Of Toad, code and Cathryn

11th June 2023

A pension provider rang me up to ask some qiuestions this week. They regularly send me a tree's worth of paper forecasting what the outcome of the pension I still contribute to will be worth when I finally ask to take it and I place the envelope, unopened, in a pile along with all the others. The lady asked me the standard questions that were appropriate to a middle aged man, like whether i was coping with the increased cost of living, 'on a scale of one to ten' type questions and a few where I felt I had to point out that as I was already past the statutory retirement age her question was rather irrelevant. As we spoke I leant against the wall of a vacated shop in central Matlock and wondered whether, if I had a way of sending a message back to my twenty or thirty year old self that come this age I'd be dragging 75lb/yard rail to load locos, writing programming code to make them work they way I want and plumbing, wiring and half-building the things I might have changed my life's direction and adopted another career...

So, first thing Monday I dashed down to Matlock and bought a new oil filter for the van and booked it in to my friendly local garage to have the PAT-fluid topped up. This they told me, was £30 per litre and for 3 litres of it plus labour would come to about £170, but I booked it in and arranged, for Monday at least, to borrow other family vehicles to see the jobs through. Later the important lessons of modern life began to kick in as they should have done earlier.
If you want to buy it, check on ebay
If you want to apply it, check on You tube.
The first showed me that I could buy it in litre bottles for less than £30 including postage, but it would take 3 days so I was no better off. But Youtube revealed that the reservoir was located under the floor, held on by 3 M6 bolts, could be easily gravity filled from the litre bottles and kit provided by the ebay suppliers and that it was only 3 litres capacity as each litre was good for about 50,000 miles. That suggested that as my van had done 128,000, it had consumed about 2.5 litres from new and unless I want to keep it to 250,000 there was no point in adding a full 3 litres - and you'd probably only get 2 and a bit in anyway. I didn't cancel the garage (they're friends) but I did call them and instruct only to put in 1 litre. They did this, reluctantly, the error message cleared but to my chagrin they disconnected the battery to do it so I had to reset everything when I got it back.

Anyway, back to Monday. I arrived at Wirksworth for 10 only to find a text from Adam saying he was late and it would be 11. As it is a Toad, the EVR wanted it a specific way round and really it would have been better for us if we'd loaded it the other way round at Dereham but it was what is was so we backed in, unloaded it onto the siding end then moved the trailer aside so that the EVR shunter could pick it up, take it away and bring back Cathryn.

Cathryn is a HC 0-6-0T (1884/55) - once a resident of S Harrison Transport at Tinsley, then our paths crossed when it was stored at Elsecar. Now at Wirksworth it had been steamed but not finished and Mark Sealey had negotiated a deal by which it came over to Rowsley for a year or two. With Cathryn standing where the Toad had been we replaced the trailer and ramp behind it and loaded up, setting off for Rowsley and me for a late lunch at home.

At Rowsley Bagnall the Barclay was standing by and had to draw it off gently as there was insufficient slope to get it to roll along the trailer. Incidentally, although Andrew had said something as I was writing last week's edition, I hadn't realised what he meant, for Bagnall the Barclay had made a foray down towards Matlock last Sunday evening, its first exploration away from Rowsley. Anyway, it drew Cathryn away to the loco shed and we packed up and moved on, for we had another loco to collect that day. This was from Hope Cement, where loading can only happen after the end of the working day at the wagon repair sheds, and by now the late start, hot weather and road works had made us extremely late.We picked up the loco and set off. I got ahead and decided to photograph them on the hill between Bradwell and Tideswell. The lighting was excellent but I really needed to be about 6ft higher up to put the load against the green Derbyshire hills.

We needed to pick up loco number two Tuesday afternoon so working backwards planned to unload the first loco starting about half twelve, so first thing Tuesday I changed the oil filter on the van and ran it for the next couple of days ignoring its repeated scaremongering about PAT fluid being low and Engine needing repair. We were earlier in to Hope and the second was up and away within a reasonable time but the weather wasn't as good so no 'in transit' picture.

