Old Glory - March 2014 - Sample Edition

STEAM’S LAST STAND: Was Sentinel DG8 ‘A waggon too far?’

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years

MARCH 2014

No289

SONSIE QUINE

A Clayton’s third incarnation

Traction engine, showman’s, and now road loco

FAREWELL to

Kew Bridge Steam Museum

Keith Shakespeare

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◆ Steam bush log hauler ◆ Dundee horse tram rescue ◆ Robey boiler test ◆ News & events ◆ Steam ferries

News&Events No steam in the park

THE Scottish Traction Engine Society has confirmed that there will be no ‘Steam in the Park’ event in 2014, due to changes in terms and conditions for lease of the ground at Errol. Future events will be published when confirmed.

Engines at Fairford

FAIRFORD Steam rally secretary Liz Woodward has asked if all engine exhibit attendants in 2013 can make contact on 01285 712587 or via website for 2014 as the paperwork with their information has been mislaid.

Northchapel steam

DUE TO family illness, the Northchapel Working Steam Show will not be held in 2014, however plans are being put into place to hold the show next year on August 8-9, 2015, so please keep the dates clear. A spokesman said: “We really appreciate the support people have given us over the past two years and we hope to see you all again in 2015.”

Farewell Kew Bridge, hello to

FOLLOWING its £2.3 million redevelopment, the newly named London Museum of Water and Steam (formerly Kew Bridge Steam Museum) will open to visitors on Saturday, March 22, as part of World Water Day. In addition to a new visitor entrance and cafe (which can be accessed without the need to visit the museum) there are improvements and repairs to the historic building, including a new locomotive shed and a refurbished fire engine shed.

In July 2012 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the Kew Bridge

Engines Trust the sum of £1.845 million enabling it to begin vital restoration work. The total project cost is £2.45 million. Additional funding has been provided by Thames Water Utilities Ltd, the London Borough of Hounslow, the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Charles Hayward Foundation.

Kew Bridge Engines Trust was established to restore the buildings and pumping engines of Kew Bridge Pumping Station and to open the site to the public. It has operated the museum for 37 years during which time it has

Name change: The new London Museum of Water and Steam, formerly Kew Bridge Steam Museum.

COLIN TYSON

Cornish museums investment

A PARTNERSHIP of museums in Cornwall has been successful in securing Catalyst funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The award of £276,000 is part of a total investment of £438,000 over three years to invest in building and improving fundraising capacity.

The group are Wheal Martyn, Leach Pottery, Falmouth Art Gallery, Royal Cornwall Museum, National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Porthcurno Telegraph Museum and Penlee House Gallery & Museum.

Mail by rail plan

THE British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) has submitted a planning application for the development of a section of London’s old Post Office Underground Railway (Mail Rail).

The application seeks approval for the repurposing of ground level workshops, the car maintenance depot and part of the underground tunnel network around Mount Pleasant, home of the world’s oldest mail centre, to allow access for the first time.

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repaired the main historic buildings, restored four of the five original pumping engines to working order and added four more large pumping engines, many other exhibits and displays on water supply and a narrow gauge steam railway.

The London Museum of Water and Steam will tell the story of how the Victorians cleaned up London’s water supply; and, as a part of the £2.3 million refurbishment, visitors will take a journey through time, descending deep down under a floating city of London, past a timeline of pipes, from women at the well to Hugh Myddleton digging the New River, until they are beneath London itself and can see all the pipe and tunnel work needed to keep a modern city going. There are examples of how water was used from the 17th century to the present, as well as crawl-through tunnels and walk-through sewers.

There are also two laboratory areas for children to examine clean and dirty water as well as interactive exhibits on how much water we now use in the UK compared with other places around the world.

Outside is a new Splashzone where children can make water travel to heights of up to five metres with the assistance of pulleys, levers, sluices and pumps, as well as the 1902 Hindley waterwheel, which shows one of the ways water was moved in the early 20th century.

The museum currently opens six days a week, with the pumping engines operating most weekends.

