Today's News

....is, of course, tomorrow's chip paper. Delving into chip papers of the past, a few photos have come to light showing a memorable operation from 2007 - the early days at Apedale. When the Moseley Railway Trust arrived on site, there were many, many obstacles in the way. One of those was a metal building, inevitably christened the Tin Tabernacle. Said building stood exactly on the site of the storage shed - or (to put it another way) totally in the way. Being short of covered storage, we were loathe to demolish it, so a more creative solution was reached. The first two photos give a context - then and now - note the coal conveyor in the background of both shots. The building had a cradle built around it, and was then craned complete onto a large trailer. It was then driven to near its new home, and craned off onto a ready-built foundation. What could be simpler?

By the way, I should mention that the Apedale Valley Light Railway is running all three days over this bank holiday weekend, with steam on Sunday and Monday. We will also be running steam traction on the following two Saturdays (4th June and 11th June) and Sunday 12th June. The 4th June is in connection with a caravan rally, and the 11 & 12th is our usual steam & industry trains weekend. It's been a bit quiet on some days recently, so please do come along and see us - check out the main website for details. As ever, get in touch here.

Hudswell Update

It's been a little while since we heard anything about the Moseley Railway Trust's Hudswell Clark steam locomotive no.1238. You may recall that this loco was repatriated from Ghana in 2008. After spending a while at Apedale, the loco went on display at the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway (to help mark their 90th birthday) and then went into hiding - right? Well, sort of. When the loco was repatriated, there was no clear plan for its restoration. However, a very generous bequest from the estate of the late Terry Stanhope has allowed the project to progress earlier than we perhaps dared to hope. The restoration of the loco is now progressing apace. The loco had an exciting existence in Ghana, ending up upside down in a river with a dead driver (which probably rather spoiled his day). The condition of the loco after being stripped and assessed by competent engineers was "rough". We pay these people by the word, like lawyers.

The loco dates from 1916; the main frames are only 1/2" thick, probably as a wartime economy measure. Consequently, they are rather flimsy (by steam loco standards), and have needed a lot of corrective work. Equally, maintenance standards may not have been all that one could hope for - for example, a wheel had rubbed for many years on the frame and cut a significant groove into the frame. Amongst many other activities, the cylinders have been bored out and generally overhauled. The wheels have had their journals turned and the tyre profiles machined back on. A full set of new axlebox castings are now available along with new coil and leaf springs. The cab has also been dealt with. So, all-in-all, the project is not too far from being a rolling chassis. The next big step is to order a boiler, and we're hoping to do that before much longer. The obvious big question is when will it be finished and hauling trainloads of happy punters up the Apedale Valley? The simple answer is "it depends". It depends primarily on money - there's still a funding gap, and work is ongoing to find means to close that gap without detracting from the site development projects for Apedale. Obviously, if you've just won the lottery, we'd be quite keen to hear from you - although (to be fair) we're happy to hear from anyone - get in touch here.

Thank you very much

...to Councillor Derrick Huckfield of Staffordshire County Council. Councillor Huckfield arranged a grant for the Moseley Railway Trust from the Staffordshire County Council Local Community Fund, and this was used to buy and erect a rather splendid noticeboard which now graces the entrance to the site at Apedale. The noticeboard was made for us by Leander Architectural, and it's a very nice job indeed. This Saturday, Councillor Huckfield visited us at Apedale and unveiled the noticeboard. Councillor Huckfield is seen on the right with our deputy Chairman, Richard Grey, on the left. They were then able to enjoy a ride through the scenic delights of the Apedale valley. We weren't overrun by visitors, as everyone in Stoke had either gone to Wembley or was sat around a TV. But at least we can now tell them about our trains using the new noticeboard, so all was not lost at the weekend. Get in touch here (unless you're a Man City fan).

Paxman

Yes, it's the Moseley Railway Trust Spot the Similarity Contest!! Using your skill and judgement, state the similarities between the locomotives in the photos above. Here's a couple of important ones. They both have Paxman engines (although the Red one has since had a German heart transplant) and both were prone to overheating. This has been cured on the red one by fitting an improved set of radiators. Unfortunately, the green one could not be so easily fixed. Now, you will have probably realised by now that the green one is an Apedale resident, but the red one isn't. Spot on. The green one is Hibberd 2306, fitted with a Paxman 2RQ engine. The owner had, optimistically, hoped that thermal syphoning would be enough to circulate the coolant - wrong. So, it began to resemble a steam loco after about an hour - disappearing in a cloud of boiling coolant. The fix has been to reinstate a coolant pump which was originally fitted, but was not initially restored onto the loco. As can be seen, it's quite a piece of plumbing, but is fairly leak free. Time will tell how long it stays like that - the RQ engine generates quite a high vibration level. To be fair, the HST power cars were not noted for being leak free either. So that's OK then. Get in touch with us here - and no, we cannot accommodate any HST power cars at Apedale. They scare the horses, don't you know.

Apedale Apprentices

Railways attract young people like moths to flames, and the Moseley Railway Trust’s site at Apedale is no exception to this. The devil makes work for idle hands, and we realised that we had better come up with a substitute for Satan. Which wasn’t difficult. So, Lucifer has developed a project for the newly named Apedale Apprentices. They have been put to work restoring some of the less-cherished wagons in the fleet. Wagon restoration is a wise choice because it is less demanding technically than (for example) a locomotive, and also produces a rewarding end-product rather quicker than can sometimes otherwise be the case. Instant gratification doesn’t really happen at railways, but restoring a wagon can come close. I imagine that Nintendo are working on it as their next game for the DS. The first victim (oops, sorry, project) is a nice little Hudson four wheeler. It came from the ICI Roburite explosive works at Shevington, near Wigan. It was acquired along with two Ruston & Hornsby locomotives when the works ceased to use its internal 2’0” gauge railways. A couple of interesting pictures of the site and the railways can be found here. As is so often the case with vehicles from explosive works, the bodywork was destroyed before the Moseley Railway Trust acquired it. This is done because the wooden structure becomes saturated with the products. Selling potential bombs onto the general public is generally frowned on by the H&SE. So, the project is to restore the vehicle and recreate the bodywork. We’re fortunate to have a few photos showing us what the bodywork looked like. Hopefully the Apedale Apprentices will Ace this Activity. For this and more tautologies, keep visiting or get in touch here.

By the way, did I mention that it’s steam train this Saturday the 7^th – a special steaming for a group but we don’t turn anyone away until their wallet is empty – and Saturday & Sunday 14^Th & 15^th are the now customary Steam & industry trains weekend. Be seeing you?