Of Beverley, battery and Barclay 

3rd September 2023

Loads to say, and thanks to others, many interesting pictures (excluding me of course). They say a picture is worth a thousand words but I'm afraid that won't stop me writing a few of mine.

Of course Monday was a Bank Holiday so it was back to the shed. Track 3A was pulled partially clear and two heavy FB rails were dropped down in the 4ft to form a narrow gauge stabling line ready for a planned arrival.

Work progressed on the new (Lister) power pack for T1: Andrew had fitted the fuel tank and the battery tray so Andy M installed the battery and later on I connected up a fuel line, using a push-in connector to mate up with the remains of the old plastic pipe. We cleaned a lot of T1's deck, and undid the s.g. rails that normally take the locos, but during the afternoon we occupied a path in the timetable, slung a load of old wood (pallets, rotten fencing, etc) on to the Hatramm and took it up to Rowsley.

Tom Dakin, who acted as Andrew's pilot, transferred to Bagnall the Barclay and completed some shunting after which the Hatramm was stashed pending helping the p/way department out on the Wednesday.

Tuesday, and after some other tasks Steph and I went out car hunting. Her old Micra is well, getting a bit old and although she is quite attached to it, was hinting that something newer was required. It was a toss up between a newer Micra and a Hyundai - we went to see a Hyundai and just a short tour of the car park convinced her, so a deal was put together over the next few days. The finance company required a selfie., I was told, so happy to oblige I created this, which I though was quite 'arty'.

I was sadly disillusioned. I was required to stare at a webcam, or, as I don't have a webcam, stare at my phone screen onto which had appeared a yellow oval and a central dot. I was required to remove my glasses and any facial coverings, and get my nose on the dot and face bordered by the oval. I had some diffculty in doing this, not least because without my glasses my nose on the screen ceased to retain the precise borders it has when I can see properly, but I persevered and finally achieved it, whereupon the message line on the screen changed. Without my glasses I couldn't read what it said, so brought the phone nearer. The message was - Keep Still.

Anyway, up to this point we had still not really determined what pump to fit to the Lister and how to plumb the connections, but the decision was to go with an almost new 15cc pump which matched the adaptor. I checked once again the hydraulic oil tank. It has a return line filter body but no filter element. I am not a fan of return line filters. There apears to be 3 schools of thought. First says put a filter in the suction line and clean everything out of the oil before it encounters anything. Down side, if the filter gets clogged and you don't know/bother, the pump cavitates and runs dry. Second is to put a high pressure filter between pump and motor. Down side, anything that gets in to the oil has damaged your pump before the filter catches it, but it does at least protect the motor. If the filter gets clogged, well, at those pressures maybe the filter element disintegrates or your relief valve dumps ut back to tank and your motor slows and stops. Third solution, a return line filter - contaminated oil may ruin your pump and motor but it will be clean by the time it gets back to the tank. As it has no filter element in this return line body (and I have no means of identifying it) I decided to leave it out and add a suction filter, so placed an an order with my friendly hydraulics supplier in Sheffield to get me one in. Tuesday evening after a late night session with Andrew I drew up a list of bits required to connect said filter into the line and on Wednesday late morning, headed off to Sheffield to collect it all, then headed back to Butterley to meet up with Adam and Ian to load the Hawthorn Leslie 0-4-0ST we brought down from Tanfield. Instead of returning home it was off to Blaenavon, and as it was wanted a particular way round, MR-B had kindly pushed the loco to the end of the siding where we load so we could winch it on the opposite way round to normal.

Thursday: I was off first thing as Adam had forecast a noon-ish arrival at Blaenavon and I had to go via Brierley Hill to collect a new winch rope. Despite delays on the M6 I reached Blaenavon at five to twelve only to find that Adam was late setting off, and had taken longer than planned so had to stop for a break. Revised ETA 1.30. No problem, I was entertained by the Goss family to a tea and a hand loading a piece of parts racking that Andrew had won on ebay and prevailed on them to collect and look after for him. At about a quarter to 1 another haulier arrived with a tiny Barclay returning from Beamish. Adam arrived and we had a front row seat as they unloaded and dragged the loco to the farthest end of the loading track in the car park. Once they'd cleared away, we got into position, unloaded the Hawthorn Leslie and our old friend Beverley - Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0DH D1344 drew itr away and returned a few minutes later with Avonside 0-6-0ST Cranford, which we were due to take away with us.Aboard and wth Adam and Ian securing it, Beverley - now running with a slightly fictitious NCB identity - appeared over on the passenger side with the Hawthorn and as we pulled clear, came out to collect the Barclay.

