Of esteemed visitors
10th July 2022
We try to treat all visitors equally, but some are more equal than others...
The second weekend in July traditionally (?) marks an anniversary for Weekend Rails - this time it's 12 years since that first edition crept out of the darkness and into the open internet. I might be tempted to pause for a (self-blown) fanfare but to be honest, it's just too hot.
On Monday evening Andrew and I headed over to Manchester. He had bought two lots via certain well known on-line sales/auction sites - some cheap pneumatic valves and a long length of I beam. The valves were collected on the way from just near Tunstead. The beam was to be found in a suburban area and as it was over 8ft long, the vendor was sceptical whether it would fit. The van can take 8 x 4 ft sheets diagonally (I suspect that was in the original design brief) and the beam, lifted up into one corner, fitted to his astonishment and with a strap over it to prevent it trying to move, we came back easily, stopping at the shed to drop it back out as I did not want it stuck there the rest of the week.
The transport side of things has been slightly more complex this week as Adam and much of the Searson clan jetted off for holiday somewhere in Jamaica. Thus the usual team of Adam, Ian and me (one fit man and two geriatrics) is tempoarily broken and instead Phil G finds himself at the wheel of the 8 x 4 rather than his beloved 6x2. With only two of us loading and unloading it takes a little longer and our timetables need to reflect that. Tuesday morning it was off down to March, where a class 08 A-1-A shunter was waiting for us at the end of the 'sand siding'. Apart from a lack of sea it was like loading on Brighton beach.
Phil arrived about half eleven and having signed in, we loaded the 08 to come home for attention. Over by the control tower sat the class 18 battery electric: the big white generator sat next to it is apparently its charging station connected to a spare battery pack(?) but neither charger nor loco seemed to be in use and another 08 was shunting.
I was able to come straight home leaving Phil to head back to depot and here on things began to go a bit awry. My timetable had us unloading the loco at (let's call it site A) around lunchtime, giving us time to get to another location (site B) where we could not load until after 4pm. Adam had before he jetted off allocated Phil a job to do first thing rather than stand around waiting, but the job had been subject to delay after delay and poor old Phil didn't finally get back to the loco and set off from the yard until after 2 o'clock. This wasn't disasterous: we could not load at Site B before 4pm but thereafter, provided Phil had driving hours and daylight, was unrestricted. He joined me to unload at Site A around 4pm and by five-thirty he was ready to dash to site B with just enough time to get there and load before running out of his daily driving allowance. At this point he found all the air bags on the nearside of the 8x4 were flat and all those on the offside fully inflated. No obvious reason why: the 8x4 was declared a failure, the trailer detached and left overnight, Phil returning with his 6x2 the following morning to collect it. I think this is the first time we've let a customer down in this manner and I was not at all happy: fortunately I have been able to slot it into this week's programme instead. (What was wrong? Something happened during the unloading that managed to knock the lever on the self-levelling valve completely out of kilter.)
So we got back to program Thursday morning by collecting a loco from Barrow Hill destined for scrap. All worthwhile parts had been recovered, its last two wheelsets and springs being endorsed 'SAVE' in white spray paint - by a fitter who borrowed a Stanley knife off me and forgot to return it - meaning that although it had once been a 48ton 0-6-0 it was now substantially lighter so the 8x4 wasn't needed. The heatwave was very much in the ascendant by now and hunking 75lb FB rail around is no light duty.(I was asked at my recent asthma check-up 'Do you take any exercise?' by the Practice Nurse. How do you explain that my regular exercise is loading and unloading railway locos running on rails weighing that per yard which must be dragged out, bolted together, packed up with timber, then dis-assembled and stowed back after five or ten minutes?) But that was it, with the loco unloaded I was able to send Phil on his way, and head home for a cold drink and a lie down.