Further details at www.kbsm.org

City of Adelaide home at last CLIPPER ship City of Adelaide, which left Irvine, Scotland, on September 20, 2013, finally arrived at Port Adelaide, Australia, on Monday, February 3. Its final voyage to a new, permanent home included rough seas and occasional storms. But it arrived safely on the container ship, and was welcomed into Port Adelaide by around 100 well-wishers on the dockside. The ship will be preserved there as the centre piece of an immigration museum.

Right: City of Adelaide at Port Adelaide on February 3.

Aveling & Porter Class KLD 6nhp traction engine No 9096 of 1920 Jubilee stops at Chenies, Buckinghamshire, while partaking in Honour’s road run on October 27, 2013. MALCOLM RANIERI

W

hat’s in a name? Noting that the Kew Bridge Steam Museum is to change its name on reopening this spring to the London Museum of Water and Steam (see News), it made me wonder how long the museum’s powers that be sat round the table to come up with that one. I do hope that the name change works for Kew Bridge for it is a fine example of a steam powered pumping station.

It got me thinking that there have been quite a few name changes of once familiar places in the past decade or so in a drive to ‘modernise’, usually as a result of a complete revamp.

Birmingham Science Museum relaunched (at the expense of displaying road steam) and returned as thinktank where they ‘redefine the concept of a science museum’. Meanwhile the former Bristol Industrial Museum remodelled and returned as M Shed.

Another example of an attraction moving completely away from ‘doing what it said on

Welcome

the tin’ was the Rutland Railway Museum (a railway museum in Rutland I’d wager) exiting from its rebranding meeting and coming up with the zippily-named Rocks by Rail. Yes, it is based in a former ironstone siding and can demonstrate what used to go on in such places – but would potential visitors to our smallest county ‘get it’ just from the name alone?

Then there are the museums that go for a natty name but feel that they have to justify their cleverness by explaining what or where it really is as an actual appendix to the title. Thus we have Locomotion – The National Railway Museum at Shildon; Explosion – The Museum of Naval Firepower; Firepower – The Royal Artillery Museum; Flame – The Gasworks Museum of Ireland; Big Pit – The National Coal Museum and Milestones – Hampshire’s Living History Museum as examples.

Yet some attractions happily exist that fortunately need no explanation, as their locations usually suffice. If I just said Beaulieu, Brooklands, Bovington and Crich for example,

you’d already know where I meant and indeed what goes on at these places so no further explanation is necessary.

Some have abandoned all reference to geographic location in an attempt to modernise. However, just to confuse, this can be counteracted by the fact the London Bus Museum is actually at Brooklands in leafy Surrey (because it’s a museum of the London Bus).

So whatever one makes of a name, the important thing is to use it or lose it, as local authority owned museums take a budget hit.

Go visit a museum today and make it happy.

Colin Tyson Editor

ctyson@mortons.co.uk

OLD GLORY MARCH 2014 | 3

Contents No 289 | March 2014 NEWS 6-24 News & Events 91 Old Glory in Miniature News

FEATURES 26

Sonsie Quine: A Clayton’s third incarnation The appearance last year of Garry Scott’s 1920 Clayton & Shuttleworth road locomotive No 48656 marked the culmination of a 10-year rebuild.

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Transfer window If it has ever been a transport undertaking, then it’s extremely likely that Gerald Hartley has a mounted transfer for it.

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Beamish and the Dene machines Beamish Museum recently commemorated the centenary of a long-lost local motorcycle manufacturer, the Dene Motor Co of Newcastle.

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Steam’s last stand: The Sentinel DG8 With a ‘new build’ on the way, we take a detailed look at the development of what was the first eight-wheel rigid commercial vehicle chassis, dubbed by the press as ‘a waggon too far’.

Keith Shakespeare – rally promoter and preservationist Celebrating 40 years of steam rally promoting and trading, Keith Shakespeare has been part of the preservation scene for even longer still.

Auckland’s steam ferries Phil Barnes looks at the three surviving double-ended steam ferries that once worked out of Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand.