Friday: Jordan and friends were at the shed but Andrew opened up as I had a blood test booked. Pleased to report i stil have some. Later I went down for a while and collected some profiles (delivered by a confused lorry driver to our house on Wednesday, fortunately before I'd left for Sheffield) to take up to an engineering company for machining. During the latter half of the week the Peak Rail roster sheets for September came out and we found the 03 had been booked for Saturday 2nd and again for the 23rd. To be homest we could have done without this Saturday as it ate into our time for getting T1 ready, but rather than screw everybody up at the last minute I agreed we should let it stand. Andrew and Steph went down to the shed both on Friday and Saturday, doing shredding of various bits of undergrowth cut away preparatory to getting that palisade fencing installed.

So Saturday morning I collected a few things from Darley Dale and headed up to Rowsley. D2128 has been parked at the end of a loop line to the sheds, sharing buffers with a Network Rail Class 97, so I checked it over and drove it back to the shed to get it over a pit. We had to draw some fuel out of 45 gallon drums in the oil store, but I'd brought the 12V transfer pump so that at least was easy, lobbing in about 70 litres, 25 of which were from the overflow drum which had filled while the loco had been standing. By now my two secondmen for the day Davids Rimmer and Lemmon had arrived and after oiling round I got my train driver's outfit on and we got the loco to the train with a few minutes to spare for our 11.00 departure. No time to get a tea though. Stuart Graves was out agian ('I'll soon have enough material for volume Two') and hence some of his stills are here tonight. This day we had five on - not a formidable load but bearing in mind our known weaknesses with the 03, more than I would have preferred. Moreover, with the belt-driven exhauster you do not have the ability to release the brakes on the train hurriedly, so it is better to judge your stopping position and get it right each time, but for the first time with 5 on, I had to learn. That's my excuse for pulling up short and thus still occupying that track circuit at Darley Dale and I'm sticking to it. It was quite an entertaining day though. Church Lane box brought me to a stand at the home signal on one 'up' (southbound) run when they couldn't get it to pull off, and I got a yellow flag instead. Church Lane again featured when the starter from Darley Dale first only came off to about 15 degrees and when we got to the 'box the trainee signalman had thought we were giving up a token whereas he was due to hand us the Church Lane to Rowsley one. A sudden mad scramble and the token was passed just in the nick of time. Riverside too had its moments - first time in I was a little tight at the far end when running round - for the later two runs I made sure I was the full platform length. The 03 can be a little cantankerous changing direction -usually I watch the lights and if it doesn't engage pull the clutch in very briefly just to turn the gears over and it goes in with a clunk. On one occasion, sat on Bridge 35 waiting for the yellow flag to proceed into the platform to run round,. I didn't notice that forward hadn't come in and when I tried to move off, nothing happened. Embarassed in front of my two companions I throttled back but didn't wait long enough before trying the gearbox again with the result there was a loud ratchet of tooth on tooth before it dropped in to engagement. But as pictures paint a thousand words, here's a few thousand in colour.

After I'd put the loco away I returned to Darley Dale and Andrew and I lifted the Lister power pack to the front of the shed ready to try starting it and check the rotation for the pump. Battery engage, press button and the motor engaged but didn't turn. We tried everything we could think of, even hand cranking but couldn't get it to go. Frustrated, we packed away for the night. As we laboured an unusual train came past. I had seen it formed up earlier -- Tom Dakin's flail on the lowmac, but now it was being propelled by the 0-4-0ST No.15 for an evening jolly working trip down the line.

Sunday morning, and Andrew had headed off to the swapmeet at Quorn. I woke up with the realisation that what we had had was a classic bad battery cable joint issue, so when I went down I took the cables off the starter terminals, cleaned everything up and vaselined them and put them back. Press button and vroom, off went the starter but the engine didn't go. I also went on the Alstom loco - I had changed over its PLCs during the week and the laptop now not only connected with it but downloaded the program without running out of memory. But alas somewhere I had disturbed some wiring, for a number of inputs were now no longer indicating so they must be sorted before the program will run. When Andrew arrived he first cut some holes jn some new ramp rails with the plasma cutter, then we returned to the Lister and finally got it going (air in the fuel lines after the filter change hadn't fully bled). We attached the pump, and the connecting hoses and got the winch working., ready to load the new rope, but time was against us and for the moment, that must be left for a very early start in the morning before Andrew returns to work.

So that's about it. Cranford is still on Adam's trailer and must finish its journey tomorrow, then off to collect an n.g. loco and a replacement car for Steph. All go. Come back next week for what else has happened? See ya then.