Of springs and rallies

25th July 2021

Do you have nothing to do next weekend? Fancy a day out away from those four walls that you've stared at throughout the pandemic? Read on...

This week didn't start off all that well. We had a ballast wagon to collect from Midsomer Norton, and as I had a lot of other work I'd figuered that I could leave Adam to collect it without me, but Adam's birthday was last Sunday and he wasn't planning to be in a fit state to go anywhere, so he'd allocated Phil G. But he also had Phil G on a job Sunday, and by the time he'd finished that and had his statutory break period he probably wouldn't be getting to the yard until 09.00 Monday morning instead of the 06 or 07.00 start I'd envisaged. That was OK, it meant I could have a lie in, but when Phil got to the yard and checked my trailer over, he found a flat tyre which added a further hours delay. And of course Monday was 'Freedom Day' and it was as though everyone had taken to their cars. I encountered several traffic delays as I headed south-west, and the M5 was at a stand as I swung on to the M4 east (north of Bristol) to get to the M32. I made it down for half-one, and having passed Phil somewhere, he arrived at half-two. Now we had only the heat to contend with, but it was seriously hot.

The wagon was though aboard reasonably quickly and by 3.45pm the lorry was ready to go. I found myself in charge of steering (it may be my trailer but I get to do this only occasionally) and we backed out to the road and waited for a gap in the traffic. Normally S&D members would be dashing out to stop the cars but for once they were conspiciuous by their absence. In the end a friendly bus-driver stopped his bus and waved us out.

Phil was offering to make amends by unloading it alone the next day as I had visitors booked Tuesday having expected to get the wagon off by late Monday evening. At the time I accepted his offer, as I was sweating and dead beat, but once I got back home I had second thoughts: finding the place was not easy first time and I knew the access road was challenging for a low loader. So I contacted Phil (who had run out of hours at Gloucester) and hit the road early Tuesday having put my visitors off. I overtook Phil just outside Shrewsbury, and arranged with him to stop somewhere about Llynclys while I sussed out the route.

Now, I have been to Nantmawr two or 3 times before, but even I missed the tourist signs for it first time and found it more by luck than design, worked out the route back, and returned up the road past Porthywaen to collect Phil. I guided him in though it did give him some good practice at negotiating narrow lanes. Unloading the wagon should have been straightforward but it was on to a sharp curve and was filled with dried mud so without much in the way of flangeways. The wagon came off the trailer happily enough but once the first wheels hit the permanent rails it stopped.

We tried barring it to no avail. I tried pulling it with the van - it worked at Rowsley with that German flat, but here all I did was shorten the life of my clutch and tyres. It took the power of Phil's tractor to shift it forward so that we could dismantle the ramp and re-attach the tractor, but we'd been asked to move it back - right back - afterwards as they had another Pacer due, in fact Reeds were sitting on the entrance road waiting for us. So with me on steering at the back, the tractor on the front and the wagon on a strap to the front of the tractor, Phil delicately reversed, moved the wagon back from the loading area and cleared ourselves out the way for Reed's to come in and unload.

It had been another hot sweaty morning and I never got to take any photos of all this, but I did stop along the road to look down across the TVR tracks going up to Nantmawr.

I had dreamed years ago of James trundling up through this meadow when it was based at Llanyblodwell (aka Llanddu junction) but it was not to be. Phil got himself back through the narrow lanes - we stopped along the way near Porthywaen to remove sundry branches and lumps of grass from the trailer - and went our seperate ways.

The rest of the week has not been uneventful, but not neccessarily of interest to this blog. Saturday however we were due to receive grandson for the first week of the holidays, and as Andrew was 'On Call Engineer' for EMR he could not stray far in case he was summoned out to a breakdown or whatever. Thus Steph and I took his car and headed east. This did not mean he could not go to the workshop though (just keeping his phone close at hand) and he was able to put some time in on Charlie's springs, changing the 3/4UNF setscrews for Grub screws that end up flush with the top of the buckle. He set about installing newly acquired 7/8BSW capscrews to secure the spring base to the top of the left hand axlebox, in place of the studs and nuts which had proved so awkward last week. He even managed to rig up the Big Mak with two extensions, a u/v joint and a hex Allen Key socket to drive the capscrews, together with their spring and plain washers.

