Of lights and lift pumps

29th October 2023

If you know where the Peak Rail Youtube channel is, the latest addition is virtually 'Briddon Country Pile Volume 1'. 03 action...

It's been a bit of a 'medical' week this week so I was content that transport jobs weren't on the agenda. On Monday I contacted our friends at Dorlec about the generator on Des and they agreed that as the weather had ameliorated, they could get in later on and collect it. Their wagon arrived at Darley Dale just as I was about to head home, clean up and head over to the dentist for an extraction but the generator is now away for assessment.

Tuesday morning was the Peak Rail plc AGM, held in the grand ballroom at the Whitworth Centre. I attended, once again relishing the fact that I could walk in and sit down without evil stares from the top table as one or more Director's tried to wish me dead. Though it was sad that there were relatively few shareholders attending - we could so easily have fitted in a smaller room - and one still asked after the 'Quarry Consortium'. I really should have suggested that the company start publishing passenger numbers again. The 'old' management ceased doing so some years ago, (itself a definite sign that the trend didn't reflect well on the management,) but it would be good if the 'new' board resumed to give shareholders another measure of performance beyond just the financials.

As I sat in the meeting, Steph, Andrew and grandson were off to our daughter's for a few days, but later that day, I had a fairly severe migraine which rather screwed up my work plan and left me everything instead to do on Wednesday. They then decided to return early on Thursday, but 3pm Thursday was cut-off time for me as I was to eat nothing thereafter, and start heavy duty laxatives at 6pm ready for a colonoscopy on Friday morning. I won't put you off your morning refreshments by the gory details. Suffice it to say that I had several such procedures about a decade ago and whilst the NHS were quite willing to give me gas and air or anaesthetic drip into my arm, the one thing they were not prepared for was what I wanted, namely a hot water bottle. Wind the clock back forward to 2023 and the machine at this particular hospital is barely 12 months old and instead of using solely compressed air to expand the bowel, it uses a mixture of air and water. Compared to earlier memories this examination was a breeze, the 'bloated' feelings (brought on by the compressed air) were much reduced, a hot water bottle would have been nice but definitely was tolerable without: though now and again the sensation of something moving around inside your stomach was a little startling. Especially when the consultant ordered 'Close' and the operator triggered a puff of air and a movement from somewhere inside my insides.

Yes, you're probably recalling that iconic scene in Alien where the 'thing' rips its way up out of the crewman's belly. It was nowhere near on that level, though if a nurse had in any way resembled Sigourney Weaver I might well have legged it. And another thing, why do hospitals assume that every patient is desperate to see what their internals actually look like? A decade ago I had to ask firmly but politely that they turn that screen away from me several times before they would. Today I had made that request quite clear at pre-admission and I wasn't bombarded with gtotesque images. My view is that if the great ju-ju (or whatever god you choose to believe created us) wanted us all to see our own insides, why didn't he give us transparent skin?

So, that must rest as an explanation as to why there hasn't been much to show this week. I have however been booked to do a talk, by the Railway Group Alexander in Derby next spring. The organiser, from his enquiry, clearly did not know much about Darley Dale and seemed to assume it was purely a railway engineering business. This may not be helped by refrences on places like Flickr where people caption their pictures as 'such and such loco at Briddon Engineering' a trading title I have never chosen to use. Anyway, I gave him a potted history of how we came to be there and he responded with a 'I think you should emphasise the father and son bit' followed almost immediately by 'what are you going to call your talk?' Cummon, I've only just got off first base with a plan. I told him that the working title is Down in Darkest Darley Dale - mainly 'cos the alliteration appealed to me.

(Why have I never done a talk like this before? Never been asked. Am I scared of talking to groups of people? No. I used to do presentations on Bala Lake Railway, and I've adressed groups as diverse as Samaritans and the IMechE on other topics. One group did think about asking me but then decided that they were too far away...)

Although Mark S had been confident that we'd hear nothing further, the lady did in fact complain to someone high up in the Council and in consequence we were asked to 'hold off' doing any more clearance temporarily, though we did get 2 more panels up to close off what was otherwse a gaping gap.

We had Andy H booked to return on Saturday with expectations of proceeding but as the OK wasn't through we turned our intentions to shed lighting. When the shed was first clad, we went through a winter with a row of 'emergency' bulbs in a string up one side. As the electrical installation progressed, and Terry D acquired an access device, know to us in his memory as the Terrypicker, I mounted a series of cheap Chinese LED floodlamps. There were 3 rows along the roof, in each bay a 50W and a 100W, switched so that you could turn on all 50Watters in a row, or all 100Watters, or both. They have served us well, given their original cost, but gradually have begun to fail, especially the 50Watters, either flickering or going dim. Each floodlamp has an internal power supply, taking the supply rail (50volts to 250) and dropping it to 2o-something Volts at a continuous 1.5amps, so the possibility is that it is the power units rather than the LEDs themselves that are the problem.

