Open Day 2009 - An Unmissable Weekend

The Moseley Railway Trust is pleased to announce that the 2009 Open Days at its Apedale site in North Staffordshire will be held on September 12 and 13 2009.
This is likely to be the only opportunity which the general public will have to visit the site this year and view the extensive collection of narrow gauge locomotives and other artefacts which the Trust has collected on site. Although it is unlikely that passenger trains will be in operation, the Trust will operate demonstration trains throughout the day. The railway on site has been extended significantly since the events in 2008. It is planned to use the new sections to provide some exclusive and unrepeatable photo opportunities for enthusiasts - unrepeatable because the areas to be used and the scenes to be created will be out of bounds once passenger trains are in operation.
It is planned to have a range of exhibitors and trade stands, plus model and miniature railways.
Further details will be announced in due course, but for now this event should be noted as one not to be missed.
The Moseley Railway Trust would be pleased to hear from potential exhibitors, especially vintage and veteran commercial vehicles. The Trust can be contacted via its website.

A Grand Day Out

The Bent Frame Motor Rail Owner's Association (and friends) held their AGM at the Stonehenge Works of the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway yesterday. Pride of place was taken by the newly restored MR1757, which was demonstrated by its justly proud owner and restorer, Nick Williams. Also on display was "Festoon", the resident bent-framer (MR 4570), and the relatively-recently arrived MR461, which was previously at the now deceased Museum of Army Transport at Beverley. The bodywork is a copy of the original, as it is believed that plywood did not offer too much protection against even the weediest enemy munitions. Really good news it that MR461 is to be restored by the Greensand Railway Museum Trust, fresh from their triumph with their Baldwin steamer. What's the common feature with all three Motor Rails? Not a compression-ignition in sight, all three being petrols. Another commonality between MR461 and MR1757 is that they were War Department locos from the First World War. The Moseley Railway Trust is in the early stages of planning an event for 2014 to mark the centenary of WW1, and perhaps, with a prevailing wind, MR461 might be a star visitor at that event. Time will tell.

Apedale Progress

It's been a little while since I have reported on the progress being made on the Moseley Railway Trust's site at Apedale, Staffordshire. Most efforts are focused on building the passenger railway and preparing vehicles to run upon on it. Today has been no exception. Two major tasks were carried out. Firstly, a large, heavy and expensively-hired magnetic base drill was used to bore some large diameter holes through the bogie frame of one of our future passenger coaches. An easy task on most vehicles- except for this one, where the bogie is made from a single slab of steel some 3" thick. The holes were needed to accept a brake cylinder for the air brake equipment. The machine was then employed on drilling holes for the gearbox mounting on Motor Rail 5038, which needed new engine& gearbox mounting bearers after it was "restored" elsewhere and some years ago using an oxy-acetylene cutter.

Meanwhile, a second team set about extending the mainline. A number of track panels had been assembled previously, and these were brought to site on a bogie running on an adjacent track. The panels were then slid off the wagon and barred into place - which sounds easy, and to everyone's surprise, was (relatively) easy. Mind you, the Battle of the Fishplates was then fought and more-or-less won (although it was a close run thing). If you are an expert on fishplates, get in touch here. Or alternatively, come and see us at Apedale. Keep watching this space for a Big Announcement about Open Day 2009 (you must be simply bursting with anticipation).

No Sleep 'Til Apedale

The Moseley Railway Trust has recently been loaned a few photos showing the Apedale buildings in their formal industrial guise. The first photo looks south; behind the classic car rally are the two buildings which form the core of the MRT workshops at Apedale. A modern photo from a similar viewpoint provides a comparison.

The site was riddled with small mines, known as Footrails locally. According to British Small Mines (South) published by the Industrial Railway Society, no less than seven drifts on the site were noted in the early 1980s. By 1995, under the auspices of the Aurora Mining Co, this has dropped to three drifts. Mining on site ceased in 1998. It is remarkably difficult to locate features from the old mines, since the site was largely cleared, and then levelled after the end of the mining era. Today, the exact location of some of the drifts is subject to some dubiety and speculation. It has been suggested that Lemmy, of Motorhead fame, worked as a miner at Apedale, but this has not been proven. Nonetheless, if you want to walk in such hallowed footsteps, get in touch here or come and have a dig at Apedale.

