Of trains and petitions

23rd August 2020

What is this,
that cometh north?
Could it be
a Eustace Forth?
(With apologies to some late departed poet somewhere)

Welcome to another edition of Weekend Rails. After the strenuous efforts of last week, this has been a quiet one, especially since the rest of the family has been away at our daughter's in Darlington for a long weekend. But to begin at the beginning, first thing Monday I was in conversation with the compressor importers, passing on the results of the test we had run on Ashdown and seeking their opinion as to which way to move forward. They felt that all that must have happened was that something had got into one of the valves, and that all that was required was to open up the cylinder head and extract it. Given the urgency to get Ashdown finished and out, I preferred the idea of doing it up here and to that end they sent up some joints. But over the next couple of days I came around to a different view. For one thing the description of taking it apart and getting back together without the valves falling apart or launching themselves into the blue yonder using small tie wraps or bits of copper wire to restrain them didn't sound encouraging. Then there was the 'what if -' scenarios of what we might find when we got in, or warranty implications if we got it wrong. In the end further discussions followed and the compressor came off and will be on a carrier tomorrow for urgent investigation.

Anyway, on Tuesday I was at the shed and somewhat to my surprise, Darley Dale box was manned. It transpired the railway was running - empty stock for competency purposes - with 4 coaches going to and from Riverside. The first train was in the hands of D8, but later ones were handled by Eustace Forth, this being a much-reduced rake to PR's normal 6 carriages, which might have been a little too much.

Most of my week otherwise has been mixed up with commercial work, with large numbers of fabricated brackets being primed and painted, parts to sort, components to collect from suppliers, and so on and so forth. On Friday, for example, I was at the shed overseeing a fitter changing components from one Cummins engine to another when I had a phone call from a courier with a delivery back at the Briddon Country Pile. It was the usual 'I can't find your house' call and I explained where it was and he found it while I was still on the line.

When I got back I looked around for the consignment - a 2metre length of heavy steel tube, it should have been obvious. I looked and looked, in fact I checked all around, peered over at our neighbours, and even walked up and down the length of the street in case he'd delivered it to some other house (even the postman sometimes delivers ours to a house whose name also begins in 'H' and occasionally theirs to us) and became convinced that someone had stolen it during the day. Despondent I was about to go in and try to put the cost/delay out of my mind when I saw it, just about spanning the full front of the garage door, and blending in almost perfectly with the concrete. Relief tinged with embarassment: I had walked past it several times while searching. I wonder when my next eye-test could be arranged?

Also on Friday we had Alistair L and his son back to do more on Charlie - they had originally said Saturday but the weather forecast was not promising so they came for just a couple of hours instead. Saturday and being on my own, I didn't in the end wander down until after lunch and then it was partially for more painting, manufacturing a puller for a special job, continuing dressing the Cummins 855 for a commercial job, etc. It was one of those pottering about days when not much gets achieved, or did it? It was not encouraging to go outside - it rained and stopped and rained again.

And Sunday was rather a re-run. I got more time in and got around to Ashdown: an outcome of the tests we had accomplished last weekend tended to prove that the AV2 would not work without the balancing pressure feed that it had on dual-fit locos. Andrew had thought that by reducing the air signal pressure it would be un-neccessary, but in the event he had dug out a standard Westinghouse regulator for the purpose and left it with me to proceed with fitting. By Sunday afternoon, rain or no, I ventured outside and installed the valve and its attendant pipe. All good fun working underneath the running plate with rainwater dripping off and down the back of your neck, Without the compressor of course, nothing can be tested, but it should be good to go when that returns.

Back to Peak Rail to wind up this week's instalment: on the one hand there are reports from the volunteer side that the railway is resuming weekend services from mid September, although there is nothing on the website yet confirming this. On the other hand, the BBC reports that a petition against reinstatement of the Matlock-Buxton railway has gained over 5000 signatures. Specifically this has been triggered by the activities of MEMRAP (the Manchester-East Midland Rail Action Partnership) but I doubt if the trail users who have been motivated to sign will draw a distinction between MEMRAP or Peak Rail. Either way, the quoted comments of a PPPB official suggest that the road to reinstatement may be much bumpier than some would want, and anyway serious objections would neccessitate a public enquiry (delay and mega-expense) before any T&WO were to be granted. (Remember the Snowdownia park came out against reinstating the WHR, the public enquiry found against also and things only proceeded after the Deputy PM overruled and green-lighted it. I'd love to know exactly what happened...).

Anyway, that's it: hopefully next weekend we'll be back to full strength and the compressor will have been sorted and back with us. Will you be here too? See ya then.