Nevertheless, something needs to be done and Andrew started amassing a collection of bigger, more modern LED units which would be much more expensive if we bought them new. For one thing these have lifting eyes screwed in to them and come with wire rope harnesses to secure them as they are a touch heavier than the old chinese lamps. Also they are 200W and 100W units with a whiter LED colour.(They add certain chemicals to the LED to affect the light emitted, hence refrence to 'warm' LEDs meaning a shift towards the red. Blinding white LEDs actually have a bit of blue added, makes it' colder' but we see it whiter.).

So with Andy H due we planned that he should unpack and test the lights while we extracted the Terrypicker from its home in the container out front, and dragged it round the back. Yes, but the Terrypicker has been there for some time and subsequently all manner of things had been stacked in front of it inside, not to mention several pallets outside. The train was duly drawn back on road 1, the crane driven after it, and the forklift sallied forth to remove the stuff outside. Then the doors were opened and a happy time spent moving timber packings, plywood, windows, etc until we could drag the Terrypicker out. It's tyres had lost pressure, which didn't help, but eventually we got it far enough that the forklift could take over and convey it down to the south end of the shed.

Whatever plans I had had were changed when Andrew asked me to assemble two 'towel rails' inside this container now that it was accessible. He had acquired, out of a depot in Leeds, a pair of fabricated bars, rather like handrails with a flat base which he wanted to use for hanging lifting chains etc to free up shelf-space in there for more deserving items. I just needed to drill three 13mm holes in each back plate, and then three matching holes through the container walls and bolt them through. I have said before (not lately so I think I can again) that the hardest job in engineering is getting a hole in the right place. Both towel rails had two hole that lined up perfectly but the middle needed a bit of a file to get the bolt through. It was disconcerting how thin and soft the walls were on the container when filing.

Andrew immdiately populated the rails, and having in the interim done some clearance with Andy, the latter was soon up on the Terrypicker changing the first lamps on the middle row. When I first put those lamps up, I had to make off the cables in junction boxes, drill two holes in purlins and mount each lamp and connect it into its appropriate feed. In my first fit, the shed was 'relatively' clear, but today it is 'relatively' crowded and although by dint of moving things around, we were able to move the Terrypicker down to access the next bay (made a little easier by me firing up the compressor and putting some pressure back in the tyres) those 4 were the limit of progress and getting at the next will involve some gymnastics.

But even those 4 made a significant difference to the overall light levels as the earlier evenings have shown. Tom D had come down with his chain saw and trimmed down some packing blocks into more useful pieces but was called away with the news of a points failure at Matlock which had stranded the Class 47 and train even as the Pallatine diner rolled into Darley. We lent him a point clamp and soon the late running train hove into sight.

That evening Andrew asked me to accompany him as he had a buyer for one of the two pairs of pallisade gates that came up from Derby with the fencing. The guy was due at seven so we dutifully opened up, and a few minutes later he phoned he was on his way from Derby and an ETA of 8pm. We went back home and returned at eight, it raining both times. He came, bought a pair and a few odds and ends, and departed for Nottingham.

Sunday and I was down by ten but the railway was already humming, with both Eustace Forth and Cathryn in action on 'Paw Patrol' trains for a Fox & Edwards event. Tony S arrived in the hope of getting his railcar to go at last, and Andrew appeared for a while as he was due to return grandson to his mother's after lunch. Once again the fuel system was bled until no air bubbles came out of the filter or fuel pump, the engine was cranked but still nothing came out of the injector lines.

Andrew was concerned that he couldn't feel or hear any action from inside the pump, and maybe the pump itself wasn't rotating internally. The only way to prove it was to access the cover on the timing case where the pump drive is secured, but that meant draining the coolant and removing the radiator. But when DL34 arrived we made as much space as possible for it by moving 144V up close to the front of the railcar, not enough to insert a Tony and let him swing a spanner. 144V refused to respond to pinch bar so I put a pull-lift between 144V and DL34 only to discover that DL34 had neither its handbrake on nor chock. Hey ho, DL34 was secured and 144V dragged a foot towards it to make space. Tony removed the various bits and I made ready to view the fuel pump drive bolts as he cranked it, but the fan completely obscured my view. Off came the fan, and this time I could confirm that the fuel pump was rotating, but at this point Tony noticed that Andrew (by now 50 miles away) had left the fuel inlet banjo loose. Even the small amount of cranking should have delivered diesel straight out, but the connection was only 'wet'. This switched our interest to the fuel lift pump, which only seemed to pump towards the end of the hand action - could it be that whilst we could prime it this way, when reliant on the cam the diaphragm didn't move as far? As about the only bit of the fuel system not so far overhauled, Tony removed it and I'll get it checked out as soon as I can.

Thus the week has gone by, but next looks a bit more like normal. We're off tomorrow, notwithstanding more amber rain and wind warnings for the South-East from the Met Office, to collect a coach and then later in the week an 03 to move. Will I have pictures of low loaders marooned in floodwaters, or stopped by fallen trees? You're just going to have to come back next week. See ya then - I hope.