Of north and south

8th August 2021

Another week where I've racked up a 1000 miles on the road...

But to begin at the beginning. As we left it at this time last week, RS8 was sat on the low loader at the Cromford Steam Rally which had closed at half-five on the Sunday. By arrangement, Rob, who had driven it up on the Friday and remained there over the weekend, had detached and departed Sunday night ready to be back to work on Monday. Meanwhile Adam and Ian were bringing up the 'new' tractor (replacement for the recalcitrant Merc) first thing Monday to bring RS8 home. So I headed up first thing back to the field to recover the signage and see them off the field. It was much firmer than Friday and I had no trouble doing my bit.

I have exhibited at so many shows over the years that I am used to the atmosphere. Before, there is excitement. You've been planning it for months and now you fight your way through to get your gear unloaded, and into place, set it all up and make sure you are prepared for two or three days on your feet trying to be cheerful, greeting customers existing and potential. Sometimes there's a day when the 'public' (as opposed to 'trade') are admitted and you can expect the strange looking people with their even stranger questions, many of whom have the sole intent of collecting as much free literature/gifts as they can. But then the day comes and it is all to be taken down. All the fittings you took such care over putting up are ripped off and stuffed into boxes: the quicker you can get away the quicker you can be home. The glitz is alll gone, the exhibition has the mournful air of a funeral that can't wait to be over.

'It made my day' said a guy nearby whom I think was one of the organisers 'to see that loco had been restored'. I thanked him for his compliment, I gathered he had seen RS8 at the Stone Centre when the loco had been down on its luck. Adam, meanwhile had connected up, locked out the diffs on the driving axles and succeeded in moving about 3 feet before he was stuck. Just to add entertainment, a twirp driving an empty car transporter had driven far too far on to site and got himself stuck in the gateway between our field and the outside world.

A tractor got on the front of him, pulled him through, did a lap of honour with him around the field and back through to where the vehicles he was there to collect were waiting. Soon it was our turn,

And they put together not one, not two, but three tractors which pulled the low loader and tractor backwards out into the first field, then repositioned themselves in front and dragged him in more civilised fashion right to the entrance way where we could scrape some of the mud off and hit the road back to Rowsley.

Andrew had a couple of days off work so appeared to assist, RS8 was duly ramped off and Harvey C came over to pilot me back to Darley Dale. Andrew headed down by road. As I waited at Church Lane for Harvey to finish shutting the level crossing gates, a guy driving a grey van shouted across 'Is that the loco that was at the show?' I nodded 'Looks good,' he said and set off across the crossing.

At Darley Andrew had Charlie up and running and I swapped locos with him, Harvey and me taking it back to Rowsley to where Adam and Ian sat waiting with the ramp still assembled. Charlie was soon on and safely secured, Andrew had shut down RS8 and locked up, and while he headed back to the Country Pile to collect Steph and grandson, I motored on, to follow Charlie.

Now, most locos going in to Wirksworth have to travel up the B-road from Derby and so arrive in to Wirksworth from the south. This is partially because of the steep hill at Cromford and also the low-ish bridge at the top, near the Steeple Grange railway. To do the B-road route would have added an awful lot of miles and besides, there are road works slap in the middle of Wirksworth, just before the turn down to the station, with temporary lights that would have been a pain to negotiate. So Adam had opted to go straight up Cromford hill as we were well below the height of the bridge, and I was right behind. The DAF ascended steadily with no apparent problem, and I dived off down the snicket to the station and expected to see it arrive. It wasn't quite so straightforward. The road works had the effect of sending the traffic through in waves, preventing Adam from getting the swing in to Cauldwell Street.

Andrew walked up to assist, eventually a van driver co-operating by blocking the traffic from the south (despite impatient honking) and the King then swung around without much difficulty. In due course we unloaded Charlie at Wirksworth, did a few minutes basic instruction for one of their volunteers, and generally stood around as it was admired.

Tuesday, and by late morning I was on my way to Barrow Hill, to load an 08 for south Wales. The loading area at BH is by the car park, which is normally locked as the Roundhouse is not open, but it is not unusual while we're there for someone to drive/walk in, take a photo or two and depart. Once again a car came in and parked nearby, the driver remaining in his vehicle. We continued getting on with what we were doing. Eventually I found him standing a short way away. 'Where's it going?' he asked with no sort of courteous 'excuse me but can I ask...'. I pointed to the wording on the side of the cab. Clearly this meant nothing to him. 'It's a steelworks in Cardiff' I said, hot, sweaty and trying to get on with dismantling the ramp and stow things away while Adam and Ian were chaining it down. He laughed as though I'd said something ludicrous, like 'military intelligence' or 'Boris has an IQ of 250'. 'I didn't think there were any steelworks still in Cardiff, I thought we'd sold them to the Chinese'. And there's no such thing as an industrial diesel loco, no doubt.

