The beast that walketh in darkness

This weekend, the Moseley Railway Trust has been delighted to receive a visitation from the management and staff of the Perrygrove Railway. Sadly, the staff of said railway failed to provide the much-promised homemade cake, but we let them on site anyway. Our visitors were at Apedale to have a running session with Baguley 1695, late of Lilleshall Hall (Shropshire) and then Cadeby. It was not a locomotive noted for ease of starting nor reliability at Cadeby. It was usually dark by the time it was made to operate - hence the title bestowed on it by Teddy Boston. Hand starting could be entertaining as well. One notable occasion saw the starting handle fired from the loco and into a ballistic trajectory. Being dark, all the assembled crowd could do was await the return to earth of this rather heavy item. This is one reason why tow-starting is very much the norm these days. It does have to be said that the loco is nowadays reasonably reliable - only failing twice during the running day. One of these was due to its prodigious thirst for petrol (think along the lines of Formula One racing cars) - the other is perhaps best not mentioned, for fear that homemade cake will be forever off the menu at Perrygrove. Just to add to the air of petrol-ness, Lord Austin was also given an outing - this is the Austin engine Motor Rail. After the second dying of the Baguley, Lord Austin was sent to the rescue - one of the very few moments in recent narrow gauge history when one petrol loco rescues another. The Apedale Valley Light Railway controller was heard to question his sanity in allowing these two paragons of reliability an outing on the main line in between the revenue-earning passenger service. A stressful few minutes saw both the petrol loco safely locked away in sidings, and normal service resumed using the ultra-reliable DIESEL Motor Rail. When you next go down to the railway station, you will not see many petrol-powered railway locomotives. There is a really good reason for this. If you wish to offer any words in defence of petrol powered locomotives, get in touch here.

Transport Trust awards

Moseley Railway Trust project wins award from the Transport Trust

The Moseley Railway Trust (MRT) is delighted to report that it has received the Alan Moore award at the recent Transport Trust awards ceremony.

This award was in recognition of the Moseley Railway Trust’s project to restore to steam a Hudswell Clarke steam locomotive no. 1238, built in 1916. This six-wheel, 2’0” gauge steam locomotive worked at a gold mine in Ghana, and was returned to the UK in 2008. Since then a team of MRT members have been working to restore the locomotive. Having lain in a river bed for 48 years, the condition of the locomotive when received was very poor. However, the MRT team has made strong progress, and it is currently hoped to have the locomotive completed by Easter 2014.

The Transport Trust is the only national charity established to promote and encourage the preservation and restoration of Britain's unique transport heritage in all its forms - by air, land (road and rail) and water (sea and inland). The Transport Trust aims, for the benefit of the nation as a whole, to promote and encourage the permanent preservation of transport items of historical or technical interest.

The Transport Trust Alan Moore Award was presented by HRH Prince Michael of Kent to John Rowlands and Mike Lynskey representing the Moseley Railway Trust. The award was made at a ceremony at the former Brooklands racing circuit in Surrey.

Phil Robinson, chairman of the MRT said “We believe that this award recognises the hard work carried out by the team restoring the Hudswell Clarke locomotive. The project is now in its final phases, and we are all looking forward to seeing this engine hard at work on the Apedale Valley Light Railway in 2014.”

Despite the Transport Trust award, funding to complete the locomotive remains a key issue, and the MRT continues to seek donations or loans from individuals or organisations to ensure the prompt completion of the project. Contract the MRT here.

Mining Gala

It's been a frenetic day down at Apedale. Our neighbours at the Heritage Centre had their Mining Gala, which attracted hordes of visitors from far and wide - and a jolly good show it is too. Sadly, Margaret Thatcher was unavailable to open the event, given her well known love of all things mining, so they had to make do with two of the local mayors. The Apedale Valley Light Railway has been operating at peak capacity to ensure that these hordes of visitors can be parted from their ticket money and taken for a trip down the valley. All four coaches in use, and both steam locos, an a super-intensive service. We gave up counting after a while, but something like 20 trains were run, which is pretty good going. Yes, I know the Circle line has something like 20 an hour - but they have slightly more trains and staff than we do. In between times, there was also an opportunity to see the petrol Motor Rail Genesix running with the two Apprentice restored wagons, ex ICI Shevington. These are a real credit to the team which rebuilt them.
The mining gala is happening tomorrow (Sunday) as well, opening time 1030 (we think). As ever get in touch here.

