Been a bit busy of late, so apologies for the late post. All being well, we'll have two updates this week. Weekend of the 6th saw a couple of interesting achievements at the Moseley Railway Trust's Apedale site. A cast-iron wagon turntable, late of the Cadeby Light Railway, was extracted from the storage area, and loaded onto a wagon. Hindsight suggests that a slight more fit-for-purpose wagon would have been wise, but that's life. As can be imagined, being cast iron, it's a weighty lump. It's final journey to position was accomplished by sliding it down an existing siding, pushed by the 40HP Simplex "Sludge". It will now form part of a siding to be used to connect to a container. In turn, this will form a carriage and wagon workshop. This will become important, as an identified priority over the next year or so is to improve the condition of the wagon fleet. The origins of the turntable are rather lost in time, but has been suggested that it originated at Maenofferen quarry in North Wales.
Meanwhile, down in the bottom yard, something stirred. The something was a Dorman 2DWD engine which is for the Motor Rail dumper. Running on a cone of fuel and a block of water, the engine managed to prove to the CME's satisfaction that there was nothing seriously wrong with itself. Considering that it last ran in 1975, that's not too bad. The radiator, fuel tank and brakes on the dumper have been dealt with, so it's making steady progress.
As ever, get in touch here.
