LTEC Journal November '12

The Journal of

The Lancashire Traction Engine Club

November ‘12 www.lancashiretec.co.uk www.facebook.com/LancashireTEC

NEWS MONTHLY MEETINGS The December meeting will be on Sunday 2nd December and will be the usual Christmas Quiz plus photographic competition. The Quiz will be presented by last year’s winner, George Coles and will, no doubt, be the usual multiply choice format. The Photographic competition is open to all. Gather your best three shots from the last 12 months and bring them along on the night. Slides or Digital is preferred.

January’s meeting will be on 6th and our guest that night will be Noel Coates from the L&Y Society. Having heard Noel speak in the past I can assure you his knowledge of the History of the L&Y Railway in extensive so it should be a very interesting night.

All meetings begin at 8.00pm and are held in the upstairs room of Flixton Conservative Club, adjacent to Abbotsfield Park.

FRONT COVER Garrett Road Roller No. 34084 ‘The Baroness’ taken by David Bloor at the Acton Bridge Steam Party this year.

ALAN WILKINSON TROPHY The Alan Wilkinson trophy is an award the committee discuss annually based on nominations received at the AGM. The trophy is engraved ‘For Perseverance’ and is awarded to any member completing a feat is preservation worthy of special note. It is not awarded every year, only when a worthy nomination is received and agreed upon.

The last recipients were Jack and Roger Dibnah as the award was given posthumously to Fred for his restoration of the Aveling Tractor No 7838, now known as ‘Fred’, over the course of many years. This year the award was passed from Jack to Brian Allison during a short ceremony, attended by as many members as we could muster, at Astle Park Steam Rally.

Brian bought Aveling & Porter Roller No.8794 “Ophelia” in a derelict condition from a playground in Pontypridd in 1992. It spent 12 years in his workshop before first being rallied in steam, but still in ‘playground livery’, in 2004/05. It then went back into the workshop for a full repaint and reappeared in the condition she is now seen, in 2008.

Photos: Left - Brian and Jack at the presentation at Astle Park this year.

Right - ‘Ophelia’ at the Acton Bridge Steam Party this year (photo courtesy David Bloor)

ENGINE NOTES

W

By George Coles

e are getting to the end of a somewhat dismal rally season and my Clayton is already stored at Top Farm, High Legh, ready for Boxing Day. Last year the weather was kind and we had a good turnout of engines. Hopefully several other engines will be joining me again this year to keep up the tradition.

Astle Park, Malpas and the Acton Bridge Steam Party enjoyed much better weather than the early season events and were all well attended. A newcomer to all three events was Keith Dickens from Higher Whitley near Northwich, with his 8 ton compound Marshall roller No 74450 which he purchased in June from the Isle of Wight.

At Malpas I encountered several engines that I had not seen before. George Bridson of Eastham, Wirral exhibited his 1927 Fowler roller which he acquired earlier this year.

Bridson is, of course, a familiar name in the steam world on the Wirral, where the family business, at Neston, used two Sentinels for tar spraying, two or three rollers and two traction engines until the late 1950’s. All ultimately were preserved, the Burrell traction engine being now part of the Liverpool Museum collection.

An unusual engine seen at Malpas was the Robey tandem roller No 41602. This is single speed and seemed to be somewhat ‘off beat’. I wouldn’t fancy driving it very far on the road. It is now owned by Dave Riley of Stapeley near

Nantwich who acquired it about 12 months ago. It spent its working life with Limmer and Trinidad Lake Asphalt Company whose main base was in Liverpool. Another engine new to me was Fowler roller No 17071 owned by Graham Morrison of Sandbach Cheshire.

Apparently it went new to South Africa and was repatriated about 10 years ago. I sold my living van to Graham a few years ago but I believe he has since sold it on.

The Acton Bridge Steam Party attracted an enormous turnout of engines. I lost count of the total but I think it was about 20 and certainly the highest number ever. This was even more surprising as the revived Buxworth Steam Party took place the same weekend and a number of local engines were at that event.