Special Guests

One of the pleasures of hosting groups of specialist railway enthusiasts at our railway is that it gives us the chance to show off some of the more unusual members of the railway collection. The trust has an interesting story to tell covering the early days of successful internal combustion locomotives and how they replaced external combustion (steam) locomotives in their varied duties. However, some of these items are not really practical day-to-day working vehicles and thus they emerge from the sheds only on special occasions.

This weekend we were delighted to host the annual general meeting of the Narrow Gauge Railway Society, a group specialising in the history of narrow gauge industrial and passenger railways throughout the world. As such, we decided to exhibit some of the interesting and rarely-used items in the collection and over the last couple of weeks we have been checking them over to ensure they could be expected to perform reasonably reliably despite their age.

Firstly, we posed our recently-restored class H tank wagon next to the War-Department type Hudswell Clarke steamer repatriated from Ghana last year. We also operated a very early diesel loco from Hudswell Clarke, no D558 built in 1930. This was the second diesel locomotive produced by this major steam locomotive manufacturer. After a long industrial life at Beswick’s Lime Works at Hindlow near Buxton, it was preserved at the Cadeby Light Railway in 1971.

The former War-department 40HP Simplex was operating, as was the steam-outline Baguley locomotive no 1695 of 1928, based on a war-department design but built for pleasure use at the Lilleshall Abbey Woodland Railway.

... and finally a couple of ordinary-looking simplexes, but under the bonnets hide a pair of Dorman 2 cylinder petrol engines. One was built in 1936, the other, the last of its kind, in 1941. Ticking over they make an unmistakeable noise. Try the video below. Unfortunately we can't (yet) duplicate the unique smell online. You'll have to contact us to arrange a visit if you want the full sensory experience that the NGRS members received.

Specialist Skills

One of the advantages of Moseley membership described in our membership leaflet is that volunteers can learn new skills. One of these is the long lost art of Simplex radiator tube fitting. A selling point of the Simplex loco was the Davies Patent Detachable Tube Radiator, which allows individual tubes to be removed and replaced when required due to damage or corrosion. Each is a brass tube fitted with brass or steel vanes to increase surface area for cooling. The tubes are held in with individual rubber seals at top and bottom.

After many years in service, the rubber perishes, the fins corrode and a rebuild is called for. This is the point at which the "individual detachability" loses its appeal, as there are approximately 70 tubes (and 140 little rubber seals) in a standard radiator. All the tubes need to be removed, the seals prised out and the top and bottom tanks thoroughly cleaned and de-rusted to give the new seals a good chance of fitting and working. After that comes the job of cleaning up all the reusable tubes, making sure that they actually pass water (a particular issue for locos from peat and clay works). Then it's simply a matter of fitting a new set of seals (usually pinging a few of them across the workshop in the process) and re-installing the tubes. This is done by inserting the end of the tubes upwards into the top seal, then using a twisting motion to get the bottom of the tube to sink into the bottom seal.

Years of bitter experience of this process with the Moseley fleet of Simplex locos has resulted in the following best practice hints and tips:

- Use soap solution (e.g. strong mix of washing up liquid) to ease the fitting of tubes into the seals.

- Rubber does not respond well to blows from a hammer.

- It is worth putting the effort in to ensure tube ends are cleaned up thoroughly, to avoid having to go through the process all over again.

- Use of an official Simplex tool (illustrated) avoids the complete loss of skin on your knuckles through contact with the sharp vanes on the tubes.

- The wearing of gloves is no protection against knuckle skin loss.

- Lack of the suitable twisting motion causes the top seal to drop out. This is very annoying.

- There's always one tube that leaks at the end of the process and it's usually on the innermost line of tubes.

Fancy your chances? Contact us here.

So after all this we can reflect on the advantages of the Davies Patent. It is certainly the case that a repair can be done quickly and without stripping the entire radiator. However, a proposed radiator rebuild is something to strike fear into the heart of the Chief Mechanical Engineer and also the Treasurer. Perhaps that's why Motor Rail favoured water cooled engines over air-cooled. As one ex-employee told me, "we did a roaring trade in radiator spares". Now that's what Sir Alan Sugar might just describe as "drop-dead shrewd!"