Narrow Gauge Junk

Here is a picture of the chassis of the Peckett and Sons Ltd 0-6-0ST works number 1327 named 'Mesozoic', held at the Bromyard and Linton Light Railway.

 

Sorry to revitalise another old thread but does anyone know if there has been any changes at the Bromyard & Linton railway? Is Mesozoic still there in pieces? Would be nice to see it restored and running alongside its sisters from Southampton Cement Works.

 

Interesting film from a couple of years ago. Answers some of the questions posted in this thread.

 

This site is local to me and I keep an eye on it, but not a lot happens. As the film shows, the owners are in touch with the wider world of preservation, but if they want to keep things private and just potter along as best they can, surely that is their privilege. Just keeping the track clear of trees and vegetation is clearly a serious task.

The site would require major investment in boring things like health and safety, and insurance, before you could even think about running public trains - and there isn't much there to attract the non-enthusiast public, as the line starts in an industrial estate and finishes in an overgrown cutting. If there was a nearby stately home or a garden centre, things might be different. There is an interesting bus and coach scrapyard, but that's not quite the thing.

That said, Bromyard is quite positive about attracting visitors. It has a long-established folk festival, and now a Festival of Speed for classic cars, so something like a steam fair might not be so far out of the question in future.

 

Mesozoic is still in bits, the railway looks little different to how it has for the last 6 years that I have seen it fairly regularly.

Chris

 

Brilliant - thanks for sharing!

 

On the subject of Narrow Gauge junk, there is a Polish narrow gauge steam loco rusting away in a garden in the Buckinghamshire village of Steeple Claydon. It has been there for about 15 years and now looks somewhat unwanted. Does anybody know the story there?

 

2007 pic:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rpmarks/5350467134

A more recent pic from 2013:
https://bestieboy.smugmug.com/Trains/Narrow-Gauge-Steam/i-HZPZGRJ

Apparently it's a Polish 'LAS' type loco. 0-6-0WT 750mm gauge. Built by Fabryka Lokomotyw Imf Dzierzynskiego, Chrzanow, Poland, works no. 2959 of 1949
Pics are not mine.

Keith

 

It seems a bit big for a garden railway - it is about the size of the Welshpool Earl /Countess - and it must have cost a bit to get it there, so what on earth was the owner thinking of? It is easily visible from the road, by the way.

 

The same could be said of Adrian Shooter's DHR B class - it really depends on how big your garden is!

 

It is in a small cottage garden. That's the whole point.

 

convertible to 3 foot?

 

But surely it isn't a garden railway? Never was, never intended to be. It's a loco stored in a garden. Pending ... um .... some form of action.

 

He/she was probably thinking " I'd like to have my loco sitting in my garden"
Simples!

Keith

 

Keith, I take it you are trying to be funny? OK, but there is clearly an interesting (and perhaps cautionary) tale here, about how somebody expended time money and effort on bringing a fairly insignificant loco from Poland to the UK, where it would only be of minority interest with not much chance of ever running it, then abandoned it. If the matter is of no interest to you, fine - but kindly refrain from posting rubbish.

That said, I do respect the privacy of the property owner concerned. They are probably sick of questions from complete strangers, so I did not knock on their door when I was working in the village. I got the impression that the loco was there when they bought the property.

 

Therein possibly lies the current answer - if they bought the property with it in situ and it would cost a lot of money to remove it, its probably just going to be one of those things to get around to after the new kitchen, bathroom, hot tub etc!

Whether the previous owner of the property had plans for it but was thwarted by illness, work commitments, death etc we'll probably never know. The fact that it never happened doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't a sensible plan in place to start with.

Edit - having had a nose, I can't see that property having changed hands within the timescale Rightmove keeps records for (some go back to 1995) so if its been bought with the loco in situ its been there a long time. That could be consistent with someone buying it, putting it in the garden to work on, and then becoming unable to fairly quickly afterwards, hence its now advanced state of decay.

 

Not trying to be funny at all, I'm just saying that perhaps the owner didn't want his/her loco to be on a railway and just preferred to look at it in their back garden.
We as enthusiasts might think 'what were they thinking of, putting a loco in a garden nowhere near a railway', but for others, it's something unusual to look at on their own property. We shouldn't rush to judge others on what they do with their property (except maybe if there was a risk of it being scrapped).

Keith

 

Didn't 76084 spend quite a number of years in a driveway?

Chris

 

Indeed it did and there are quite a few industrials sitting in fields/gardens remote from any railway.

Keith

 

Does anybody know if the Bromyard and Linton is still going - it now looks very unkempt/derelict? ad to see the stock falling apart in the weather.