Friday. For the last 5 or 6 years we have been personna-non-grata at Rowsley. We have, from time to time, crept around the site studiously avoiding the cctv because apart from when the late Mrs Statham permitted us to trip up to Rowsley with or for something or other, she had declared back in 2015 that our locos were there 'illegally' even though the agreement for the shed included in return our providing works locos for Peak Rail. With the new order came a return to having a loco based at Rowsley but apart from Mark Sealey himself, no-one was yet passed out to use it. That needed to be rectified and Friday was nominated as the first driver training session with 2 or 3 to swell the numbers. I dutifully took two through an introduction to the loco, what to check, and how to drive it, letting them take the controls and show their handling skills before reporting back to Mark. It is still a slightly unreal experience to be back at Rowsley and made to feel welcome.
But there has been no time to bask in this new friendliness. The weekend had a long llst of things to get done and as usual I work on the 50% rule - that is, if you get half of what you went to achieve done, then don't bash yourself up for not completing the remainder. I had hoped to get on with the new SLI system for the HaTRAMM, but for that we need Goldilocks weather - not too hot and certainly not raining. With sunlight exposure warnings issued it definitely wasn't the weather for that. So we concentrated on work inside the shed, but it has been a weekend for important visitors and Saturday opened with one from the Welshpool & Llanfair. We discussed one or two projects before I took him on the guided tour culminating in a ride on RS8.
He had departed and Andrew and I were having a cuppa when we wandered outside and found Peak Rail Director Gordon Bennett on the track outside weeding. We invited him in for a tea and after chatting he became the first PR Director ever to get a tour around the shed and yard and seemed suitably impressed with what we had there and what jobs we had in hand. Despite these interludes work was progressing - the plasma cutter created that hole required in the top of the Hudswell casings and the air cleaner put in place. Although not actually on the works list, I mounted the air horn and routed its feed pipe down the cab front (it'll be inside the exhaust cowl when that gets refitted) - you can see it in the background of this shot.
Andrew meanwhile was preparing a mounting strip to carry the transmission cooler and by Saturday evening it was loosely in place awaiting welding. Sunday and the weather was hot again. Our first visitor was David from the Churnet Valley - Andrew having agreed to help him out with an alternator. In his professional life he works with electronics and PLCs, so I was happy to show him the PLCs on two of the locos and he seemed strangely pleased to see the tag board system I adopted years ago whereby every wire is jointed at a brass M5 stud on a Tufnol board. It does give the poor sod who might have to fault-find it at a later date a chance of tracing through feeds by simply testing the relevant studs wth a meter. We used to do it that way at Hills - not strangely enough in the control boxes in the cab but in the Junction boxes on the back of the engine, where the wriring distributes out to the various switches and such. That for the Hudswell got fitted today - this time I've incorporated the starter contactor within it too.
The transmission cooler was mounted - the coolant connections come through the bottom flanges with the transmission oil through the side flanges (far side on thid picture). Since the converter outlet and inlets are also on this side of the loco the hose connections will be relatively short and we can use one inch rather than our usual one-and-a-quarter, while the highest point in the system will be at the cooler top, where a small port can take the return line to tank.
The fan drive bearing assembly too, is now together, but that hasn't gone on the loco as yet. And last but not least the propshaft has been put loosely in place - by which I mean secure but not all bolts through yet - I have some further parts to fit at the front of the gearbox and even I can barely squeeze in and out.
Over on the EE 0-6-0, the new vac brake control linkage, put in some weeks ago, was finished with the installation of the control valve and its attendant linkage. The valve will shortly be connected to the air system which will control the vac.
Our last visitor for the weekend was the GM from the Mid Norfolk Railway, here to collect some refurbished cylinder heads for the Paxman engine his class 14 - the last of the batch I brought back from auction. Once again I did the guided tour (I'll have to write down the script sometime, maybe put it out as a podcast) but a ride on RS8 was politely declined. Last task of the day, as the air temperature fell - a little - was to re-arrange track 3A again. RS8 dragged two locos up the headshunt, Andrew brought the HaTRAMM out and back into track 1, RS8 went back to the shed and the HaTRAMM followed. Why? Well, the run to Matlock main line station is now due to happen late tomorrow afternoon so the HaTRAMM needs to be readily accessible. We took the opportunity to test the throttle switch I put in a week or so ago (it worked) so, disasters aside, expect pictures of the first Peak Rail train into Matlock platform Two this year in next week's edition, as I move into my 13th year of blogging. See ya then.