Steam tug Kerne managed to attend by the skin of its teeth, having emerged from Cammell Laird’s yard, Birkenhead, at 12 noon on the Thursday prior to the event.

Even then, work had not been fully completed and two workmen had to be evicted from the vessel.

She had been in dock to have the propeller shaft removed and the bearings refurbished. Unfortunately, we shall not see the Kerne at the Acton Bridge event again until 2014 as next year, Sutton Weaver swing bridge will be out of action for almost 12 months. This will prevent access to the River Weaver by large vessels.

A DAY WITH A GARRETT

By Allan Hickson

L

ike most who enjoyed the Club Trip to the Welsh Highland Railway last year, I was very impressed by the set-up and motive power used on this difficult line. I was determined to go again and sample the climb out of Porthmadog, and this came about in a most unexpected way.

An invitation from fellow LTEC and Tug ‘Kerne’ member Bob Adam to be one of his ‘Guests’ at a Driving Experience day at the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway had unexpected benefits when I bumped into an old chum and K&WVR footplateman, Steve Harris, who was acting as Host for the day. Whilst talking of Steve’s involvement as a volunteer at the Welsh Highland, he told me that he had been persuaded to join the ranks of the WHR volunteer footplate staff, and that he was shortly to have a week-end as Fireman on the footplate of one of their splendid Garrett loco’s.

If I was interested he would see if he could get me a footplate pass for the day. You bet I was!!

The powers-that-be granted appropriate permission and I was invited to attend Boston Lodge Works no later than 6.55am on the day in question; the only drawback being that it meant me getting out of bed at 3.00am! That seemed early even for me, a committed early

riser, but this became a minor inconvenience as I entered the yard and viewed ex-South African Railways Class NGG16 loco No. 143 simmering with 30psi on the clock from the previous days duty.

These are truly magnificent loco’s, this particular example being the last built by Beyer Peacock at their Gorton Works in 1958, although they continued to be manufactured

by Hunslet-Taylor in South Africa up until 1968.

Its’ South African Railway origins are clearly evident on the vast footplate – all the gauges are in Afrikaans and English.

For those not familiar with Garrett locomotives, they are essentially two engines, articulated with power bogies (engines) front and rear, (controlled by a single regulator), and between, a large boiler and cab on a separate frame suspended and pivoted between the two bogies. Above the front bogie is the water tank, with the coal bunker over the rear. W H Garrett invented them in 1909, and Beyer Peacock at Gorton built the majority for export, although 33 Standard Gauge examples were also built for the London Midland & Scottish Railway between 1927 and 1930.

No. 143 is one of several Narrow Gauge Garrett locos on the WHR and weighing in

at 62 tons, and 48ft long, huge by Welsh Narrow Gauge standards, they are reputed to be the largest of this gauge built. These articulated beasts with their 2-6-2 + 2-6-2 wheel arrangement have a Tractive Effort of 21,553lbs at 80% of Working Pressure. This is greater than an LMS 3F ‘Jinty’, the big difference being that the Garrett runs on 2ft metals rather than the 4ft 81/2 ins of Standard Gauge.

Having been given instructions into my role of ‘Cleaner’, I attacked the previous days’ grime with the standard mixture of lube oil and paraffin whilst Steve checked the boiler water level, blew the boiler down, cleared the ashpan and lit-up. The front tank was topped up to its’ 1325 gallon water capacity as steam rose to just under the 180psi working pressure.

By this time, Boston Lodge had become a hive of activity with crews swarming over the numerous other loco’s being prepared for service on the Ffestiniog Railway. It was very heartening to note the number of younger crewmembers enthusiastically setting about their work. In their hands I am sure the future of the two railways is secure.

Our young Driver, Aaron Boyce arrived in plenty of time to grease-up (not oil-up) the motion, as I was finishing off the cleaning.

(Nice job, I thought proudly to myself!!) A quick visit to the mess room for a cuppa before our crew changed into their ‘best’ overalls, and we were off shed at 9.15am, reversing across the Cob to Porthmadog Station to take charge of the 9.35am Porthmadog-Caernarfon service consisting of 8 coaches, already packed to the

rafters. As we shunted into a siding a broad smile came across Aaron’s face – ‘Great!! A heavy train’ he grinned.