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WIN

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A ton of coal See page 13

Steam bush tramway log hauler A 1932-built Vulcan steam powered bush tramway log hauler that was rescued from the bush in the 1970s and is now fully operable.

Moving on: Wallis heads north In the same family for 40 years, it’s been at least 30 years since we’ve seen Wallis & Steevens No 2932.

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REGULARS 38 40 60 72 95 106

Enginelines Helpline Vintageworld Steam Archive Reviews ‘Tail Lamp Tom’

READER SERVICES 30 Save money with a subscription to Old Glory 98 Advintage – The biggest Steam & Vintage Marketplace

Save money when you subscribe

See page 30

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48 Front Cover: A traction engine, showman’s style engine and now a rebuild to a fantastic road loco, it’s Clayton No 48656. ALAN BARNES This issue was published on February 20, 2014.

The April 2014 issue of Old Glory (No 290) will be on sale from Thursday, March 20.

Having trouble finding a copy of this magazine?

Why not Just Ask your local newsagent to reserve you a copy each month?

86

Meet the team Derek Rayner

Colin Tyson Editor

Technical Advisor

Mike Dyson

Steve Dean

Correspondent

Correspondent

Andrew Bruce

Roger Hamlin

Advertising Executive

Correspondent

Malcolm Ranieri Photographer

James Hamilton Photographer

OLD GLORY MARCH 2014 | 5

STeAM TRACTion

SonSie Quine

a Clayton’s third incarnation

Despite overcast conditions and light rain, Garry Scott’s 1920 Clayton & Shuttleworth road locomotive No 48656 still made an imposing sight at Shuttleworth Park last September – the engine’s rally appearances during 2013 marking the culmination of a 10-year restoration, writes Alan Barnes Left: The one-time remains of Clayton No 48656 at Bill Weeks’yard at Lawhitton, Cornwall, along with the Weeks’family-owned Aveling & Porter General Purpose Traction Engine No 8041 of 1914. TONY SEDDON

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Now in its third (and arguably its best) incarnation as a road loco, the beautifully restored Clayton & Shuttleworth No 48656 at Shuttleworth Park, September 2013 – its first full rally season since rebuild. ALAN BARNES

With so few original parts to work with, Robert Oliver rebuilt the Clayton in showman’s style, seen in this form at a rally. GARY SCOTT COLLECTION

i

n its new guise, Clayton & Shuttleworth No 48656 bears little resemblance to either its configuration as originally built (traction engine) or indeed its years in preservation having been rebuilt as a showman’s engine. This prompted me to ask Garry why he’d decided to rebuild the engine as a road locomotive and the reasons were pretty straightforward.

“Because the engine already had the springing and the third gear had been fitted during its previous rebuild.”

The 6nhp traction engine No 48656 of 1920 was delivered new to the Otterham Steam Threshing Co in Cornwall where it spent its working life. Unfortunately, the business encountered financial difficulties and following the appointment of receivers the company’s engine, threshing equipment and associated machinery were sold at auction in April 1943.

There was some interest in the Clayton at the auction but in the event the equipment remained unsold. It would seem that the day

Another rally appearance following the first rebuild. DAVID BOSWORTH

after the sale the auctioneer contacted Mr Bill Weeks, one of the interested parties, and a sale was subsequently agreed. He bought the engine and the threshing drum and they were moved to his premises at Lawhitton, Cornwall.

The new owner appeared to have little interest in running the engine and it would seem that the Clayton was laid up in a waterlogged field as soon as it arrived. However, the threshing drum continued to be used for a number of years although powered by a tractor rather than the traction engine.

NOT STEAMED

The Clayton was apparently never steamed by Mr Weeks and over time various parts were removed either for reuse or taken for scrap and the engine became more or less derelict. The Weeks family also owned another engine – Aveling & Porter General Purpose Traction Engine No 8041 of 1914 – which they kept throughout its working life and also into the early years of steam preservation. Both the Aveling and the derelict Clayton survived to

eventually enter preservation. Over the years various parts of the Clayton were sold for scrap and most of the remains of the engine ended up in Johnsons yard in Southport where they remained until they were later acquired by Robert Oliver of Co Durham.

