Of Jaffa cakes and weather forecasts

16th January 2022

Is a Jaffa cake a cake or a biscuit? Discuss.

It's been another busy week here at the Briddon Country Pile. Back in the 1970s, when Steph and I were children-free and regularly going over to Bala at weekends, after a days work on Saturdays we would adjourn to the 'Cyfnod cafe' in Bala for a meal and then meander back to where George Barnes was living to while away the rest of the evening. I should perhaps explain that at the time George was semi-estranged from his wife: he stayed upstairs at the Loch Cafe which the railway then owned, she remained at the marital home but drove in to Bala every day during the season to run the said cafe. George aimed to be up and out before she arrived - 'ooh, trouble this morning, Betty' we heard him say one morning at Llanuwchllyn ' the dragon arrived before St Goerge had left'. Anyway, I have some fond memories of these evenings with George, we learnt much of his life story and his motivations, how he had grown disenamoured with work in Lancashire, moved to Wales to run a caravan site and then taken on an extra job as engineer in charge of the creamery at Rhyd-y-main, with the Bala-Dolgellau railway virtually over its back fence.

It was there I had first met him, when Bala Lake Railway was but a pile of slate wagons at Llanuwchllyn and a Ruston under plastic at a farm by what was once Bala Lake Halt. One of tbe machines at the creamery had a cone clutch, the cone having a friction lining, but this had disintegrated one day and of course, no spare was available. So George (and I don't recall how he came by it) always one to improvise and cut corners, coated the cone with some stuff called Belzona, left it to set and got it running again. It didn't last all that long, he admitted, but when it failed again, with the experience from the first time, he improved the technique and the clutch then lasted until the creamery closed (by the late '70s, our time frame, it was a cash and carry but I think it has been demolished since). Quite how the clutch behaved compared to the 'genuine' friction lining one, I don't know and wouldn't have dared enquire from George, but the name Belzona and its functions were duly investigated and lodged in my memory for the future.

So, I have a brake cylinder in from a customer. The body is relatively thin metal and has pitted, but after months of effort I have given up trying to source a new one: I don't think the manufacturer wants to bother. But the pitting allows air to by-pass the piston seal and it won't hold pressure, so I've persuaded the customer to accept a repair process using Belzona. Perhaps at this point it might be as well to explain that Belzona is a form of what you would now call 'plastic-metal' and given how long I have known about it I wouldn't be surprised to find it was a pioneer in the field, but when I discussed it with my regular machining contractor they admitted they'd never heard of it, and could I source it please. A few phone calls later and I am a proud posessor of a kilo of the stuff.

On Wednesday I was out on a service job, fitting the fuel pump you saw in last week's instalment (I could have done it on Tuesday but the weather forecast for Wednesday seemed more appealing) and getting the engine running. Thoughts of getting motion from the loco were dashed when the air pressure stalled at about 25psi with one valve blasting out its exhaust, so that came off for attention and I returned to Darley Dale, going round to the container behind the shed to see if I had any others of this particular valve in store.

As I shut up the container, I saw the driver's door of the 2HAP was open. This was not a good sign. Ever since he 2HAP arrived at Darley, we have kept the inward turning doors chained and the passenger doors locked to prevent 'unauthorised ingress' but now that Jagger has started restoration work that security has lapsed but not to the extent of leaving doors open. I started a tour around. The other side driver's door was also open, as was a passenger door farther up. Then the cab door of the Fowler 0-6-0 had been unbolted, both doors on 14901, a casing door on the Fowler 0-4-0 (its cab door is rather inaccessible) and a cab door on Grace. Most of these were on roads 1 and 2 and not so much close up to the shed, but later that evening Andrew and I came down and played the security footage back. Sure enough, 3 young men, armed with torches and rucksacks had toured the site around 8pm on Monday evening. Nothing seems to have been taken and apart from a fire extinguisher now on the floor by the 2HAP, not a great deal vanadalised, leading Andrew to suggest that these were 'merely' Urban Explorers out to assert their manhood by creeping around 'abandoned' places at night. Once again the myth that the Darley Dale yard is abandoned seemes to be doing the rounds.

