Of a little yellow skip

24th March 2024

A quick read this week.

This time last week I thought I would have lots of things to report tonight but in fact it has all been a bit flat. There's a simple reason for this: at the beginning of the week I was expecting the trailer back, after all, the replacement drums had been due the previous Thursday or Friday. By Monday I was being told that they hoped to have the trailer back to me on Wednesday, but to be confident they were going to say Friday. By Thursday 5pm there was still no sign of the drums and Friday was no longer so confident: by Friday night they had to admit that their supplier doesn't know where they are and they could only hope to get it back to me on or by Easter - though I didn't think to ask which year. However, in the meantime there is a stop-gap which gets things moving again.

On Monday I dug out a set of slave batteries, made up cables and briefly had DL34 running - but on my own I was reluctant to run it for long and in any event, when starting up an engine for the first time the golden rule is to make sure that it also stops immediately when required. So on Tuesday a representative from the W&L arrived and sat in the driver's seat ready to jab the stop button down on a shout from me. To my relief the hydraulic motor rotated the correct way (had it not I would have had to swap the pipes over which would have been messy) and flicking the new switch in the desk stopped it turning as the by-pass valve allowed the oil an easier route back to tank. A few minor glitches had to be attended to but initially we couldn't raise any vac - though this later turned out to be because the W&L pattern dummies are heavy enough that although I had wired them so that they stayed in the coupling, the rear hose was pointing down and the vac was insufficient to draw it up and seal properly.

On Wednesday Jagger and co were on site but Andrew had asked me run a little errand. As part of the materials handling plan, he had bought a 'mini skip' through an auction site. The vendor had given him dimensions and it should - just - fit in the van. So Wednesday lunchtime I set off to find a lane which, from the postcode, was just north of the A50 near Uttoxeter. To get to it I had to turn off and head back roughly parallel to the A50, so as to cross over, and as I went along I caught sight of a street name sign with the lane I wanted, but earlier than I had expected. No matter, I turned in to it, trying to apply the vendor's description, but the road petered out without any of the landmarks and the yard I was expecting. I rang him and he couldn't understand where I was. Then the truth dawned, when the A50 had been built, it had cut through this lane, making it effectively two. I returned to the main road, followed it over the bridge and 5 minutes later was admiring a little yellow skip.

There was no forklift available to load this thing, but 3 strong men and I attempted to lift it in, but it would not clear the van's doorway. It transpired the vendor had given Andrew the external measurements of the skip, but not including the 4 lifting lugs that stretched out farther. We turned it on its side and tried again, this time it was too tall. Of course the vendor had a tipping vehicle on a Transit chassis so he offered to deliver it after I had explained where we were. The price was reasonable (probably because he felt guilty having given incomplete dimensions) I handed over the cash (trusting soul me, anyway it was Andrew's) and headed back, taking a scenic route that brought me out near Idridgehay and thence Wirksworth. Back at the shed about 5pm I settled down to wait (he'd said he had another job to do first) and about 50 minutes later he rolled up and discharged the little skip and was on his way back.

Thursday I was at the shed all day, mostly on DL34 but as it makes much smoke that lingers in the shed this had to be in breath-sized doses and time spent outside waiting for it to clear. During this time Matt H was happily cutting pieces off a Hunslet 0-4-0. It was apparent though that the vac/air electronic system on DL34 wasn't functioning and first thing Friday I consulted the manufacturers and their tech guy told me to add 2 wires. I had already put two current meters in the input and output loops (Plasser & Theurer fit a meter that records -20mA to +20mA which is very useful in checking these industrial control loops, at one time 14 901 had a 'speedo' that was made of one) but they were showing nothing. With these two additional wires I suddenly had action. Trying to adjust the interface though was frustrating - the unit kept going into error-mode. More calls to the tech guy and it seems I need to have the unit 'customised' - too late to do anything about it on Friday but at least it should be a straightforward commissioning once that has been done.

Saturday, and Andrew was back. He had declared that it was a major tidy-up time but in practice we ended up stripping important bits off an old Rolls C6 engine ready for it to go into the (big blue) scrap bin. I had zipped over to Chesterfield first thing so had a new LED light bulb to restore the lamp over the personnel access door. The old one packed in some time ago (the LEDs appear ok but, like the LED floodlights in the shed, the current regulators tend to fail first) and now that summer is coming on and it isn't needed as much, I remember to get a new'un. Andrew meanwhile dragged the little yellow skip around to where the tipping skip had been and dumped the concrete lumps from the latter in to the former. Not quite sure what is in his mind but I'm sure he has a plan.

Meanwhile Peak Rail wasn't having a good time - for the second week in a row D8 was unable to start first thing thanks to flat batteries and Waleswood had to operate a 4 coach train until the diesel could be charged up and take over. Sunday and Andrew had 'domestic duties' to perform but I was kept company by Tony S working on his railcar. Most of my time was spent painting pipework and such on DL34. I was using a water-based paint: when we first tried water-based they didn't seem very good at all. I appreciated it had environmental benefits but I couldn't help thinking that the authorities had pressured the paint manufacturers to bring the technology to market before it was properly developed.

That was a few years ago: this stuff was much better. I'm not sure how good it would be trying to get a 'museum' finish but as a means of applying a quick, protective layer it seemed to do the job, though being much thinner than older paints I had a lot of flying droplets to deal with. With a nice days weather (not as much biting wind here as yesterday) I spent some time outside marking and drilling the webs of a pair of 10ft rails with pilot holes ready for Andrew to open them out with gas for tie bars - he has built up one panel using the n.g. tie bars and the idea is to have this second set ready so that we can make up the necessary track to get DL34 out and on to the trailer in the minimum possible time, using the forklift to put them in place. Peak Rail were in trouble again - Kathryn was out after its lubrication system had been attended to but had to limp back after a hot box was detected at Riverside. It did a second round trip with some caution while D8 was called out for the third. Locos this weekend were running with wreaths in memory of Jackie Roberts, a volunteer who suffered a stroke and died a week or so ago.

OK, so it doesn't look as though much has happened this week which is unfortunate because in many senses it has, just not specially photogenic. It's like the position in many projects where you bolt some big lump on in 5 minutes and instantly you can see 'progress' but spend an hour on some intricate small detail and no-one can see any change and wonder where your time has been spent. An inordinate time was spent today finding two 5/16 BSF nuts: find two nuts in the end I did, but neither of them were keen on screwing on to my bolt until I'd run a tap through to clean them. Actually locating a pair must have occupied over an hour - I'd gone through several plastic containers of miscellaneous fixings before coming across these two in a plastic bag that had not been disturbed for years. And after all that you would not know where they have been installed. Progress. So this week - well, stop gap is available tomorrow afternoon so that should enable me to get back on to one job and we'll see what else transpires. It's a short week of course, the Easter holiday beckons, and what else will occur I am not even going to try and predict. You'll just have to come back - probably Sunday night as usual. See ya then.