Of a tender to Quorn

2nd February 2025

February eh? The nights are beginning to draw out, two months without having to pay council tax.. aah, bliss..

Last week's edition revolved around my having a bad cough/infection but even as I wrote it I was having second thoughts. For it had begun a day or two after I had been changed to another inhaler for my asthma. Y'see for the last 5 or so years my asthma has been pretty steady with a 'preventer' type inhaler such that the 'reliever' inhalers that I used to carry around with me everywhere I went (sometimes setting off airport detectors) had reached the point where I needed them so infrequently that the last one had long ago expired. But every now and again, instead of the genuine 'preventer' inhaler prescribed by the GP, I would be issued with a 'generic' - frequently an Italian one, others including one which I think was Polish. Either way I found these not as good as the 'genuine' and took it up with the surgery, who aside from assuring me that I could refuse them at the Pharmacy (yeah, I'm nearly out and turn down the one they have bagged up - I wonder how that would pan out) suggested changing to a different inhaler which was both 'reliever' and 'preventer' combined. Seemed like a good idea but it was becoming apparent that my asthma was far worse under this regime and the cough, I began to realise, was asthmatic rather than infectional. So I contacted the surgery, managed to get an appointment with one of the nurses, explained it all through and was switched to another preventer inhaler but ostensibly the same spec as the original and UK sourced. This was Tuesday and - touch wood - things are steadily returning to normal.

On Wednesday I had the van booked in to find out exactly what was triggering these error messages and it turns out to be a duff NOx sensor that is causing the management chip to blame everything. They cancelled the error messages and for a blissful few miles I had no bleeps or warning lights - then first thing Thursday morning as I headed out to Ruddington both errors flagged up again within 5 miles of Matlock and this time with the threat that if they aren't attended to within 700 miles it won't let me start it. Perhaps I should write some menacing software into the locos - pay me so much 'licence' fee or unexpected brake failures might happen...

Oh, yes, what was I going to Ruddington for? I was due to collect a tender from the Ashley Road area. Straightforward except that it had not been sat on rails for at least 15 years. Its owners (the GCR 567 group) had been down, cleared most of the encroaching undergrowth out and packed fresh grease into its axleboxes, but rather like when we collected 144V out of Essex, there was a question as to whether the wheels would freely turn or the tender stay still and the winch drag the trailer towards it. With the tender weighing 22tons (or thereabouts) and the trailer at about 17 but with the brakes on, they might be evenly matched.

I got down to Ashley Road level crossing at about 08.45 to find it wasn't quite like it looked on Google Streetview. Although there are/were double yellow lines for 20 yards or so either side of the crossing, they have mostly worn away, probably because so many people ignore them so as to park their cars as near as possible to the entrance of the adjacent park when they come to exercise their dogs. But Jeff, when he arrived, had to pull past the crossing, onto the far side so as to reverse the trailer into the cinder track that shares the level crossing gateway.

As he did approach the car nearest the crossing was just putting dog away and moving off, but the one beyond was still where Jeff really wanted to be. I put my headset on, and we connected while he concentrated on easing the tractor up between the parked car and the park fence, I steered the trailer into the gateway and after 3 or 4 shuffles, got the back around on to the track and we reversed slowly down parallel with the railway for a quarter mile or so.

The tender had been rolled off a trailer from this track so we lined the trailer up with it and detached the neck. There was too little room to take the tractor to the rear of the trailer but I had brought the extension hoses and these provided the link, although it does add half an hour to the loading time. With the ramp assembled, I was reluctant to put out the extra rails as I was still feeling the (lack of) effects of asthma inhaler, but as the winch pulls the vehicle to the centre line of the trailer, it ought to line up without needing rails all the way. I decided to try with just the one run of the cable, but ready to deploy a snatch block if the winch proved unable. To my surprise and relief, the tender began to move immediately, the trailer stayed where we'd parked it and hauling the tender up on to the trailer proved entirely straightforward.

Ramp packed away, hoses coiled, tender secured and tractor re-attached - we set off at about 11.15 (I had hoped to be nearer 10.30 but the trouble getting in had put paid to that), Jeff managed to come out in one swing, missing another parked 4 x 4 on the double yellows, and set off for Quorn. It isn't far from Ruddington to Quorn, and for me it certainly wasn't. I trundled down the A60, passing an entrance to Brush (where once I had entered when attending for a job interview), through Loughborough (or Lufbra as both Andrew and my daughter refer to it having both been to Uni there) and out the other side. Quorn was both quiet and busy - quiet in that the cafe was active and there were plenty of cars parked, and busy in so far as no trains were running to generate the trade.

