Christmas Quiz Part Two

A few of you got the answer to Part One. They were:-
1 – Ffestiniog Railway Boston Lodge
2 – Statfold Barn Farm
3 - Leighton Buzzard Light Railway Stonehenge works
4 – West Lancs Light Railway, Hesketh Bank
5 – Our twin museum, the Frankfurt Fedbahn Museum

Some of the more over-confident said they wanted something more challenging. So, we've sent the MRT SR-71 out again, and it's come back with another batch of photos. Set your sherry and mince-pie addled brains working on this lot. Get in touch here with your answers and/or pathetic cries for help.

Number 6



 

 

Number 7

Number 8

Number 9




Number 10

Number 11

 



Christmas Quiz - Part One

To challenge your brain cells whilst eating brussel sprouts and watching James Bond or the Queen or whatever on the telly, the Moseley Railway Trust proudly presents the Christmas Quiz. Using the awesome technology of Google Earth, we have satellite reconnaissance photographs of a number of locations of interest to those knowledgeable about narrow gauge railways. All you need to do is identify the places. Simples. The first four are a gentle warm-up exercise, with the fifth being rather more challenging. There's no prize, but if you want to check your answers, get in touch here (Meerkat-obsessive CMEs need not apply). I'll publish the answers and Part Two in a few days.

No.1 & No.2

No.3 & No.4

No.5

As darkness falls....

As darkness falls, the Apedale Valley Light Railway springs into life. We don't normally operate during the hours of darkness, because the Apedale Valley is a little remote from civilisation, and it is VERY dark (barely a photon or Higgs Boson to be seen). However, we ran a few trains tonight for a pre-boooked party. Doing the risk assessment took longer than we actually ran for, but that's life. With the train all lit up with fairy lights, and seriously powerful headlights on the loco frying anything which flew into their path, it was rather a magical evening. As ever, get in touch here.

Santa Claus is in the building

The Santa Special Season is in full swing at Apedale - and we've certainly been busy. Full trains full on excited kids, excited mums & dads and seen-it-all-before older siblings. Saturday was very bright and very cold - the first train arrived at Apedale Road with a distinct bow-wave as the wheels broke through the layer of ice on the railheads. Returning trains were greeted by a very odd cornucopia of characters - monkeys, elves and Fairy Godmothers. Anyway, it was all good clean fun, and we're doing it all next weekend as well. Some trains are now very full, so it would be best to check beforehand if you plan to come any distance. Check here or by e-mail here.

Santa Claus is coming to town

All over the Apedale site, Moseley Railway Trust members have been getting ready for the Santa campaign 2011. Booking are significantly ahead of this time last year - which was our first year of visits by the Bearded One - so it looks like we're going to be busy. Finishing touches have been applied to the Grotto by a team who really cannot be described as Elves. Perhaps a bit more like those funny Goblin things that they had in Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or something. This will be the first year we've has the use of Silverdale station, so work has been progressing with making that all seasonal, including commisioning of a coal burning stove. It was a bit of a struggle but I think the pyromaniac in charge got a flicker of life out of it in the end. There's still space on a few of the trains - but booking are coming in thick and fast. If you fancy roasting your chestnuts by the station stove, check here for booking - or here to get in touch.

Autumnal endeavours

It doesn't seem like five minutes since the end of the running season, and yet Apedale was enlivened by the beginnings of the Santa season - the inevitable hunt for all the bits of the Grotto. We'll soon be finding out who has been naughty and who has been nice. Meanwhile, outside the workshop, was one of the more elusive members of the fleet - the Hunslet "Twusk". It is rarely a good sign when a loco is stood with its engine crankcase doors off, and an even worse sign when our CME is peering into the innards with a puzzled look. "Twusk" achieved brief fame by becoming one of the first locos from the Scrapyard in the Sky - also known as Gloddfa Ganol - to operate after the dispersal of that collection. However, it has a rather unfortunate tendency towards seizing its engine, which is not considered ideal. It seems to have an oil pump issue, and time will tell if its a Naughty issue or a Nice issue. Meanwhile, down at the Pit Project, lumps of concrete sleepers were being hacked off with an angle grinder - that well-known civil engineering tool.

I should mention that you can book for our Santa Specials here or come down in person on the next two Saturdays. Be seeing you? Get in touch here.

Remembering

This weekend our thoughts turn to remembrance of the sacrifices made by those who fought so bravely to defend our way of life. Sadly, all those who served in The Great War are no longer with us, making it all the harder to imagine the circumstances in which they found themselves. This was brought home to me when I recently visited Sanctuary Hill Museum, near the Hill 60 memorial in Belgium.

Hill 60 overlooks the town of Ypres, which was completely destroyed during the war and painstakingly rebuilt thereafter. The Hill 60 museum site is now one of the few places on the Ypres Salient battlefields where an original trench layout can be seen in some semblance of what it might have looked like all those years ago. Even though the troops and the guns have now gone, the scene provides an eerie vision of what those troops had to endure. The photos show the muddy trenches and the flooded shell-holes that characterised this form of warfare.






At the Moseley Railway Trust we also have some artefacts from "The War to End All Wars", and it so happened on Saturday that we decided to operate one of these. This was partially because we needed to do some testing and also for the benefit of some VIP visitors who were meeting with us on site. Kerr Stuart 3014 was ordered by the French Commission for their artillery railways, and came with a good number of optional extras for the harsh environment in which it had to operate, such as spark arresting chimney, a set of four jacks for re-railing and also a set of equipment for drawing water from convenient sources such as rivers, canals and, more likely, flooded shell holes. One of the planned tests was on this "water lifter" equipment. This consists of a Gresham and Craven ejector and a long flexible hose with a filter on the end, which is normally carried coiled up on the roof of the cab.

To illustrate this the photo below, taken in September 1917, shows a Kerr Stuart locomotive having got into trouble whilst hauling some portable track sections across a stretch of unstable track near Proyart in the Somme area. The driver can be seen, presumably waiting for assistance to be sent out. The water lifter hose can also be clearly seen, as can the various lifting jacks. It is possible that excessive water in the tanks has contributed to the driver's undoing, as full side tanks will raise the centre of gravity of the locomotive.



Not having restored the Apedale canal (yet), we chose to test the water lifter using our H class water tank wagon. You can see where the hose attaches on the final photograph: the device on top of the tank just in front of the cab is the ejector. All went very smoothly and it was remarked that the last time this particular performance was carried out on one of these engines was probably 93 years ago. After a successful test, when putting the hose back on the roof, it also became clear that whoever did this would become a sitting duck for any enemy sniper in the viscinity. Perhaps that is why some of the contemporary photos show the hose being carried behind the cab. Another reminder of the horrifying conditions that surrounded the purpose of these machines.



One of our key aims is to preserve equipment such as this, so that it can continue to tell its own story to current and future generations. If you want to help us in that mission, contact us here.