Of rain and blocking roads

6th March 2022

Oh look, it's been raining again.

So, first thing Monday I was off to Sheffield for an eye test, and while there picked up some bits fom the fabricators and also dropped off a spare transmission cooler to be overhauled ready to go on to Tom. Then it was back home for the usual month end performance of paying suppliers and getting invoices out. I was also chasing the new rope for the trailer winch - Andrew had ordered it for me the previous week and Adam was waiting to get it fitted before we hit the road again but it hadn't turned up. In the event it was only despatched Tuesday afternoon, so as our first planned job Wednesday morning got postponed as the loco wasn't in position for loading, when I met up with Adam and Ian at Barrow Hill Wednesday lunchtime, it was still on its drum strapped to the back of the trailer and we used the old rope with the snatch block to ensure we didn't overload the damaged section.

First task was to collect another 08 and take it down to Cardiff. The loading area there is actually an access road at the plant, so we have to carry out loading or unloading after 6pm when the plant goes into a 'quiet mode'. That doesn't mean that road traffic stops altogether, and more than once we've had cars or lorries queuing patiently for us to get finished. I was just reconnecting the neck to the trailer deck when a voice made me jump. 'You broken?' 'No,' I said with perhaps a tinge of irritation at startling me 'I'm just reconnecting the neck...' 'Sorry, my english not good.' He was Polish or something. I felt rather like Basil Fawlty talking to Manuel: 'Train,' I said pointing at the gronk whose amber flashing beacons were brightening the darkness 'unloaded. We brought, now about to leave.' 'Oh, how long you be?' 'Five minutes' I said, knowing that Adam was still to take his overalls off as he won't sully the seats of the DAF, and continued plugging the steering hydraulics and electrical circuits together. The Pole returned to his lorry, apparently content.

I had assumed that Adam would stay in the Cardiff area overnight so had booked a cheap hotel but he had other ideas and enough driving hours that day to get him back to Lydney, where the next job awaited us. So Thursday morning I had to leg it up the Severn valley to catch up with them, to find the trailer lined up, the old winch rope on the floor and the new one fitted and about to be wound in. With the ramp assembled we loaded with an 11ton Planet loco to go to Sharpness: we had planned this job when we were in Lydney a week or so ago but Sharpness had been unready to accept, now the way was clear so by half nine in the morning, it was on its way.

I ambled back down to Chepstow, over the old Severn bridge (I can remember when it was THE Severn bridge and it was built with use of a 2ft gauge railway: those were the days) up the M5 a bit and over to Sharpness. I didn't see Adam anywhere en route but if I'd called at the services I'd have found them having breakfast and apparently they came back to the lorry to find it hemmed in by another. This started to put us behind schedule but gave me time for a cuppa and a look around the Vale of Berkeley's operational HQ complete with fully equipped 'traditional' machine shop. Eventually Adam arrived and I took over trailer steering and backed it up to their shed doors so as to block the access road to the adjacent shipyard as little as possible. It would have been even less had the little Planet not had brakes that 'don't release properly' so that gravity was far from sufficient and it had to be helped off with their Telehandler while I hindered - sorry restrained - it with the winch.

Off again to Long Marston. I had planned to be here between 1pm and 2 but it was nearly 2 when I arrived and grabbed some lunch at the store in the middle of the eco-village that occupies the area that was once the parade ground, barracks, guard house, et al in days when I spent many hours at the 'camp'. Adam arrived about half-two, having inadvertantly turned in to another new housing development occupying the old Long Marston aerodrome (built to house an RAF squadron to protect the adjacent Royal Engineers). Another gronk awaited us: I suspected this hadn't moved far for some time so we dragged it nearer to the trailer on a single strand of winch rope, then put the snatch block back on and loaded it with that.

By now it was far too late to make our next location - Shackerstone - before nightfall so instead it was rendezvous at 09.00 and I made it home. Friday and at nine a.m. the first volunteers started to arrive at Shackerstone, and once the gates were unlocked, I laid seige and waited for Adam to arrive. Being an old track bed, there isn't a great deal of clearance under the road bridge for a locomotive sat on a trailer so we watched it carefully through and then headed up to the station to unload. The 08 crept so far down the trailer but gravity still wasn't doing enough for us so with a couple of strops another 08 helped it down and took it away, returning to take its place. Once more we disassembled the ramp (those rails do not get any lighter) and this time we not only had to pass under the road bridge, but reverse all the way up to and through it as there's nowhere to turn. At long last we were away.

Adam had said that they would stop for a bite to eat so I ambled back up to Barrow Hill, only to find them there first as they had kept going! Off came the gronk, completing the grand tour for the week, and I could head back to the Briddon Country Pile for rest.

Andrew hasn't been well this week - still working but coughing late into the nights and partially deaf in one ear, he finally got to see a doctor (do you remember the good old days when you could ring up a surgery and arrange an appointment?) who has put him on anti-biotics even though not sure what it is he's got. Consequently he hasn't been around much over the weekend and confined to light duties when he has. For myself I made a start on wiring up the panels for the Hudswell 0-4-0 I'm preparing, finding in the process a number of anomalies between the wiring diagrams and the hardware that'll mean revising the diagrams and involve a bit of extra programming to work around. There was a photo charter running on Saturday which meant our normal tranquility was broken but nobody was interested in us.

On Sunday I had the HATRAMM running to re-arrange some of the locos outside, and draw out two locos from inside to add components with the aid of the forklift. As Tom is leaking this was an interesting experience using the HATRAMM as a shunting loco (it is, in a sense, a 30ton 0-4-0) but while it could handle the loads asked of it, its natural creep speed (i.e. 1st gear with idle throttle) is rather fast. (It has in fact a true 'creep' control, using a hydrostatic drive through the transmission, for tasks such as deploying a new lineside cable, but until the hydraulic system is refilled that's not usable.) Response to braking however, seems rather slower, and you end up trying to balance a little bit of brake against the natural creep speed to keep it in check and get a more immediate deceleration when you want to stop - at least that's what I found. Amongst miscellaneous tasks the transmission cooler for RS8 was given a coat of paint and is ready to fit, one casing side is now back on the Hudswell and its transmission cooler was brought up ready to plumb in to the cooling circuit.

And this week? I really don't know what is in store. Loads of admin work backing up, some transport work 'pending', on site work needing me and Andrew hinting at me going to look at auction stuff for him. That day off I keep promising seems as remote as ever. Still, whatever happens, I should be back next week: see ya then.