Of scrap and steel
8th March 2020
My sister-in-law rang up last night: nothing particularly unusual in that and of course it was Steph she wanted to talk to, not me, but her first words to me were about coronavirus. I just assured her 'it was coming for her' and passed her over to Steph!
We haven't had situation like this in my life-time, nor, to be honest, in the history of heritage railways at all. Yes, there's been foot and mouth that has impacted on volunteer working parties in infected areas but that was an inconvenience more akin to a spell of bad weather. Your working parties, train crews, all your volunteers in fact come together in areas such as mess rooms, and men being men these places often lack - let us say - a regular cleaning regime. One case of Covid-19 amongst the rinsed-but-seldom-properly-washed mugs on the draining board, twenty volunteers all eating their 'snap' (that's a northen expression for 'lunch' to all readers south of Watford Gap) with much less than a metre between them and bang goes your operating staff, roster clerk and all. Of course, if it gets that far we may well find that heritage railways are ordered to desist, along with concerts, football matches with no spectators, and our few-remaining pubs. This could be a tough year.
Monday and Jagger came over to help out. He was on tenter-hooks all day as Monday was the day that all the Scunthorpe steelworks employees were due to hear whether they had fresh contracts with the new Chinese owners or whether they had been awarded the DCM. (DCM? Out of fashion now but meant 'Don't Come Monday' although in this case it meant don't come in tomorrow even). Fortunately for Jagger he was on the 'still employed' list. To be honest I've got more commercial work on at the moment than I can cope with and with Andy H out of the picture so far this year progress on most fronts hasn't been up to the mark. As usual I don't report on commercial work - though I will make the occasional exception, such as when a loco goes out on hire to another heritage railway: watch this space - but the occasional second set of hands is most welcome.
Andrew had been nagging me to get the scrap skip exchanged and consequently I had arranged for C F Booths to call, and this had been set up for Friday. That was OK, but the time they had nominated, 07.00, was a bit early for me, as I'm normally out on a Thursday night and try not to arrange early starts the following day. I was apprehensive too, as on past occasions these early mornings have a reputation for going awry - you know the sort of thing, driver rings in sick, lorry breakdown - but as there's no admin staff in before 08.00 at the earliest there's no way to warn you, and I can recall being sat outside Rowsley waiting for them and shivering with cold. Not that a skip collection is straightforward. As you saw last week the skip sits between the two tracks to the shed, so to access it the Booth lorry needs to come around the shed and get up to and beyond the skip so that it can be loaded over the rear. In effect that means pulling things back on both shed roads and the storage road that terminates alongside the shed. And that means having a loco that works.
At 06.45 that morning the temperature gauge in the van told me it was minus 4 and the batteries on Ludwig Mond were not, shall we say, at their best. (But then neither was I, but at least I'd spent the night in a warm bed.) I don't like using ether for starting - engines seem to get addicted to it - but then was no time to start dragging out battery chargers and extension cables so Easy Start it was. By 07.15 the way was clear. By 07.40 I had tried ringing the Booth's rep, but he was on the school run and didn't return my call until just after 08.00, and that only to confirm, what I already suspected, that there was no lorry on its way to me but they'd get one to me ASAP, probably about 10.30, and his apologies. I locked up and went home for breakfast. I had barely got through that when my mobile rang. I had forgotten that Andrew had arranged for Twigg's to deliver some lengths of steel: I hadn't had an ETA though but the lorry was now waiting at the gates. Off I went back down. Steel off and the lorry on its merry way, I couldn't decide whether to go back home or stay down and try to get some work done. I chose the latter.
Finally the Booth-mobile turned up a bit after eleven, an enthusiastic and helpful driver who made sure the replacement skip was in the right place and departed for Rotherham, leaving me to shove everything back. While all this was going on, a Peak Rail train passed by, led by the RSH and with D8 at the rear, it was apparently a test train to measure deflection on the river bridge relating to the recent water levels and repairs. By the time it returned the yard was back to normal.
There has been some progress on Ashdown. Not really enough but the momentum must continue. The back strip across the cab, which joins the top and bottom halves, was badly corroded and distorted and a new strip has been drilled, just leaving the end corners to be adjusted and welded in place. We're moving the batteries up into the cab, so a battery box will butt up to that on the other side. The original battery box is located up front, in a box that doesn't really suit modern day battery sizes, so re-positioning it to the cab rear not only facilitates a better capacity but can include a proper battery master switch, which hitherto the loco lacked, with the dynamo and voltage regulator being permanently connected up front.
On Saturday Andrew had also kindly arranged for a visit from a fencing contractor. One of the commitments Peak Rail made before we started building the shed was to renew the fencing between railway and footpath. In the end it was only half done before Rob Sanders resigned and even that proved to be little deterrent when local juveniles started playing in the yard in 2016. The razor wire we put down (and the police involvement) stopped it then, but the recent recurrence and the need to get up the side of the shed for some maintenance - which we can't for the razor wire - is making us reconsider whether to get some 50 meters or so of proper fence installed commercially. With that out the way I was back plodding away at comercial work when I had a phone call from one of the station staff to the effect that there were two enthusiasts asking if they could have a look round. I broke off and did the usual guided tour. These two came from near Dinting, and although they had never visited there while it was a steam centre, they had done so long after it closed. Funnily enough, Andrew and I had too, returning from Manchester, we'd turned up the side road by the viaduct and found the loco shed still standing, the land around grassed over. The circumstances that brought about closure, or rather the reported aspirations of the landowner, clearly didn't take place and was a sad loss to preservation.
At about half-four I was annoyed with myself for breaking an M6 tap. I moved on to drilling a bracket to attach a filter header and at five past five presented bracket to header and found that the holes lined up perfectly, but, being oblong in their centres, they were at 90 degrees to the way they should be. I decided it was time to lock up and go home.
Sunday. Didn't head down straight away, but did a bit of admin that included, at last, starting to bring Andrew's website up-to-date, at least with the various bits that have now been sold, though there is still more to do. After lunch though I returned to the shed, re-drilled said bracket so that the filter header would align correctly, and, after some actual planning and thinking (both of which had been lacking the previous day) a totally re-thunked arrangement means that the broken tap can be ground off smooth and forgotten about. Actually this is on Claire which to the best of my knowledge still has a bit of broken Rotabroach in its rear buffer beam going back to its spell at Snibston over 15 years ago, so I may be keeping up a tradition. I'm fitting it with a new battery master switch too, so the one we fitted then has come off and will be redeployed on Ashdown.
So that's about it for this week. Nothing particularly dramatic on the skyline for this week that I know of, but we shall see. All being well, if I've not succumbed to Covid-19 or some other lurgee, I'll be back next week. See ya then.