Our tender had a drawhook at one end only, so I'd been instructed to unload the tender so that said drawhook faced Loughborough for its gentle journey thence, but just as Jeff arrived after taking a more circuitous route that involved the M1, the signalman came up to say that minds had changed and it needed to be the other way round. So once Jeff had partaken of a sandwich at the cafe, he turned around and we set up to unload. Again it was straightforward, though as usual it required to be moved away from the trailer so we could get cleared away. I gather that we had arrived in such good time that the GCR sent an 08 down to Quorn that afternoon and the tender was hauled slowly north. I only got time to take the one picture (above) but if you go to the GCR567 group website there are further pictures, including moving ones.

Friday, Matt was up to continue reducing number 11 to manageable lumps, but Andrew had arranged a local company to collect some racking for him and a pavement roller for a friend. We do get some interesting combinations at Darley Dale, don't we? I gather (not being a roller enthusiast myself) that this lightweight Aveling Barford was one of the last of only a hundred or so ever made. It came fron a plant merchant in Sheffield, who once had a rail crane that we had tried to acquire in another yard that had always seemed derelict. I was reminded of a snippet in my book The Railway to Merhead, where Frank hires them a very old, venerable bulldozer, left behind by the US Army as not worth repatriating, and George's comment was that Frank 'owned more history than the County Museum'.

Saturday: In contrast I was entirely on my own and spent the day making some sense out of the old desk wiring on W H Davis' Barclay. Although prepared to produce two new cables from the battery switch to the desk, I discovered that someone had already renewed the negative, and though it wasn't in any form of trunking or other protection, as I couldn't persuade the lift-up up floor panel to co-operate in any way, I decided it would do, as I wasn't going to slither around underneath to make a new conduit route. On the other hand a check of resistance between the battery neg terminal and loco chassis threw up an answer of just over 42 ohms which tends to make me think that someone may have wired in an earth-return device somewhere. Strangely, someone had also grouped both the battery and loco negative cables on to the same terminal on the battery master switch. This normally infers that one pole of the switch isn't contacting but the meter says otherwise so I've changed it back like it ought to be. All in all, by the end of the day it was pretty much ready to start taking power, and a large pair of batteries were ready to be put up in the battery cupboard.

Sunday, and Tony S was due over. Once he arrived I got him to assist me lifting the batteries up on to the Barclay and helped him a bit with the disc brake installation on his railcar. He had had a friend turn down the diameter of the disc (somehow it had ended up too large) but frustratingly it was still too big and must be turned down 5 or 10mm more. Of course, if we had a working lathe he could have done so there and then, so he took a look at it, and had it running at 1600rpm without it slowing down, though there was soon a wisp of smoke, or burning off lubricant. He opened up the gearbox and apart from agreeing that the oil is heavily water-contaminated, he was also of the opinion that it was significantly lower than it ought to be, so the spindle bearings may not be getting any or enough lube. We then identified the correct grade of oil from the internet, and a supply of such will be organised shortly.

Other visitors today were Alistair L and his son Jake, back in to take further dimensions of our 14 for the gauge 3 model they are prototyping. Alistair is even talking of having the brake rigging 'movable' - quite a difference from the days where models had the brake carriers/blocks moulded in line with the axleboxes and not near the wheels. Back on the Barclay, with the cables and battery lugs sorted, I bravely turned on the power and there being no flashes or bangs, started checking through to see where power turned up and where it didn't. The only unexpected issue was a new desk lamp that warns of the clutch being engaged - it came on straight away and I thought I must have wired the switch wrong. In fact, it transpired that I hadn't got it right when I was setting it up and going through it again got it correct. It would have been exciting to have programmed the little unit and checked that the run solenoid etc energised on command but although I had brought down my laptop I had forgotten to pick up the programming cable so that will have to wait for another day.

And you'll have noticed no mention of minilok this week. Although the big DH140 was moved on Friday, the Engine management unit for the little DH60 is still back with the Deutz agent for 'psychotherapy' and so there has been no progress - at least at this end.

And that about wraps it up for the week. The van is booked for a new NOx sensor on Thursday so I dare not exceed the remaining 600 mile allowance before then or dire prognostications will befall. Oh and there's that month end just past to wrap up, and a meeting with Mark S to reschedule, and a Barclay 0-6-0 waiting its direction detection set up, and ... well you get the picture. Come back next week and read what (if any) I managed to tick off. See ya then.