With many parts missing and those that were present in poor condition, Robert was faced with quite an immense task to resurrect the Clayton. In the event he elected to incorporate the useable surviving parts into a showman’s style engine which he duly completed and named Old England – and which was rallied for a number of years. During this rebuild the third gear was fitted although it would seem that the motion of the rebuilt engine did cause a number of problems from time to time.

After Robert died, the engine had several owners in subsequent years before eventually being acquired by Michael List-Brain of Preston Services, Kent. Garry bought the engine from Michael in November 2002 and it was moved to his workshop in Elgin where the Clayton was lit up for a test steaming.  OLD GLORY MARCH 2014 | 27

TransPOrT HIsTOrY

Transfer window

From Aberdare Tramways to Zambezi Railways, if it’s ever been a transport undertaking, then it’s extremely likely that Gerald Hartley has a mounted transfer for it, as editor Colin Tyson discovered

T

he biggest problem I had when faced with walls and walls covered with mounted transfers was what to actually call them. Are they coats of arms, or crests... or heraldry... or livery? It seems that even two top railwayana auction houses call them something different; one says ‘heraldic device’ and another says ‘armorial bearings’ – yet both are describing what is essentially (to my amateur eye) a coat of arms that are mounted on wood.

“Insignia” says collector Gerald Hartley. “I prefer to say insignia as although mounted transfers form the bulk of my collection, I do collect crests in other forms, such as those fabricated in cast iron, metal, stone or glass for instance.”

We are meeting someone who has amassed 32 | MARCH 2014 OLD GLORY

around one thousand examples of transfers – ranging from the earliest of railways, horse trams, steam trams, electric trams and motor buses from undertakings in both the UK and overseas…“that figure doesn’t include pedal cycle and motorcycle manufacturers’ insignia”.

Gerald was interested in railways first and foremost and once had many items of unrelated railwayana and ‘all sorts of other stuff ’ ranging from nameplates to marked pen nibs. The story is then a familiar one, told across the land. The family comes along and one has to downsize the collection to make some space. Once this was done, Gerald recalled that he felt sad that some transfers had gone and he missed them the most, so he decided to specialise just in transfers. This was in 1960. Without the hugely popular specialist

auction-led collecting and websites of today, Gerald would advertise to buy them in Old Glory’s sister title The Railway Magazine and a couple came from sources such as the Stores Controller at York and Stoke on Trent, who would have received such things as mounted examples via their locomotive and carriage works. Gerald’s first transfer, a large NER example, came from this source.

MADE IN BIRMINGHAM

Tearne & Sons of Hockley, Birmingham, invented the varnish fixed transfer as we know it. The firm was incorporated in 1856 as a manufacturer of fancy cardboard boxes for trinkets and the local jewellery trade. The company wanted to put pictures on the boxes so they had to invent a method of doing so.

Director Samuel Tearne developed a way of

The insignia from the Manchester, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham Steam Tramways Ltd, a surviving steam tram example from this concern featuring in the last issue. Gerald has two examples in his collection, the blue one (left) bears the arms of Bury and was used on the Manchester area standard gauge section, while the green example (right) applied to the narrow gauge section and bears the arms of Rochdale.

Left: Gerald Hartley, collector of transport insignia.

All transfers start as a draughtsman’s etching on to a metal‘key stone’plate. There are few surviving examples of these plates, the majority being skipped long ago. Above is an LB&SCR example.

LB&SCR transfer, made from the key stone above.

