Drilling Down

Some years ago, the Moseley Railway Trust built a replica of a Penrhyn Quarryman's Coach. The vehicle has had a few public outings - at the Alan Keef Ltd open days, and on a temporary line at the Hayfield Sheepdog Trials. However, the vehicle has needed a fair bit of work to make it ready for front line operation on the Apedale Valley Light Railway. Probably one of the trickiest operations has been the inserting of tie rods into the underframe. These were deemed necessary to provide additional strength to the underframe. Obtaining 12' long steel bars, threaded each end, proved to be challenging in its own right - not many people have lathes that big, and steel bar comes in standard lengths of 3 metres. Fortunately, our friends at the Hunslet Steam Company at Statfold came up with the goods. It was then simply a question on making a series of closely aligned holes through the vehicle underframe, taking care to miss the air brake pipes and other minor details. What could be simpler? Nuclear Fusion, for a start. Fortunately, we were able to call on the World's Largest Electric Drill, needing a crew of three to operate safely. We borrowed it from BP who said that they "weren't planning on drilling anywhere for a while". The job isn't finished yet, but we have got a method for doing it now, and another day should see the vehicle back in business and read for service on the Apedale Valley Light Railway. Get in touch here.

Modeller's Mecca

As both regular readers know, the Grand Opening Gala for the Apedale Valley Light Railway will be on the 18th & 19th September. Amongst other attractions, we're planning a record number of model railway layouts this year.

These will be in a variety of scales from the delights of Hull Miniature Railway Society’s ‘Barrowfleet’ (009 and 00) and Hazel Grove MRC’s penultimate outing of "The High Peak Tramway" (O16.5) right up to ‘Hookers Junction’ in 1/12th scale. The photos, courtesy of Hazel Grove MRC and Paul Harrison, show the High Peak Tramway. Rumour has it that the CME can be seen pointing at something in one of the scenes.
This is the perfect opportunity for narrow gauge modellers of any scale to get ‘up close and personal’ with camera and tape measure to a considerable range of locomotives and is not to be missed.
Further announcements will be made, so keep watching the press and here for more details of what will be one of the Narrow Gauge "events of the year". The ‘how to find us’ button on our website provides maps and useful sets of directions. As ever, get in touch here.

Testing times

As both of you will realise, we have to obtain approval from the ORR (or HMRI to old folks) for both the passenger railway - the Apedale Valley Light Railway - and the vehicles which run on it. The days of running narrow gauge passenger trains depending solely on the loco brakes are well and truly over; those of us who recall running passenger trains down slippery grades with minimal brakes breathe a sigh of relief at that. These days, the sighs come from the air brake system. ORR require that we can demonstrate that the train can stop at 0.7ms/s/s or 7% of g for those from the Big Railway. Proving this has not been easy. Our trains do not have speedometers fitted, and the low speeds mean that resolution errors cause significant problems. On the other hand, the low speeds do mean that the simple equations of motions can be employed; we are not subject to Einsteinian relativistic effects, although time dilations have been noticed on site, especially during busy periods in the cafe. The key issue is knowing accurately what the speed of the train is when the train brakes are applied. We tried using GPS devices; both a car sat-nav and one designed for hikers didn't really work very well. We suspect the steep sides of the Apedale Valley meant that the devices couldn't "see" sufficient satellites. That was one item which was, shockingly, overlooked in the railway risk assessment. Anyway, we have now cracked the problem using a perception head device sold for bicycles, and (to everyone's relief) it is clear that the brakes are working just fine. In the top photo you can see the train testing engineer hard at work; we need a spreadsheet to do the maths these days. If you fancy reading a bit more about train testing, see here.

Elsewhere on site, the CME has found something else to point at; it's the cab from one of the ex-Wolverhampton battery-electric locos, currently being treated for severe tinworm. As ever, get in touch here if you fancy learning how to point.

Breakthrough

As many will know, especially MRT members, one of the problems which had inhibited our ability to open the Apedale Valley Light railway to the public was the rather inconvenient matter of a public footpath crossing the site. After a considerable period of time whilst the County Council considered the matter, and consulted with everybody (and we really do mean everybody, and in alphabetical order), a footpath diversion order was finally made. This is the apparently innocuous thing being pointed at by the CME (No.2 in the series "The CME Points"). This allowed us to finally close the gaps in the fenceline, thereby protecting the public from being savaged by the fire breathing dragons which lurk on the railway. The Elite Fencing Squad took some satisfaction in driving in the final nail, and a big thank you to the EFS for building the whole thing. Meanwhile, the CME has decided how to number Motor Rail 7066. We THINK he's decided it should be No.6, but we're not entirely sure. What do you think? If you are increasingly in need of glasses to read small numbers, get in touch here.