A remarkable survivor

The Moseley Railway Trust exists to preserve, conserve and interpret locomotives, vehicles and other artifacts from industrial narrow gauge railways. Often everything we do is in the past tense - the industrial railway narrow gauge is all but extinct in the UK, other than a few pockets of resistance at peat works and the like.

So, this week, I thought I'd turn attention slightly further afield and look at such a railway still running. The pleasent small Swiss town of Bruggen is located on the main Gotthard pass railway line running from Zurich through the famous tunnel to Italy. The Holcim cement works in Bruggen uses a 750mm gauge railway to convey the raw product for cement making - limestone - from a quarry which is about 2km from the works itself. As you might expect in Switzerland, the railway is a model of modern efficiency. It uses two modern Diema locos, built in Germany, and these shuttle from the automatic loader to the automatic unloader via a railway which runs through pleasant Alpine meadows, past cows with bells (because their horns don't work), across a main road and underneath the main line railway. The most unusual feature is the use of tiny "driving trailers" - the locos don't run round at each end, the trains are worked push-pull with the driver in the driving trailer or the locomotive.

There will be a fuller account of this railway in a forthcoming edition of Moseley Matters, which is the quarterly journal produced by the Moseley Railway Trust. Receiving Moseley Matters is just one of the many benefits of membership - a snip at 15 pounds a year. Contact us at here for more information. Big News is coming - keep looking here regularly and be the first (maybe the second at a pinch) to know!!

Simplexes at Work

One of our correspondents has recently sent us some photographs of a narrow gauge diesel locomotive hard at work at a banana plantation in Brazil. Nilson Rodrigues reports that the locomotive is at use at Ararau banana farm near Santos. Simplex locomotives of this type were produced in Bedford, England in their thousands and exported worldwide for use in mines, quarries and plantations. Due to their simple and robust construction, they proved extremely reliable and easy to maintain and repair. This example is at least fifty years old and has been re-engined to keep it in service but the original 2-speed reversing gearbox is still present. There are 4 similar locomotives all working in the same industry in this region.

Building on the successful deployment of the first prototypes on tactical light railways in the First World War, the Simplex loco soon found a ready market serving industry throughout the UK. Although they are now virtually extinct in UK industry, many examples have been preserved and continue to earn their keep in different ways. At the Moseley Railway Trust's site near Chesterton in Staffordshire, Simplex locomotives are helping the Moseley Railway Trust build a new narrow gauge railway and museum in the Apedale Country Park. The second photograph shows one of our collection that spent its working life in the sand quarries of Leighton Buzzard.

Part of our mission is to explain how the little-known industrial narrow gauge railways served the needs of industrial Britain. The ubiquitous Simplex locomotive is a part of that story. To learn more you can read the Simplex story here. If you would like to help us preserve these machines for future generations, we would be delighted to hear from you. Contact us here.

Top photograph courtesy Nilson Rodrigues

Open day - First Chance to see the Moseley Collection in ten years!!

The Moseley Railway Trust (MRT) will hold Open Days at its new Apedale site on 13/14 September 2008. This will be the public’s first opportunity to visit the site and see the MRT’s large and varied collection of industrial narrow gauge locomotives for 10 years.

The MRT has been working on the Apedale site since 2006 and significant progress has been made. The most notable achievements have included laying a significant amount of 2’0" gauge railway track, and the construction of a large storage building. This has allowed the movement of the MRT’s collection of rolling stock and other artifacts to the Apedale site. Most of the MRT’s rolling stock has been in store since the MRT left its previous site, at a school in Cheadle near Stockport, in 1998. The collection is one of the largest in the UK, if not the world, numbering more than 50 locomotives. These locomotives include steam, diesel, petrol and battery power, and were used on the industrial narrow gauge systems which once thrived in the UK, and contributed so much to develop the world in which we live today. Sadly, these systems are now almost extinct.

The weekend will see the operation of the first steam-hauled trains at Apedale, using the MRT’s Kerr Stuart locomotive "Stanhope" (Kerr Stuart number 2395 of 1917). Although it will not be possible to offer passenger train rides in September, the MRT collection will be on display and it is planned to operate demonstration goods and works trains. It is hoped that the weekend may produce one or more "surprise" guest locomotives.

Admission prices have yet to be fixed, but the site will be open from 11.00 to 17.00 on both days. There will be sales stands and refreshments will be available in the cafe run by the Apedale Heritage Centre, the MRT’s partner in the Apedale development. The Apedale site is close to the village of Chesterton, in Newcastle under Lyme, North Staffordshire. It is easily accessed from the M6 (junction 16) and many other major roads. There is public transport access using a frequent bus service to Chesterton village.

You can always contact us here.

AGM Day - Playing with the Trains

It's been the Annual General Meeting of the Moseley Railway Trust today at Apedale. In many ways, this AGM represents a turning point for the Trust. Previous AGMs (certainly all the ones I've been to) have been some hall or other, often in the Stockport area which represented the spiritual home of the Trust. This year, things changed. For the first time in ten years, the MRT is back in the Railway Business. The railway at Apedale is a long way from finished, and a long way from being able to carry passengers, but what we can do is demonstrate to our members just how much progress has been made in the last year or so. This progress is most visibly represented by the loco collection being demonstrated on the railway which has been laid so far.

Today. we ran MR7710, MR8748, SMH104G063, FH2306, the RL1 O&K (perhaps 3444), the Wingrove battery loco and best of all the ancient Deutz 10050. MR2197 was used as a buffer stop - the brakes still work, even if nothing else does. The other five locos on the railway (OK4588, RH198297, MR1320, Bg1695 and HC D558) were all hauled from the shed and placed on display. In the case of the Ruston, hauled kicking & screaming as it tends to seize its brakes on when stood still for more than ten minutes. The Deutz hasn't been run since the Cadeby days (I think its last outing was in mid 2005) - and it's GREAT to see it making its characteristic way along the railway with gears and rods clanking, flywheels spinning and haze of exhaust. You can see the video on YouTube here

All too soon, it was time to pack away and attend the AGM - which seemed to go well, with the Trustees emerging relatively unscathed. It was really nice to see the room so full, and everyone seemingly so upbeat and positive about the progress made. It was also encouraging to see many new faces in the crowd. We are always trying to recruit new members - for details, contact us here. Everyone is more than welcome, active working members especially so.

All we need to do now is to chose a name for the railway......