MHR Restorations and Overhauls

The only thing I can think is to wonder if the loading bank at the brewery was very short (maybe only a single van could align with the brewery door??) At which point you might need a small loco to adjust the positions of vans, or even to move full ones into the second siding and then draw up the next empty. Though I admit that is slightly clutching at straws, as you would have thought they'd have had a shire horse or two to do that. Maybe the brewery owner was simply an early convert to things mechanical?

Tom

 

Thanks! That NLS website is a goldmine for old maps once you get the hang of how to use it.

Tom

 

I dare say shire horses would have been used for deliveries. But it would have been wasteful to keep one around for the occasional positioning move. Horses cost money to keep, whether they are working or waiting for work. Internal combustion costs only when in use. Hence such inventions as the "locopulsor".

I recall that in my brother's early railway career in a goods yard, he (as a clerk) had to join in with all the staff to manually reposition wagons for (un)loading rather than wait for the daily trip loco to arrive. There wasn't enough work to justify employing a horse, a simple mechanical device would have been very useful.

 

Looks good fun actually!

 

Actually, when I first made that comment I was assuming any siding would have been a really short stub, the map shows them a lot longer than I expected. Those two roads at the end will have to have been a fair bit lower than the main line, just from the lie of the land.

So something with power must have been needed to get wagons up from the end to the barrel loading platform, which appears to have been near the junction. I guess it's possible that most of the brewery siding simply wasn't up to a main line locomotive, and Sweet Pea was needed to get wagons to an acceptable collection point. I can only assume it always propelled wagons up to the interchange, and maybe there was some capstan shunting between roads at the bottom to get the right wagons in front of it.

By the way, I love the description of how to drive Sweet Pea. Makes steam seem positively straightforward by comparison.

 

Just thinking a bit more about this. It is a 6" to the mile map so will not show all the tracks, simply a bit of a representation so it is quite possible that there was a loop or other sidings.
I agree that the website is full of useful old maps. A good source of info. I've bookmarked it.

 

Having checked the 1939 edition 25" map on that site, there are more sidings, including a loop and two wagon turntables.

 

Found this photo at the bottom of the web page on the courage brewery web site showing the siding with wagons in it.

http://takecourage.info/Chapter3.html

 

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.1475&lon=-0.9731&layers=168

I particularly like the slider which allows you to morph from the old map to the satellite view

 

The story is there for everyone to read - it's on the front pages of several local papers eg this one
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/141...fter___27_000_in_charity_cash_goes__missing_/
The Society themselves are happy to talk to the Media and it's refreshing that they chose to acknowledge the facts of the story rather than draw down the corrosive and damaging curtain of silence. Because of their openness there's no need for us to speculate on the story.
I am going to help them out financially by joining them. I want to see 30499 run before I kick the bucket.

 

It's been on my list of things to do for the last couple of years but like so many other things, it dropped down the order of needs and musts to do financially. It was however put on my New Years Resolution list and will be one that I am happy to commit to.

 

Great to hear you'll thinking about becoming a member of the Urie group. I've been a member now for a few years. Its a few quid well spent in my opinion.

 

I first saw 30499 in 1973 at Barry and was fascinated by this locomotive with Drummond cab and raised footplate over the cylinders . I was 16 at the time and had never heard about the Urie S15s . I'm so happy she has been
saved and will be restored to 1922 condition in holly green livery with Urie smokebox and stovepipe chimney . I did help out on 30506 later chipping away old paint and rudst on a few weekends as I lived nearby .

 

As a life member of the ULS, I am led to believe that their are further developements.

Chris.

 

Lets hope the current situation can be resolved amicably, so that the ULS can get about restoring their two wonderful machines back to traffic and put recent events behind them.

 

I do hope that the ULS will be able to bounce back from this situation, got to give them credit for the way they are handling the situation but I do believe they will be able to successfully bounce back from this.

 

Thought some of you might like this "LocoYard takes a look at Watercress Line in 2015 with 2 MHR volunteers on the blog they line has been featured heavily over the last year."
http://locoyard.com/2016/01/10/watercress-line-articles-locoyard-2015/

 

Back to the subject of additional shed space, discussed a few days ago and, I think, previously on this thread: there seems to be some space, covered in trees, between the fence at the side of The Lamports (the road SE of the station) and the existing tracks. Could that not be used?

 

Think this idea was pursued many years back before the flats/apartments were built, in those days it was a large empty site (former coal yard if I remember correctly). Cost of land purchase and the enormous amount of backfilling required to bring the site up to railway height stalled the idea.
I don't think what is left of the site would be of any real gain and of course you have the added problem of Nimby neighbours who live in the (new) development.

 

It looks wide enough for at least a one-road shed, and the neighbours might even prefer a blank wall beyond the fence to the noises from the working railway. The position of the fence, immediately beside the road, implies that the developer didn't buy the land on the railway side of that, so who does own it? Maybe still NR?