Of reflections on a heritage line

4th October 2021

Good King Boris once looked out...
...When a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fue-ue-ell.

Put your own bit in between.

So, being a responsible citizen (no coughing in the audience, please) I actually stayed at home Monday through to Wednesday as naturally I didn't want to burden the road network and over-stretched fuel supply lines by trundling around or queuing for diesel. I'd heard that the Co-op at Bakewell had had a delivery at 06.45 Monday morning (jungle drums) but felt that there were people more important than I in need. To be truthful I had a load of admin outstanding and other than waiting for the profiles from the laser cutters (promised 'early in the week' then 'about Wednesday') I was also chasing the spring repairers (promised 'end September at the latest') and a few other things on the go. Not that I had the opportunity to laze in bed, as on two successive mornings we had carriers knocking us up with deliveries at 07.30 and on one day both Fedex and DHL vans queued up outside with their packages. I even, having missed the sheep shearers this year because of lockdowns, got an appointment and had my hair cut, so the mad professor look is gone, for now.

Anyway by Thursday it was getting a bit far and as the Bakewell Co-op had had another delivery reported I sauntered north up the A6 and queued to get on the forecourt and and take a modest £40s worth. Then as the van still had stuff in that wanted unloading, I headed back down to the shed to check everything was allright during which Steph rang me up to say that the Texaco garage here at Darley Dale also had fuel so after locking up again I bought another £30s worth there (their limit) which took the tank up to not far from full. I try not to use Texaco: with my constant monitoring of fuel consumption I get a distinct feeling that my mpg drops by about 10-12% when Texaco-origin fuel is in the tank, but any thing is better than nothing.

Finally on Friday morning it was confirmed that the profiles were ready, so off I went quickly but economically, up to Sheffield and collected a pallet, then back across to the east of the M1 to drop some off for rolling to radius.

You may recall that 7 or so weeks ago we were at Elsecar, collecting the Ruston 0-6-0DH River Annan to go to the Plym Valley. Since then the carriages have all departed, as has one of the Sentinels, and only the rail crane and a bogie flat wagon remain up for sale. For the last 18 month, the site has been barricaded and although there is much talk of the railway rising, Phoenix-like, from the ashes, for the moment at least it prresents a forlorn appearance with the weeds rampant.

It must have been back in the 1990s, certainly before 2000, that I was approached as a 'knowledgeable person' and walked the trackbed from Elsecar down to the road junction where it terminated subsequently with one of the promoters. Asked my opinion I suggested that this would be best suited to narrow gauge, not standard. The station site at Elsecar was woefully cramped for standard gauge stock but with a bit of imagination I could see a 'genuine' ex NCB 'paddy train' that would have been more economic to operate and had a genuine connection with the industry that Elsecar had been involved in. Issue the passengers with 'miners helmets' and you'd have had a train ride with a unique experience available only (today) up at the National Coal Mining Museum. My view was reinforced at the road junction where the line needed to have a level crossing in order to access the rest of the trackbed through to Cortonwood. There was height here, under the road but above the adjacent watercourse, to have tunnelled under the road rather than an l.c. which I strongly suspected would cause a major problem for the railway needing full traffic lights as it was right on top of a T junction.

Certainly reaching Cortonwood - start of the '84 miners strike but now a large retail park- would have made the railway 'double-ended' and given the 'adult creche' idea where Daddy takes kids on train ride while Mummy does the shopping. (Gender Stereotypes RUle OK) Alas, my recommendations went unheeded (but then I didn't charge anything for my consultancy!) and standard gauge was built. Elsecar station was so cramped that with 3 coaches you couldn't run round, but with the usual arrival of locomotives and such that feature in preservation sites everywhere the yard was so full that there wasn't siding space for everything, and as the line never got beyond the level crossing and there was no space for a run round there either, it remained a push-pull service.

Nevertheless it was the nearest heritage line to Briddon Towers and Andrew eventually had 3 locos berthed there and at one time we did look at building a shed on land adjacent that had once been a colliery sorting yard. Oh sorry, why was I there? Well we're back in tomorrow to collect the Avonside 0-6-0ST and wanted to check that it was all ready to move and in position. It is, plus I got officially 'inducted' and arranged the starting time. This visit at least, the winch should be available!

Andrew had checked the weather forecast and Saturday was set to be pretty dire, so he concluded that it would be inside working throughout, and sure enough shortly after we got up the rains started and continued pretty much all day. Inside jobs included welding up some of the profiles I had collected, re-mounting the repaired cab access handrail to Hudswell 1387, and stripping out the cab control panels and console you saw last week preparatory to more painting (though at least further 'bits' have populated the main panel)..

Andrew was also welding up bits of vac pipe while I was tapping out pipe-mounting plates M12. At 2.45 a couple of booked visitors arrived and we spent much of the rest of the afternoon in teas and dodging around the collection in between showers/heavier spells of rain. Consequently when they left it didn't seem much point in starting up on anything too serious, so we turned our attention to the 'new' winch, removing its rope (since we have no knowledge of its age, usage or defects, it is a wise precaution to replace with new, besides, there isn't enough of it) and opening up an inspection cover on its gearbox.

That far we then released the motor from it and found that it turns quite freely, but to our eyes (and admittedly these are inexperienced) this is a 'fast-wind, low pull' type of winch. We know (or were told) that it had once been on a trawler, which therefore would seem an appropriate duty hauling in the trawl nets rapidly but not seeing a great deal of load until the nets actually come out of the water. The vendor did tell me, bulling it up, that he'd almost decided not to sell it, that it 'never stopped pulling' and that he'd done a '32ton pull' with it. Now I'm the sort that listens and doesn't call him out for exaggeration, and maybe he did move a 32ton vehicle (he did road recovery as well as timber-felling he said) but not 32tons straight pull. There isn't sufficient means from the original manufacturer's mounting to withstand that. The drum is grooved to guide the rope and suggests it is intended for something about 9/16 inch OD, which in turn suggests a total capacity of about 70metres of rope, so even if we semi-permanently snatch-block it (that is round a pulley and back again) it would still give us 35m range which should be more than sufficient.

Today, in contrast, it was bright and sunny first thing and Andrew had decreed that shunting was first task. Tom was fired up and D9500 brought out for some final parts that are to be removed before it leaves us, and the ex-EKR EE brought down so that preliminary stripping work can get under way ready to do a repower.

That of course wasn't as simple as it sounds, requiring that Grace and the 0-4-0DH Fowler be relocated in the space vacated by D9500 and the B4 bogie (which has no buffers nor couplers) moved out the way of everything first. But all that was achieved and we moved back inside just as rain started again! Andrew applied the second top gloss coat of Signal grey to the sides about to go back in the cement van (the bolts are now in stock ready) so I concentrated myself on a re-wiring job in a loco cab so as not to disturb dust that might contaminate the wet paint.

And that's about it for this week. I've enough fuel in the tank to get me back to Elsecar and beyond tomorrow and as long as I can find some more Tuesday or Wednesday it should all go swimmingly. Hopefully I'll remember to take enough time to get pictures and maybe be able to let you in to a secret or two. 'Till next Sunday, see ya then.