On Friday, after a customer had departed, I tore off to Sheffield. The profilers had completed the latest order, a second lift pump for Tom was ready for collection, the first heat exchanger was ready (but the end caps for the second are declared defective: the time to manufacture new ones may be at hand) two more jacks were dropped off for possible refurb (the first was inspected, and might, just might, be recoverable with a lot of machining) and steel picked up from our friendly fabricators.

First thing Saturday it was cold. The valley was filled with icy fog and as I went down to the shed it showed -1 to -2 on the van gauge. The shed inside however was as usual 3-4 degrees warmer but even that doesn't mean much with all that cold metal so I invested in 15-20 minutes of kersosene in the space heater to get the air temp up to about 6 deg C. Gradually I extracted bits from the van (a large sheet of steel for Jagger was rather in the way on top) and sorted out the profiles. One of the first bits was the new clutch cylinder bracket I talked about a couple of weeks ago: I cut a bolt head off and put the mocked up bit on the back of a converter to admire it.

The alternator bracket and radiator mounting brackets were also among the parts, as were spare blanks for converter outlets and various other bits. By the time Andrew arrived down with lunch - declaring it a day for 'inside cutting and welding' (to generate some more warmth) a collection of bits were sat on the fab bench and he duly set to work welding them. During the week I had acquired some weld-on hinges as one of the desk door hinges on the Hudswell 1387 had factured and I had removed its remnants and ground it flush.

Andrew welded a new one on and then deployed the plasma cutter to cut a new aperture in the back of an EE fuel tank as access for the exhauster to be installed there.

We then returned to the Hudswell: some weeks ago Andrew had welded in a large disc into the cab back to get rid of the hole left by the headlamp, but it had then distorted and last week we had marked an area to cut and renew with a single piece of steel. The plasma cutter was again utilised to cut this out, and the stress in the steel was such that as he ended the first cut it jumped about an inch out of line, Andrew flinching as well. By half five the temperature as begining to fall again and we were about to wrap up when Jagger and Rochelle arrived and resulted in another cup of tea being consumed.

First thing Sunday I was down again, the temperature though was 5 deg C and the forecast was dry all day, so Tom was fired up and gently brought the OBA down to the shed - might we get the lift pumps changed later in the day? I started drilling the brackets that will hold the fan assenbly to the radiator of Hudswell 1387 (based on those made for 03 901- sorry D2128) when Tony S arrived to resume work on his railcar. A fine fellow that he is, Jaffa cakes were in abundance. But to our chagrin as we ate lunch the heavens opened - they weren't supposed to but apparently the forecast had it wrong.

Outside work abandoned, the base for the exhauster was positioned and welded in the back of the EE and the new plate was clamped in position in the back of the Hudswell cab. It was at this moment, looking at it, it occurred to me that it might look better if we merely cut the two apertures into one big one, more akin to Hunslet, EE, Barclay, Sentinel etc. Andrew seemed more annoyed that I hadn't suggested this sooner, but, as we have the two windows ready to go back into the apertures, it was agreed this would be Plan B if distortion occurred again. With the power turned down on the medium MIG and the plate clamped firmly with two robust angles bracing it, it was partially welded on the inside, left to cool and then welded on the outside.

When we removed the clamps late on, there was hardly any movement and the windows should fit and seal correctly. The rain having stopped, we shunted the OBA back and made sure to finish all the Jaffa cakes before Tony departed. Andrew resumed cutting pipes and threading them for a vac brake fit, using the machine which currently lives on a trolley though we had plans to mount it to a bench at one time.

By 5.30 the temperature was dropping again and we called it a night. What's in prospect this week? Well Adam is back from Florida (well so far as I know) and a job I had booked for Monday has been postponed so hopefully the trailer will be in action again on Tuesday onwards. I have a stack of work to crack on with in other areas so could do with a mild-weather week if the forecasters would oblige. What will happen? Come back next week and you'll know. See ya then..