Father's Day

Just a quick reminder - we still have availability for the Father's Day Trest on the Apedale Valley Light Railway. It's the first time we've run this event, and it loooks like being a very special day for a select group of Delighted Dads (and the rest of the family). Check out the downloadable leaflet here.

Staffordshire Local Community Fund

The Moseley Railway Trust, operators of the Apedale Valley Light Railway, has received a grant towards security gates for its site at Apedale, Chesterton, Newcastle-Under-Lyme.

The Apedale Valley Light Railway is a narrow gauge railway which runs through the Apedale Community Country Park. It uses steam and diesel locomotives to haul the trains. The railway opened in 2010. It  was built, and is operated, by the volunteers of the Moseley Railway Trust. The railway operates every Saturday, Bank Holiday Monday and some Sundays until the end of October.

Phil Robinson, Chairman of the Moseley Railway Trust, said “Councillor Derek Huckfield has been an enthusiastic supporter of our project here at Apedale. This grant from the Staffordshire Local Community Fund has allowed us to improve the appearance and security of our site. It will also counteract anti-social behaviour and fly tipping on Apedale Road. We are extremely grateful to Councillor Huckfield for his support”.

To mark the completion of the gates project, a special train was run to Apedale Road, where Phil Robinson officially "closed" the gates for the first time. The photos show this plus a group of MRT members with the gates.

 Get in touch here to find out more.

Another Hudswell

Last week we looked at a Hudswell Clarke steam loco suffering an aquatic embarrassment. This time we'll look at another Hudswell product - built only 13 years later, in 1930. Loco D558 worked at a lime works in Derbyshire. Some rather splendid colour photos have recently come to light. Taken by Philip Hindley in September 1966, they show the loco working in the quarry in 1966. Five years later, the loco had been withdrawn, went to a scrapyard, and was rescued to the Cadeby Light Railway. The years of standing outside at Cadeby have taken a cosmetic toll, but the loco still runs well - the second photo shows it "doing its stuff" with a train of skips at Apedale in 2011. Apart from the background, the loco is being demonstrated doing exactly what it would have done in industry. Sometimes we forget the second word in the phrase "Railway Preservation". Get in touch here.

Oops!

Today's photo shows a forlorn looking locomotive lying upside down in a swamp in 1996. The photograph was taken by Colin Laidler, who was instrumental in recovering the loco, a painstaking operation which ensured that all surviving parts were located. How it came to be there in the first place is a fascinating story in itself, one which we are piecing together with help from Colin.

The locomotive in question is, of course, our own Hudswell Clarke H class locomotive No 1238 of 1916, originally delivered to the Obuassi Gold mine in Ghana, where it was used to haul timber from the nearby forests to the mine for use as part of the gold ore roasting process. Colin knew of the locomotive and had been looking for it by following the track beds of the different lines, some up to 25 miles in length away from the mine.

After being accidentally rediscovered by a local, the loco was duly recovered using a bulldozer and taken back to the mine at Obuassi where it was “stripped down from the bottom upwards”. They found that the axles were in apparently good condition and some minor cleaning work on the bearings was all that was needed prior to reassembly for display. A number "9” was painted on the side of the loco based on the rust marks visible from where the original brass number had been mounted, the size and shape being taken from this information. A careful search of the swampy area had found the chimney cap piece, and it was later discovered that the rear coupler, a bar of some 4 feet in length with a hook, was now being used to hold cooking pots over a fire in one of the villages. This was “re-acquired” in exchange for a bottle schnapps.


The loco was put on display as part of a small museum which was maintained by some of the Europeans working at Obuassi. In 2006, the mine directors felt that they cold no longer keep the locomotive and, through contacts in the UK, eventually donated it to the Moseley Railway Trust in 2007. Shipped from Accra in February 2008, the locomotive arrived in the UK in May 2008.


Then came the difficult job of assembling a restoration team and the financing necessary to finally bring this engine back from the dead after 64 years. A sympathetic restoration started in 2010 and rapid progress has been made in the intervening time. The current status is shown in the second photograph.

None of the progress to date could have been achieved without a large number of supporting organisations and individuals to whom we express our grateful thanks for their continued support. There's still a long way to go, and if you would like to help us progress towards a proposed steaming of the loco in 2013, contact us here.

(First photo courtesy Colin Laidler)

Preparation H

Piles can be nasty things, and at Apedale the piles for the museum foundations were seriously impeding access to the area for the machines needed to continue constructing the foundations. So, go they had to. After testing for gas, it was out with a serious collection of angle grinders for cutting off of the surplus piles. All 70-odd of them. If there is anyone from ScrewFix Direct reading this, you should seriously consider becoming a corporate donor - since all you would be doing is giving back all the money we have spent with you on cutting discs. But with the forest of steel gone, the whole area looks a lot better, and the way is becoming clearer to getting the site in a fit condition for the September Gala. Incidentally, if you have any problems with piles, we would be only too happy to make them go away for a fairly nominal consideration.

Meanwhile, down at t'works, the team working on the D class wagons were having a jolly time trying to make the doors fully interchangeable. Which leads to this week's maths quiz. There are two wagons. Each has four doors. Any door can fit any position. How many combinations are there? Get in touch here with your answer, and make show that you show your working out.