Of drums and cookers

3rd March 2024

A little bit different this week?

So to return to last Monday. The highlight of the day - nothing to do with railways but I thought I'd mention it - was having a new coooker installed at the Briddon Country Pile. The significance of this event was brought home to me by Steph, who observed that in all our married life - and that's (er) 50 years this summer - she has never had a brand spanking new cooker before. Briddon Towers had a stand alone cooker and hob plumbed into the gas by the kitchen door by solid (soldered?) copper pipe and when the oven door catch failed I repaired it with a piece of (stick) welding rod from Kilnhurst - a benefit of being in an engineering environment. The kitchen at the Country Pile was far newer and spacious, and although I suggested re-modelling it she declined (and now regrets it). Now I suppose I must save up and replace the hob before that anniversary....

Anyway, with fuel pump and injectors collected the damaged part was brought back from the welders and subsequently flap-wheeled flat so that it should be satisfactory. The trailer however has taken up a lot of time, with Heanors reporting that the drums for the brakes not only need renewing but are not available. Kings (the trailer manufacturers) quoted a price (but no lead time) but given that King's price for parts I bought some years ago turned out to be 4 times what I could get them for elsewhere, I put Andrew on to the job, and sure enough, with the number for the axle from the manual, he was able to locate a parts breakdown and a part number therefore for the brake drum. Heanors managed to source these but reported that they were too small for the brake shoes to go in. Not by much: the new drums were 355 i.d. and the original ones probably 360.

Since 360 is a more common brake drum size either the manual has a wrong number for the axles used or the drums have been changed from 355 to 360 at some time by the previous owner. Either way it has delayed the return of the trailer and in the meantime I'm quoting work and taking bookings with fingers crossed that all will be ready in time. The van is back with its new bearing and hub - we'll see whether this proves to have been the solution there but it still doesn't seem as quiet as it ought to be.

Saturday morning's activities were interrupted by my attending a volunteers' meeting at the Church Hall. This started in the usual way with Andrew saying 'we ought to show our faces' and as in the end he wouldn't be across in time it became apparent I'd have to attend for both of us. There must have been upwards of 30 present when the time to start arrived. Mark Sealey opened the meeting with the realities of the Peak Rail situation, that in 2022 he had by no means been sure that the railway would survive, that the Board had opted to make that year a 'bundle all the bad bits into the accounts' and that alhough final figures weren't to hand, 2023 would either be break-even or a small profit - and a 'real' profit, he stressed. [Under a former MD, a varying sum was transferred annually from P&L to the Balance sheet and if you happened to reverse that transaction, the 'profit' Peak Rail declared would mysteriously turn into a loss.]

In the subsequent discussion over the results of the Santa traffic, at least one member of the audience was keen to defend the previous MD's position as to why certain things had been done as they had, but all opinions were listened to and lessons are being learned with an eye to improving the event year on year. Overall though, customer satisfaction ratings were high and a surprising number - around 50% - were passengers who had never visited before. Special events for 2023 were then gone over, with the 'Twin Peaks' and 'Anything Goes' galas of particular interest to me anyway (RS8 has been requested for driver-for-a-fiver again, and of course Andrew had been muttering about whether we could drop another used torque converter into the 03.) The 40s event will return to having a staged battle this year and catering trains are already showing promising bookings.

I was though slightly alarmed to find that the day we have our visit from the Inter City Railway Society is the day of the 'Peter Rabbit' Event. I took this up with Mark afterwards who hadn't realised, but assured me that the arrangement will stand. We've also talked about the fence, and he with the Council. The person-in-charge has gone off for 5 weeks leave and the contact in their absence is on the legal side. Mark has again put it to them that as a statutory railway we do not need planning permission when it comes to things like security fencing, and the legal-eagle is looking into it.

Anyway, back to progress at the shed and its environs. We're in the final stages with DL-34, you remember that schizophrenic loco that according to a well-known loco database is both standard and narrow gauge, diesel mechanical and hydraulic and Bo-Bo and 4w-4w.

The vac pipe is finally in front to back, and work under way on the branch to the exhauster. A small branch under the cab takes advantage of an existing hole in the running plate to provide a connection to the vac gauge and the the vacuum sensor which will act as part of the vac-air proportional system, applying the loco brakes in response to a drop in vac in the train pipe. That's the little device sitting horizontally.

The hydraulic relief valve is now installed, and with that I had a good measuring up session on Saturday and - fingers-crossed - I can get all the hoses made up and fitted in the next few days.

The batteries have been on charge - they're not looking all that good and once again we have 4 batteries in two parallel banks of 24V charged from a single alternator. At least they're not cross connected at the 12V point as well but despite prolonged charging our battery load tester is pronouncing them 'Weak' or 'Bad'. Additionally, after much investigation by Andy H on Saturday, it is confirmed the loco is earth return, i.e the chassis is the return path for all electrical devices. Normal practice for UK loco manufacturers is for wire return, and I remember when the Channel Tunnel people put earth return voltage droppers for 12V radios on my hired locos back in 1992-3. they succeeded in blowing the charge circuits on all three. Anyway, we've hooked up feeds from the loco's system (remember we have to do everything with the minimum modification in case the loco has to be returned) and wiring is now under way, as are the air feeds and break-ins under the control desk.

Tony S was over on his railcar again, removing the fuel pump for return to the overhaulers for re-test as it won't deliver. I'll get that back this week and see what transpires. And that's really about it. The diary is sort-of clear this week - may have to collect some Paxman cylinder heads, at least two days in the shed, remains of month end to finish, chase up late payments so that I can pay people, that sort of thing. If you want the gaudy details, come back next week. See ya then.