The insignia of the Yorkshire Woollen District Transport Co Ltd.

making transfers on which coats of arms, emblems, etc. could be printed on them. The firm patented the process and thus from around 1870 they started manufacturing them, initially for the railways, and they employed up to 30 personnel at its zenith, for no one else in the world was making transfers and they had the market to themselves. Transfers went to British manufacturers who were constructing railways through the Empire and beyond into such places as South America. With the likes of North British and Beyer-Peacock ordering transfers there was no need for Tearnes to have overseas representation for it was all handled within the UK. Examples needed fed right down to small transfers that were required to be manufactured for such information as tonnage and weight details, ownership, chief surveyors name and hundreds of varied

ancillary information that can be found on examples of transportation. Indeed your editor recalls buying ex-stock transfers from BR in the late 1960s and applying them to Formica with wording such as ‘To Seat 6’ and ‘During frosty weather, water may be obtained from the can in this compartment’.

APPLICATION

We all remember the waterslide type transfers of the Airfix kits of our youth. Not completely dissimilar, these transfers are initially formed by a draughtsman etching the design to a metal ‘key stone’ plate, which would include colour cross guides along the sides so that coloured inks could be added one at a time.

White is added last, along with gold or silver leaf if required. Gold leaf stays colourfast but gold paint doesn’t.  OLD GLORY MARCH 2014 | 33

Tail lampTom Telling iT like iT is

True photographers do not use digital IT NEVER ceases to amaze me the number of expensive digital ‘Instamatic’ cameras which you see on show at traction engine rallies. Another amazing thing is the number of photographers who spend hundreds of pounds on camera gear hoping to be future David Baileys who, to put it bluntly, take a load of rubbish.

You see them getting in everyone’s way with their DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras making sure that nobody else is going to be in their shot, and in full sunlight using their built-in flash which they have not figured how to turn off. They have not read fully the 200-page instruction book (printed in a multitude of different languages as Britain is now regarded as being multicultural) and then spend ages taking their shot only to have a photograph of an engine sporting parts of a neighbouring engine growing from it or lampposts and telegraph poles coming out of the chimney. We’ve all seen photos of twin chimneyed

Burrells or steam rollers with two extra sets of rolls.

Also, exposure does not come into the equation nowadays, as said photographers have expensive photo editing software which costs several hundred pounds loaded on to their computers. Don’t worry if the composition and exposure are naff as you can correct it with the latest version of your editing software.

Putting it simply, digital photography has made people plain lazy when it comes to the basics of taking a good photo. On the other side of the coin, pick up a copy of Old Glory and there are many good quality photos, the majority taken by people like myself who years ago learned their craft the hard way – through taking photographs using manual focussing cameras and 35mm film.

I still use ‘wet film’ as a medium because I enjoy using it. Let me explain. I have a 40-year-old Praktica Single Lens Reflex camera fitted with a 50mm prime

lens, i.e. not a zoom lens.

Although the camera has a builtin light meter, I prefer to use a hand held meter taking several readings in difficult lighting situations – and experience has taught me which one to use. By altering the settings on my camera I can also throw the background out of focus yet keep my subject sharp and properly exposed.

It may take longer to take a photo with a film camera and you have to wait while your local photo shop gets the film processed; however, the end result is well worth the wait.

And the great benefit of using 35mm is buying a 400 ASA film and being able to take grainy, atmospheric shots, something not possible with a digital camera.

I also own a digital bridge camera. However, I do not own expensive editing software and apart from cropping the occasional photo or converting them to black and white, I do not normally alter the original shot. I take care in composing my shot

and in getting the exposure right before taking a photograph. And, above all, I do like looking at the photos which I have taken earlier in the day on my computer when I get home.

If you came up to me at a rally and offered me a £50 secondhand 35mm camera with five rolls of film or a state of the art digital camera costing £500, I would take the 35mm camera every time.

Finally, if film is dead, why is it that A level photography students have to take photos using 35mm film cameras and have to learn how to develop and print their own films?

The views expressed by ‘Tail Lamp Tom’ are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher.

NEXT MONTH

▲ Betterbred:TheHovisSentinel waggonoftheSaundersCollection

▲ Underfall Yard: An engineering jewel on Bristol’s floating harbour

l Early Robey steam engines l Scammell Highwayman ‘Imposter’ l Ransomes in Kenya l April issue on sale from March 20 with FREE Events Guide Part 2 106 | MARCH 2014 OLD GLORY