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This was unloaded early Wednesday afternoon and back we went for the last, though I diverted into Sheffield for a couple of suppliers. This time we were so quick we arrived before the loco was ready, but after a quarter of an hour it was propelled in and we set about loading once again. Thursday morning and we arrived first thing to unload, Adam and Ian heading back to base and me with time for lunch and dropping the van in for PAT fluid and a wander around Matlock shops while they filled it.

I had a programme all lined up for next week but some snags arose so we changed things around and that meant getting the Hudswell loco ready for despatch at last. This didn't start off well, enquiries for a 2.5cc pump with the same characteristics of mounting and drive gave nothing better than an 8 week delivery, so Andrew proposed re-instating the earlier 1/2 inch relief valve at the pump and relocating the 3 bar relief valve to the converter on the hypothesis that the flow was too great for the one valve to cope with. So on Saturday I made a start, using whatever fittings I could lay my hands on (so not as neat as it could have been).

Andy M assisted and when it came to test we had a stable base pressure indicated at 2 bar with presumably both valves open. Quite why 2 bar when the lower set valve is supposed to be 3 may relate to where we are measuring and will not concern me too much on this installation. Andy also worked on the front wiper motors - it turned out these needed to be changed as the sweep was too great for the arms and blades. Meanwhile Matt was in doing battle with the Janus brake cylinder and Andrew was stripping the Fowler frame to release parts for a customer due in next week.

We adjourned at ten to one and Andrew and I attended the Peak Railway Association AGM, held this year in the Methodist church in Darley Dale. PRA AGMs are often rather disappointing, in that if any difficult issues are raised it is easy to ascribe them as a 'plc matter' that they cannot comment on even though some directors sit on both Boards. The Membership Secretary admitted that 127 members hadn't renewed last year, but that most of these had joined after visiting but not renewed after their first year, which he chose to interpret for the meeting as their having joined on a wave of euphoria. I think such a dismissive attitude is naive. Having spoken to several members who were thinking of dropping out because they had had no magazine or other contact from the PRA during the year, it might be more realistic to imagine a new member, signing up on the promise in the literature of 'Peak Express' flopping periodically on his doormat, when he finds nothing whatsoever arrives and so barely knows whether the railway is still going, concludes that the PRA is only interested in his money and he shan't hand over any more. True, the membership secretary is also the magazine editor so has a lot on his plate (we were assured that two other directors are going to get a Peak Express out for the end of July, but that it might be a download-it-and-print-it-yourself) but I was once editing a quarterly for Bala Lake Railway I know that you need to keep chasing articles up, not just sit back and moan that you 'haven't enough material to produce one'. Ah well, at least there was a tacit recognition how close a previous MD had brought the railway to collapse, provided you listened to what was actually being said and read between the lines..

Back at the shed the throttles were set up on the Janus so that both engines should pull evenly together and the vac braking tested. A member came down after the AGM and partook of our tea and a look round and soon it was time to pack up.

Sunday - no Matt but Andy M, so I asked him to resume stripping 'Des' (the Yorkshire 0-6-0DE from Toddington) while I went through the (final?) software changes on the Hudswell. Andrew started work on a brake valve overhaul and after I'd shut the computer down I replaced a pipe on the modified converter oil system which was held with jubilee clips (and leaking) with a better swaged one that hopefully won't. Then the loco was driven outside and the plain water dropped: drained I removed two pipe flanges from the cooler which had pinholes in for Andrew to weld up, while I changed the two isolating valves for the water filter with new ones. Later the flanges were replaced and the cooling system refilled (this time with water/antifreeze mix) so that the loco could be driven back in as rolls of thunder echoed down the valley.

Adam had hoped to get T1 back together but reported that traffic on the A453 around Donnington was so gridlocked (courtesy of the Download festival) that it had taken him one and a half hours to travel 3 miles and he never made it to the yard. So it'll be his 4 axle again I suppose on Tuesday. Apart from that I have loads to get on with and hopefully some pretty pictures to show for it. See ya then.