Good for its age

A busy weekend in the sun-kissed hinterlands of the Apedale Valley saw another birthday party take advantage of our remarkably affordable charter and group booking rates. Larry, a remarkably sprightly 80 year, seemed to have a whale of a time - and showed quite a deft touch on Stanhope's regulator when given the chance. He claimed not have done it before; perhaps fortunately, we don't have a polygraph in the stores. He promised to be back for his 90th - and I wouldn't put money against a couple more after that. Also looking pretty good for its age is the War Department Class D bogie wagon. Now replete with all its lettering, it does look very much the part. Quite why all that much information is necessary on a simple wagon rather eludes me, but that's military logic for you.
Not looking quite so good is the 1930 Hudswell Clarke diesel. That said, for an 83 year old, it put a real fine old fight with its cab - angle grinders, gas axes, bars, big hammers all had major outings. It may have been easier, in hindsight, to have left the cab where it was and lowered the loco. Still, this time next year - we'll see who's the best looking octogenarian on site - won't we? Slightly closer in time is next weekend - 15 & 16 June - which is the Mining Gala organised by our colleagues at the Heritage Centre - see here. We're hoping to be running a train service resembling the Circle Line at 5pm - so both the Joffre and Stanhope will be turned, and every passenger coach we own. We will also be allowing public access to the main Aurora North storage sheds. Should be fun. Contact us here.

Wagons Wheels

A couple of major wagon projects are now approaching completion at Apedale. A project has been on-going to restore two bolster wagons. These were originally used at the BR materials depot at Chesterton Junction, which is not the same Chesterton just down the road from Apedale - but actually not too far from Cambridge. Apedale was served by Apedale Junction, so I hope that is all clear? The two wagons have needed a great deal of new steelwork, which was recycled from an old storage tank on site. A stripey pole, looking like a giant Blackpool rock, completes the set. Rumours that the pole has the word "Apedale" written all the way through it are untrue. The pole would not have been used except when the wagons were moved empty; they are still be fitted with the spikey bolster units, which are reminiscent of some nasty Orc weapon from Lord of the Rings. The team responsible for all of this can be glimpsed in the background of the first photo. Meanwhile, a WDLR Class D wagon is also nearing completion - it seen receiving the top coat paint. As ever contact us here. There are rumours that Flying Oatcakes have been seen on the railway. We could not possibly comment.

EuroLoks

As the entire population of the UK sits down on the collective sofa and tunes in to the Eurovision Song Contest, thoughts naturally swing towards our colleagues in such well-known and snappily titled lands as Meerkovo and The Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. Who hasn't sat and wondered about these countries - and why it is they always award their maximum scores to their closest, and rather better armed, neighbours. But if you're reading this, you also have a passing interest in narrow gauge railways, so you may also have contemplated what the output from the FYR Macedonia's loco manufacturers was. At Apedale, we can't help with that (or Meerkovo), but we do have a good smattering of EuroLoks in the fleet - predominantly German. Both Deutz and Orenstein & Koppel are represented, and in honour of Eurovision, today has seen work taking place on both types. The Deutz is undergoing a general tidy-up; the biggest mechanical issue has been severe wear on one of the crankpins. It was put onto the pit road today to allow work to continue on rectifying this, and our chief Euro enthusiast is seen in the picture hard at work. This job has seen the first ever known deployment of a crankshaft reclamation tool which was bought from the auction sale when Motor Rail closed down in 1987 - we knew it would come in useful one day. The RL1B Orenstein has also had some attention; a broken fan belt has been repaired, and work has taken place to (hopefully) cure a persistent fuel leak. The loco is also being gradually repainted to match its baby brother, the MM class (which was shown on the pages a few weeks ago on an outing to Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester). If there's one thing German things like, it's uniformity. Don't click here to vote on Eurovision, but do to get in touch with us.

Four Seasons in One Day

It is fair to say that the weather was not overly kind to the Classic Car weekend at Apedale. Classic Cars do not take kindly to heavy rain, and so the gathering was rather less than was hoped for. Nonetheless, we saw a good number, especially on the Sunday when a group of MG owners showed their mettle. The gentleman with the Bedford army lorry was clearly also of stout constitution - Rain? Hail stones? The Red Army Choir - bring it on. So, it's a big thank you to all of the car owners who brought their pride and joys out in the horrible conditions. We hope you get the water out of the electrics at some stage this year. Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, the Joffre steam loco was unaffected by water in the electrics, and out in an impressive weekend's workings. It is now quite rapidly climbing the league table for Likeable Steam Locos. The blue thing above the loco in the photo, by the way, is the sky, and uncontaminated by Photoshop. It just shows that we truly did have four seasons in one day (but not a Crowded House). The next big event at Apedale will be the Mining Gala on June 15 & 16 - but don't forget, we are running every Saturday, and also Bank Holiday Sundays and Mondays. Check the main AVLR website here for details, and get in touch here (especially if you know what a Condenser is, and how to get 2" of rainwater out of one...).