 'known' to the insurers. It seems however that I do not exist as far as the insurers are concerned, notwithstanding that I had been doing business with the laser cutters for about 12-15 years, therefore they would have to remove my credit terms and only deal with me on a cash with order basis. I was somewhat taken aback, and couldn't believe what I was hearing. Why not, I suggested logically, introduce me and my trading history with them to their insurers, that way they would get to 'know' me. No, apparently that wasn't possible, there was no way round it. There was: I switched suppliers, finding in the process that the new laser cutters was not only much closer but about 20% cheaper. I only recount this now because on the 13th December I received an e-mail Chrissy card from the original profilers' Commercial Director saying 'our thoughts turn gratefully to those who have made our progress possible'. Clearly the Goodbye e-mail I sent to my regular Sales Office contact didn't sink in, nor the 8 months of business they lost from me, or perhaps they just automatically sent the message out to everyone that appears on their accounts list regardless. I suppose I really should have clicked on the 'unsubscribe' button. It seemed churlish to respond during the season of goodwill, but now Christmas is over...)

Railway Magazine flopped on to the doormat this week: Pete Nicholson has run a piece on RS8, complete with the loco it towed down to Darley Dale, though inexplicably he reversed the caption by saying that RS8 was towed down by it - duh. He also ran the same info on a Babcock Rosyth loco as did Rail Express - it seems they both had the same informant, and it was incorrect.

I said at the beginning that this might be a look over the last decade. I'm not sure I really want to look at some of it. Back in 2010 we were running on a surge of pride that we had sorted out most of 14901's foibles and got it running reasonably well, given that the fuel pump was a bit of an unknown, and evidence began to stack up that the engine was not producng the power we had expected, and as time went on, proved that it could never live up to the expectations of a real Rolls-Royce DV8TCE. That, plus the periodic failings of its fuel pump giving it an unfortunate reputation, took the icing off the cake. Andrew's collection has bumped along at or about 20 locos, reducing as certain external events occurred, and expanding in other ways as bits of rolling stock were acquired.

The 03 which had moved to Scunthorpe after purchase from the Dean Forest, began a steady return to operational status, albeit that we made a few innovations along the way. Certain people insisted that there was no way we would ever achieve this, and in consequence most of the task had to be done outside: I still remember working under a tarp stretched over the casing frames with my feet literally standing on ice on the concrete ground underneath.

We brought Beverley up to running order and vac fitted it: having 3 locos the same though (Beverley only became part of the collection as it was in imminent danger of scrapping) it moved on to the Pontypool & Blaenavon. Ashdown came up in exchange, and having sorted out its transmission problems it only remains to make a 'proper job' of the vac installation before it moves on. Andrew rescued one of the two original Hunslet 0-6-0DHs (of the 'modern design') - it might not have been seen to be in much danger at the time, but it is now common knowledge that the remaining BARS-empire (the Dartmoor line, Weardale and the RMS Locotec business) is up for sale and although we've heard of interest in the two heritage lines, RMS may be a different matter.

We signed an Agreement with Peak Rail in 2013 which related to my subsequently building a significant workshop at Darley Dale: in 2018 PR put out a newsletter in which it stated there was no such Agreement. Indeed, in 2010 under the aegis of 'Railnuts', Pete Waterman congratulated us and said he must get along to see what we were doing. In 2018 I found myself having to engage defamation lawyers against him as signor of that newsletter.

In 2015 we started the ball rolling that brought RS8 back to life, and will happily taunt those who describe it as a monstrosity. We've had visitors galore to our Darley Dale operation, but some not so welcome who let off fire extinguishers or smashed windows. And we've lost some good friends, like Terry D. It is times like those, reflecting on the way we choose to spend our lives that our priorities change slightly. We have come to realise (some of) our limitations and several locos will depart to people and railways where they have better chance of the attention and use than we can offer. So the 2010s have been a mixed decade, and in many respects I'm glad to see the back of it. There are some interesting developments in store though, and hopefully, some more visible progress to show you in the next edition. See ya then.