Of the Big Mak

27th June 2021

Half of this year is almost over. Start counting down to Christmas...

Monday, and fairly early on I popped up to Rowsley, took off the Safety Scotch from the wagon sat patiently outside the gates, pulled it away from them with the van and once Harvey C had opened them, pulled it back so as to get it inside. Later that day Charlie popped up from Darley Dale and collected it.

Some weeks ago, someone alerted me to the Ramco website, where they were auctioning a '5ft gauge' locomotive. It still seems amazing that another generation has never heard of 'four-feet-eight-and-a-half inches': I don't think it is a railway enthusiast-thing, I am sure it was drummed into our psyches when we were young in the same way as 'cars drive on the left' or 'who lives at 10 Downing Street'. Anyway, after a week or two somebody must have queried it with them, as they amended it - to 'four-foot-nine'.

I had been approached by a potential purchaser and asked for a quote to move it, and when he was succesful, we had set a date of Tuesday last week. I was a little apprehensive as I drove over as Adam had let me know it would just be Phil G and me. I had every confidence in Phil, but Phil and me make 2, or given my age and general heath, about 1.75, whereas normally there'd be Adam and another which would have spread the work out, plus the other two had much more experience with trailers which would make up for my lack. I was a little late getting there and Phil had already lined up with the panel of track the loco was sitting on. This is always a bit more difficult than ramping up from flush track. The ramp needs to be longer (to give sufficient space to get the tractor unit in and out between panel end and trailer) and correct to within a gnat's whisker to ensure that there isn't too much of a gap: and as the ramp is longer, it requires more timber packings to support it.

Phil had already measured the gap (using a 'short' tape) and I took his word for it, got my ovvies on and we split the tractor from the trailer. The customer and his wife were there to watch us, so I tried to make it look as 'professional' as possible while sweating from the heat and physical exertion. (Don't you just love it when sweat gets in to your eyes?) The rails duly progressed across the divide. Phil tried out Gizmo, and declared he liked it. When it came to the last pair, they were too long. Not by much, only a couple of inches in fact, but even a quarter inch too long is a no-go. The proceedure at this point is to turn the tractor unit round and drag the trailer a couple of inches further away, but our customer said 'Oh, I've got a rail saw in my van, I'll chop them off a couple of inches'. Now, I wasn't going to let him do that to my rails as it would have mucked up the fishplate bolt holes, and thought that to do it to Ramco's rails without getting their OK was, shall we say, a bit presumptious, so customer rang his man in Ramco and a few minutes later we got the 'Go for it' on the pretext of cutting their rough ends square. A quarter hour later we had the most perfect butting of ramp rails to track panel you could ask for. Here we had to wait, as Ramco wanted to film our loading and a man arrived and proceeded to set up a drone camera. This came as a kit, which he assembled on the concrete apron nearby, deploying the four arms and fixing their rotor blades. Then on went the batteries and the radio control, the drone rotors spun into life - well 3 did and the fourth leapt off and flew 30 yards solo across the apron. Never mind, it was soon airborne and once up in the sky, I pulled the lever and the winch majestically pulled the loco onto our ramp and up on to the trailer.

The ramp was then dismantled and stowed back aboard, the loco chained down. Last task was to rejoin the tractor and trailer, a task which involved backing the tractor into the ramp-gap which hadn't been simple to get out forwards, but after one false start Phil got his tractor back into place very competently and we were ready to roll.

I generally aim to get ahead of the loco on these occasions, get to site and sort out where to unload and ensure everyone is ready. Today I ended up an hour and a half ahead, so killed a bit of time photographing a bit of shunting in progress

In due course Phil arrived, lined up, a 'normal' ramp was assembled, (save that the track sloped upwards) and the loco unloaded as far as gravity allowed, then drove away down the line to its new home.

There had been a job planned for Wednesday but the loco wasn't ready in the end, so I had some time for an admin catch-up before another early start on Thursday. This time it was back to Adam and Ian, and I reached site well ahead (I overtook them on the M18) to suss out exactly where we were and what we had to do to get on site. The loco had been moved out of the shed (in which it been incarcerated) the previous day, and even overnight some apple of his mother's eye juvenile had been in with a spray can and added some unique decoration. He couldn't smash any glass as it had already been done, windows, desk gauges, the lot.

With the three of us the ramp was soon out again and the loco drawn on, and after the usual 90 minutes or so we were heading north. Our starting point was Hull, and our journey began up the A164 towards Beverley. Being that way inclined I ignored the signs that tried to take me round the periphery of Beverley, and opted to drive straight through and see what it was like (I went there twice for the defunct Museum of Army Transport but don't recall much other than the museum). I was therefore a touch surprised, as I left on the far side of Beverley and sought the B-road that would take me straight to Wetwang, to see the low loader in transit, but going the other way! Beyond Wetwang is Fimber, the home of the Yorkshire Wolds Railway, and while waiting for the low loader I measured out the distance we had determined on Tuesday and made a mark on the ground for the front of the trailer. Hindsight says I should have checked the other rail of the YWR track to see if it was square but I think I'll gloss over that. Adam and Ian arrived, the extra long ramp laid out to butt up with the YWR track, the loco was rolled as far as gravity would take it from ours and then pulled onto theirs by the YWR JCB.

'That was very professional' said a YWR member 'We've fooled another one, Adam' I quipped.

Ah, but after all this I haven't mentioned Big Mak. You will recall that last week the battery electric wrench had died with smoke coming from its battery. It had been a cheap Chinese one and sounded as though the electronics or motor had expired, but it had proved how useful it was compared to winding the fishplate bolts and tie bars with hand spanners. Thus last weekend a search had commenced for a 'proper' one, culminating in the arrival on Monday of a Makita example which was first deployed on Tuesday and earned the name Big Mak partly for its weight and partly for the way it wapped everything up tight, probably better than Adam's Milwaukee which had been our yardstick up to then.

Friday was another job but Friday evening Andrew and I went down to the shed and applied grey floor paint to the Ornamental Pond area which had been vacc'd and sealed on Monday. By Saturday morning it was mostly dry (but matt and needs a second coat) but Andrew and I left it to sort a bit of shunting and re-arrangement which took up most of the day.

We finished leaving a gap between the cement van and the 2HAP so that work could commence on the end, which was the next bit needing to be extracted for replacement. Sunday was the first resumed Quorn railwayana meet, and Andrew set off early to get there, while I wandered down to the shed later and opened up. Jagger arrived and started work on the cement van. Up to now our proceedure had been to take an angle grinder with a slitting disc and cut into each external bolt until the nut was split in two, then chisel off the bits. He was under way on this but on a whim I went and got Big Mak, and soon found I could undo these 5/16 Whit nuts easily, despite the bolts having countersunk heads on the inside with no apparent means of preventing them rotating. Indeed, even 7/16 and 1/2 Whit bolts at the top seemed to be surrendering, at least where other obstructions allowed us to get a socket on. Big Mak was certainly proving its worth, for as long as the one battery I had with me lasted, which turned out to be about 6pm. We did though break off in the afternoon as we had a visit from two members of the Foxfield line to discuss how to handle work on 'Clive'.

By the end of the day the end sheets had finally been extracted, providing new views of the assembled locos nearby.

And so another hectic week draws to a close. Moreover it is again an early start tomorrow as the trailer is on the road, with a number of moves for this week and next. No wonder one customer observed this week that whenever he asks me 'How are you?' I invariably reply 'Tired'. Not that I'd noticed, but I do dislike replying with the normal 'Fine': I'll just have to think up some original responses. So until next Sunday (or whenever you choose to log back in) I'll endeavour to -See ya then.