Of a pair of Hudswells
4th October 2020
Welcome to another edition of Weekend Rails...
It is said that we live in one of the most CCTV-prevalent countries in the world. You cannot go far out of your door before a CCTV camera somewhere captures your image. Even in the dark corners of Derbyshire it seems to be true, you cannot escape being recorded. The Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, one of the four heritage railways in this neck of the woods, runs a daily 'blog' (
Last Monday, I was headed over to a machining company I use not far from Wirksworth, and agreed to go a bit further and pop in to the EVR and deliver a couple of YJX cylinder heads to the ELR lads there with D9537. I parked the van and walked up to find them
'I'll be with you in a minute Pete. I'm just doing something delicate... Ow.'
'Delicate and sharp?' I ventured.
'No ' came the reply, 'I hadn't turned the juice off'. Ah, I thought, 110V does have a bit more poke than 24.
Anyway, what's this got to do with cameras and recordings? Well a few minutes later I had moved the van forward and three burly men were man-handling the cylinder haeds and pallet out the back while I watched. And at the same time, the EVR's 0-4-0ST Henry Ellison was blowing off and the scene was recorded and published on the EVR blog. That evening I found myself banged to rights: I don't think they'll mind showing you too.
Our efforts back at Darley Dale (apart from trying to restore some order to what is becoming an overly cluttered workshop) has continued on these commercial jobs, which has even included removing the side skirts from Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0DH 'Claire' (which, according to UKLocos, is our depot shunter - really?) and I was thinking of a headline of 'Andrew removes Claire's skirt' though in this day and age such double-entendres are a bit lame.
Work is also poceeding on installing electronic speedo and tacho after that firm I referred to some weeks ago returned the mechanical heads as 'not repairable, can't be bothered to do anything about it'. Its new compressor drive is finally complete and it other parts of the work progressing
It is some 7 years ago since we said goodbye to Beverley, another of the Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0DH trio as Andrew decided to dispose of some duplicates in the collection.
Beverley was swapped for Ashdown with the Pontypool and Blaenavon, and ironically, barely a month after Ashdown went to pastures new, Andrew had the opportunity to inspect Bev' once again. For 7 years in the open weather (and believe me, you're so high up at Furnace sidings that the weather takes no prisoners) she is still looking in pretty fair order. P&B staff confirm that the alterations we made to her transmission cooling have paid dividends on their gradients and she remains a popular loco.
Her signing may not be entirely prototypical (Bev' was a North Derbyshire Area loco, not a South Wales one) but it looks the part.
So that's about it for this week. The Butchers has re-opened, we are still keeping our fingers crossed but appear to be Covid-free. Lots of work in prospect so I had better buckle down. I'll be back next week but whether I'm entirely coherent (it'll be yet another birthday) I cannot fortell. See ya then.