The start of the new season

The 2013 operational season at the Apedale Valley Light Railway has got off to a great start. Unexpectedly, sun shone on a ceremony first thing this morning to mark the opening of a new access pathway to the station. This was funded by the Staffordshire Local Community Fund. This grant was facilitated by Staffordshire County Councillor Derrick Huckfield, and the picture shows Councillor Huckfield and Moseley Railway Trust chairman Phil Robinson declaring the footpath open for business. Phil Robinson said “We are very grateful to Councillor Huckfield and the Staffordshire Local Community Fund for their assistance. We now have a fine, smooth all-weather path to our station which means our visitors can discard the wellies and access will be much easier for all, including our mobility-impaired guests”.

We've seen lots of visitors, and given away lots of chocolate eggs to those who completed the Easter Egg Hunt - and we're doing it all again on Sunday and Monday. Get in touch here.

 

AGM Day

Well, today has been a bit of a first for the Moseley Railway Trust - the first time when major snow clearance was a feature of AGM day!! A quick check back to photos taken at the 2012 AGM (March 24) shows people in shirtsleeves basking on a nice Spring day. Believe me, not much basking going on today, and anyone in shirtsleeves needed their head examining. The AGM passed off peacefully and the UN were not called on to separate warring factions. Rumours that the Treasurer had been head-hunted to become CEO of the Bank of Cyprus turned out to be untrue (although he does have a Russian phrase book). Afterwards, a few VERY hardy individuals had a play with some of the more exotic and lesser-seen members of the loco fleet, including Motor Rail 1320 and the Hudswell Clarke. 1320 is known to its (few) friends as The Block of Flats; this is presumably in reference to rather nasty 60s blocks with "problem" tenants. On a perishing cold day, only about 2 1/2 of the 4 cylinders in the engine showed any real interest in participating; the rest of the engine slept through the whole thing and asked to be woken again only when the sun was shining, thank you very much. The big Hudswell was being run as part of the evaluation for its forthcoming restoration and overhaul. It's a historic beast, and will be used as a test-case for the museum curatorial processes which are being developed for the Trust. It was also so the person who will lead the project could get re-acquainted with the loco, and its rather less than  endearing habit of trying to select two gears at once, which can lead to some loss of happiness. Next week, Mother Nature permitting, we open for Easter, so come on down and see us. Get in touch here.

Baby Refreshed

One of the lesser-spotted members of the Moseley Railway Trust loco at Apedale is the petrol Orenstein and Koppel - known to one and all as the Baby due to its diminutive size. This loco was part of the Cadeby collection, having been rescued from a scrapyard in the 1970s after an eagle eyed enthusiast spotted the bonnet top sticking up through a pile of scrap. It is an OK type MM, which seems to have been supplied for the UK market only. There is a body of opinion which holds that the locos were supplied by OK from Germany as kits, and then assembled by OK's UK agent, William Jones. Certainly, the bolt-together construction of the loco (other than the main frame) does lend some credibility to this theory. After a sad enforced change of ownership in 2011, work started on the re-restoration of the loco. It hadn't run for about ten years. The engine was seized, but fortunately not seriously. Almost no mechanical restoration was needed - a testament to the work done by the previous owner. Some platework was beyond salvation, but the main work was a good clean and rub-down, treatment of odd bits of corrosion, and a full re-paint and smarten-up. The Owner is said to be very taken with the red frames, and is now looking at the RL1B diesel OK in a "hmmmm....that would look nice" sort of way.  To mark the 50th anniversary of the Cadeby Light Railway, the Baby OK will visit Abbey Pumping Station on 6th April. Hopefully, they will recognise that the loco needs to be put in the middle of shed, because (as every one knows) no-body puts Baby in the corner. For more Dirty Dancing, get in touch here.

Going Dutch

Mentioned on here a couple of times in passing has been the loan of Motor Rail no.1369 and the War Department Light Railway Water Tank wagon to the Utrecht railway museum in the Netherlands. This is for a major exhibition that they are staging looking at military railways - for more details see here. The loco and the tank have had a spruce-up, and the Big Day came when the rather impressive lorry turned up and loaded up for the trip across the North Sea. Considering the loco spent its working life in the rather unglamourous surroundings of  Esholt sewage works, its life in preservation has been rather exciting. Initially part of the Leeds City museums collection at Armley Mills, it was loaned to the Moseley Railway Trust and restored as part of the "Salvage Squad" TV series. This included a jaunt to France - to the Froissy-Cappy Dompierre railway near Amiens. It is now an asset of the Moseley Railway Trust and we are pleased to see it off on its travels again. Get in touch here.

Getting ready

As we enter sun-kissed March, the Apedale site is throwing off its winter coat and getting ready to welcome the hoards of Easter egg hunters who will hopefully descend on the railway when we start operations at 1130 on Easter Saturday. Part of this is bringing to conclusion the various winter maintenance and enhancement projects which have been proceeding. The station shop has seen a lot of work taking place, which hasn't really featured in this blog so far - the top photo shows the window frames receiving a long-overdue coat of topcoat paint. Meanwhile, the prefabricated point we saw assembled on a wagon last weekend has been placed into its final resting place in Silverdale Station loop, with fishplating and final completion to do. This is always the fiddly bit, but we need to get this completed. Currently, there is a point-sized hole in the run round loop at Silverdale - so it might be an unplanned top'n'tail operation if we don't get this done. Still, we have the "A" team on the job (newly escaped from the military stockade, imprisoned for a crime they didn't commit). Cue the music. Get in touch here (and no, they are not for hire).