Unloading in Cardiff that day we excelled ourselves, with the loco off, and the ramp stowed away in just over 40 minutes. The only snag was then having to wait for 15 minutes for Adam to finish his legally-required break before re-connecting trailer and tractor and heading back north. Nevertheless we arrived, unloaded and left site in 70 minutes.

I took Wednesday 'off', well I didn't really, I had paperwork and the van was due a service, but I wasn't going anywhere. Unlike Thursday, when I did a day trip back up to Scotland. I must have passed Adam and Ian in Southwaite services (Carlisle), where they were stopped for a break. That gave me an excuse to drop off the A74(M) and take the parallel B-road though Lockerbie anad Beattock (well almost) which seems a much more pleasant drive than the three tarmacced lanes of the A74. Cheedale was due to come home, well back to England anyway, and it was awaiting us on our arrival.

Loading is straightforward but the winch started to make some funny noises, as if a bearing was breaking up. We finished the load and Adam hoped to make Leeming Bar before running out of hours, but we got caught up in the queue after a multi-car pile up near Carlisle and he only made it to Stainmore. Nonetheless he arrived at journey's end on Friday to time only for the winch to pay out about 6ft of rope and seize solid. Thus I had to drive Cheedale off the rest of the way and later that afternoon collect the defective winch from the trailer back at the yard.

Saturday, and at last I'm back at the shed. It's another weekend when we won't really get time to do any 'real railway engineering' as there's a lot of sorting out to do. Weeks ago we painted the floor on the track area where the Mattersons live (the 'ornamental pond' area) and put one rail back but hadn't bolted it down, Now it was time to get that secured and the other down too. Adolf was then pushed down into that area, freeing up space to bring another loco in on the track it had vacated, but that meant moving 4 locos sat outside. The work was delegated to RS8, but RS8 didn't seem keen. I had noticed this when RS8 first arrived back, it didn't seem to have the power it should. I first thought I hadn't got the relative movement of the throttle cable correct, but it was Andrew who checked and assured me the problem is that the screw adjustment that limits the rack travel (and thus the maximum amount of fuel each injector receives on every stroke) is set too low, probably from its settings as a genset engine. It would however move two locos at a time (and the first of those was Ludwig which is a tough old thing when the traction motors haven't turned for a while).

I had had some time on the Sentinel 'Tom', drilling the desk and fitting the indicator light for the new level switch in the converter oil tank, then filling the tank and spotting the light go out as the float rose. So Tom was delegated to transfer the loco that had been in the top of 3a to the top of 3b, and then pick up a Hudswell 0-4-0DH and bring it back down in to 3a.

Since the weather forecast for Sunday was better than Saturday, most other work was planned then. At 09.00 Sunday morning, the 'dry first thing' forecast was slightly out as the rain fell. Nevertheless it showed a dry, cloudy spell with 20% chance of rain - sorry precipitation - so we cracked on. RS8 brought the German wagon back across and then went and sat on the headshunt for the day, laeving Tom to do most of the work. Our main task was with the forklift, clearing the way to the scrap skip which is due for collection. But our work was frequently interrupted by showers, some slight, some downright downpours which contributed to muddying the area and giving problems with traction for our forklift. Nevertheless by the end of the day the scrap skip was accessible, the casing parts for the Hudswell (that came as a 'kit' from the Pontypool & Blaenavon) had all been laid out on the spare German flat wagon, the recently arrived Cummins 855, destined for said Hudswell, had been moved around to the shed doors and the Lister TS2 that arrived on its wheeled stand some weeks ago, was divorced from said stand, but then at my suggestion the tank part was seperated from the trolley base and retained, as it might prove useful.

Late in the afternoon we had a surprise visit from Rob S, now a manager at Crewe, and I took him up to the top end of the site to see RS8.

So that's it for this week. First thing tomorrow it's open-up for Mr Booth to swap his skip for an empty, then a dash up to Elsecar to meet up with Adam and Ian. Another 1000 mile week? I hope not, but I don't know for sure. You'll have to come back next week- see ya then.