Moreover he managed to repair the wear plate at the right hand side. The uppermost spring leaves bear on these plates, they're made in managanese steel and held to the underside of the frame by 3/4 BSW countersunk bolts. I had suspected one was loose but when we got the spring out last week it was obvious that one countersunk screw was missing and another half out and its thread damaged. We had spent an hour or so one evening during the week trying to clean the threads out with a 3/4 tap but the one whose bolt was missing appeared to be damaged and kept throwing the tap out of line. Working on his back on rough ballast and arms up, he eventually managed to get the thread cleared and in due course the wearplate was re-fitted with two new countersunks (and loctite....).

When the Heritage Shunters Trust have an Open Weekend, we expect a gaggle of their vistors will wander down to us. This weekend of course, HST and Peak Rail management had clashed resulting in a rather restrictive event. Whatever your views on the matter  we still thought there might be a visitor or two to look out for, indeed, Andrew had arranged for a friend from a heritage railway in the south to call. He had opened the gate for this gentleman to drive in but in the space of a couple of minutes a stranger entered, unannounced and told Andrew he was going to look at the Baguley railcar. Andrew was a bit taken aback especially when the stranger then said he was going to look around the yard. Andrew pointed out that asking permission would be courteous whereupon the stranger seemed to take umbrage, telling Andrew 'well you are part of the Heritage Shunter Trust'. Fascinating isn't it? Two miles from Rowsley where the HST clearly are based, yet time and time again because we work on shunters people assume that we're HST. (We've nothing against them, you understand, but we aren't them). There's even a commentary on a youtube cab ride video where as they roll past the yard northwards the voice-over says 'And here we see part of the Heritage Shunters Trust collection' - so many times have I been tempted to congratulate him on his eyesight.

By the time I got back yesterday I was ready to crash out, but a reasonable nights sleep had me back in the land of the living this morning in good time to join Andrew on a trip up to Tansley. What's at Tansley? Well on some fields on the hill above Tansley, alongside the main road, is the site of the Cromford Steam Rally. Some weeks ago Andrew approached the organisers with a view to taking RS8, and was enthusiastically welcomed. Today's visit to site was to see exactly where it will stand, on my trailer with one of Adam's tractors up front, for the weekend.

With that resolved we had a quick lunch and then got down to the shed. Charlie's right hand spring had to be fitted, and having had one on the left hand side that he couldn't get to start as it was fouling one of the spring leaves, Andrew had the idea of holding the spring up with a piece of wood while all 4 screws were started. This worked reasonably well together with his Big Mak combo and so we slackened off the 3 on the left side, raised the spring a bit and I managed to get the 4th to start, doing it manually until I was sure it was well engaged. Then out came the wood and all four were tightened down. Charlie was lowered back on to its wheels and we retired for a cuppa.

Next it was RS8, as it would be rather useful if it was operational to get itself to Rowsley on Friday. The brake cylinder was refitted and connected up and the cab back panel and steps replaced. Now it was time for a grand shunt around and 3 locos were taken up to the very end of the headshunt and after 2 or 3 runs up and down to settle the springs, Charlie drew an 0-6-0 and RS8 out of the shed. The transmission oil res was topped up, the radiator was topped up and after a last check around I turned the key and RS8 came to life again.

Sounds good but in reality we got no converter base pressure because I'd forgotten to open the res' tap! As air pressure built up I had to reset the emergency and brake supply regulators, and the horn valve developed a bad leak it didn't have before, but at long last Andrew got the chance to drive it.

We shuffled things around so that Charlie and RS8 are now at the head of the line. So the week is plotted out culiminating in RS8 going up to Rowsley on Friday ready for a chance to star over the weekend. If you've ever planned to see it but never had the chance, here it is, come and support the Steam Rally, (it's for a  good cause) there'll be lots to see and do. I'll be back next Sunday to tell you how it's gone on. See ya then.