To Boldly Go......

...where no Ruston has been before. These are the voyages of the starship "Vanguard". Actually rather a second rate starship; Captain Kirk's Enterprise was powered by Dilithium Crystals and had two warp nacelles, whereas Vanguard has a 20hp two-cylinder diesel engine. Nonetheless, Vanguard has indeed boldly gone where no Ruston has been before. For various reasons, the railway on the Moseley Railway Trust's site at Apedale has been in two disconnected sections. The push is now on to join these two sections, and this has entailed the rather delicate task of of track laying in the limited space between the new footpath fence and the Aurora North storage shed. The pre-assembled track panels were brought to site on a flat wagon using Vanguard. The Trust's crane, having been very careful threaded into place, was then used to lift the panels into place. What could be easier? And so the main line of the Apedale Valley Light Railway grew substantially today, and at the end of the day's work, Vanguard was able to set a new record for the furthest North travelled by an MRT loco at Apedale. The gap to link the two railways is now about 40', so two sections of track will now be built in-situ to close this. This will then finally allow rail access to the roadside tramway section, which we are hoping will be a prominent part of the September 12 & 13 Open Days at Apedale. If you fancy coming along and helping with this type of thing, come along or contact us here. The ability to confidently split infinitives is a definite benefit.

Off-Site Update

One of the better aspects of narrow gauge preservation, when compared to our colleagues in the standard gauge world, is that it is possible to do reasonable amounts of restoration work in "domestic" premises. It is not normally possible to accomodate, say a BR Standard steam loco, on a domestic drive, as this can cause problems with the neighbours and reduce property values. Narrow Gauge locos are much more easily accommodated. This week, we'll have a quick update on two projects which are closely associated with the Moseley Railway Trust, but are happening away from the main Apedale base. Firstly, the Kerr Stuart Joffre class steam loco, no.3014/16. Many of you will remember this loco from its sojourn on a plinth outside Rich Morris' house on the Crimea Pass road (shown above). This project is now storming along. The frames are now wheeled, the motion has been restored and fitted - it's really beginning to look like the bottom half of a steam loco. The firebox outer wrapper and the front section of the barrel have been test fitted. Boiler manufacture is now proceeding apace, and completion? Well, 2010 looks possible.

Meanwhile, the world of Internal Combustion has also been proceeding with work on a member's 30DL Ruston, no. 237914 of 1946. This loco worked at the DSF Refractories works at Friden, in the Peak District. It's coming together nicely, and the UK economy has been significantly boosted by a recent paint purchase. We can't promise that either of these locos will be on site for our open day, but if you want further details, get in touch here.

Finally, this week's blog is dedicated to the memory of Richard Bowen. A gentleman railway enthusiast.

Stoned with friends

If there is one lesson which I for one have learnt from building the Apedale Valley Light Railway, it is to not under-estimate that amount of ballast which needs to be deployed. We have recently completed a rather elegant series of sweeping curves, and it was apparent that we needed to ballast this as soon as possible such that the railway will hold its form. We have been employing the centre-discharge ballast wagon loaned to the Moseley Railway Trust by the Golden Valley Light Railway, and this does a fine job at dropping stone between the running rails. However, forming the shoulders on each side of the rails is equally, if not more, important. Until recently, this has been a slightly fraught process using two small side-tipping skip wagons. However, we now have another ballast wagon on load - this time a specialist side discharge wagon. This one has been loaned to the Trust by Graham Lee and his team at the Statfold Barn Railway - a big public thank you to Graham. The ballast trains have been shuttling back and forth along the railway, dropping tons of stone. It's beginning to look like a mighty fine railway - all that remains now is to tamp it all into place. So, if you fancy a bit of a tamp, get in touch here. And don't forget, you will get a chance to come along to the Open Days in 2009 - see here - and see all we have done.

A new industrial railway for Apedale

Not often mentioned in these notes are the activities of our friends on the Apedale site who operate the Apedale Heritage Centre. Besides running a museum with an extensive collection of mining artifacts (and four Moseley Railway Trust locomotives), they also run regular tours into one of the drift mines on site. As you may have read in a recent post ("No Sleep 'til Apedale"), the area is honeycombed with drift mines. The AHC staff are currently working to re-open an old working which has been partially filled in. But how to dispose of the filling-in material? A glance in the direction of the Moseley Railway Trust's activities suggested the answer. MRT had a pile of portable track which was at rather a loose end - and thus a new railway was created. There's no loco haulage - but there is a rather splendid foot crossing where parties exiting the mine have to cross the track.

This is, of course, what the MRT is all about - recreating industrial narrow gauge railways - and here we have a new one, on our doorstep, doing a real job of work. It's an ephemeral line, but it MAY still be in place for our Open Day on 12 & 13 September. Meanwhile, progress is being made with the Main Line (the Apedale Valley Light Railway) with a large number of ballast trains being run. Mind, as with most railway operations, the civil engineers had to relinquish possession for the afternoon pick-up goods. As ever, contact us here.