The train was hauled out of the Porthmadog Terminus onto the Cob by the diesel loco ‘Vale of Ffestiniog’ to allow us to move out of the siding and couple up to the head of the train. Then we were away bunker-first, across the level crossing, up and over the road, to start our 620ft climb to the railways summit at Pitt’s Head. As we passed Pont Croesor and Nantmor into Aberglaslyn Pass, the gradient became ever steeper and Steve’s pace on the shovel quickened, firing almost continuously as we hit the 1 in 38 gradient. The exhaust was deafening as we blasted into the tunnels, Steve keeping the pressure up above 170psi against the injector, the steam chest pressure gauges to both bogies reading 160psi. I’m glad we were running bunker-first otherwise I think we would have been coughing a bit!.

After a short stop at Beddgelert, we pulled out of the station on the gradient with the steam-operated cylinder drains blowing hard.

Aaron quickly brought the slipping front bogie under control, and there was no let up in the climb as we attacked the two ‘horseshoes’ to gain height, past the summit and dropping down, round the foot of Snowden, into Rhyd Ddu. We then coasted along the shores of Llyn Cwellyn, through Plas-y-nant Halt into Waunfawr where we took on water. It was here that I found that another of my duties as ‘Cleaner’ was to pose for photographs, and answer the myriad of questions from

passengers and visitors whilst the real crew were busy tending the engine. From there we coasted down into Dinas where the WHR have their workshops, and as we came to a halt a waiting JCB topped up our 6 ton capacity bunker with a ton or so of Welsh Steam coal mined at Merthyr Tydfil. Although somewhat dusty, this is great coal with plenty of heat, little smoke and only light clinker.

The final leg of our spectacular 25-mile outward journey took us coasting down to the Caernarfon Terminus, where we arrived at 12.10pm. Having run round the train, we filled up with water again, grabbed a bite to eat, coupled up and were away for the return journey at 12.55pm.

The gradients out of Caernarfon are more gradual than the outward journey from Porthmadog, but this is relative, as we still had to scale the 620ft climb to the summit, and were soon hitting 1 in 50 gradients again as we approached Waunfawr. On this return leg, I was able to pay more attention to the stunning scenery through which the railway wends its way before we arrived back at Portmadog at 3.20pm where a relief crew was waiting to run back to Caernarfon with the final train, before disposing of the loco at Dinas where she would

A

be remain on shed to await her next duty.

The next train on the Ffestiniog Railway, which was to drop us off at Boston Lodge, was due out at 4.00pm, so as we waited we watched the various shuntings, and chatted to the FR crews before sitting down and discussing the ongoing project to widen the Cob for further platforms. ‘Isn’t that our train?’ remarked Aaron pointing to the Double Fairlie hauled train heading out of Porthmadog Station across the Cob. It was, so a decision had to be made; do we wait an hour for the next train or walk the mile or so back to Boston Lodge?

‘Walk’ was the decision, but I didn’t mind – I had just had a great day!!

RESCHEDULED CLUB TRIP

s the 70 odd people who booked on our Annual Trip in September will be aware, our cruise on the Manchester Ship Canal, on board a Mersey Ferry, had to be cancelled at the last minute due to, amazingly, low water levels!

What had actually happened was the huge quantities of rain that had fallen over the previous week meant the water levels were getting dangerously high so the sluice gates at Latchford Locks, near Warrington, were opened. Unfortunately the rain had also washed a lot of debris into the canal, including a 40 foot tree, which wedged itself into the sluice gate, jamming it open and causing considerable damage. The canal section above

the locks could then continue to drain, almost completely, while engineers worked, round the clock, to fix the gate.

The incident only caused a couple of days of disruption and the canal was back to working levels by the following Monday but, unfortunately, that didn’t help us.

So, we have rebooked. Put a note in your diary now for April 27th when we will attempt to run the trip again, and let’s hope for better weather this time.

My booking sheet has been wiped clean.

If you would like to join us on the trip you will need to contact me again, with full details of your party.

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