Rother Valley Railway

You are a certain member from Honiton, and I claim my £5!

 

But only if Cranbrook Rd gates are guaranteed manned. Re-starting a five set twice (stop for guard to open gates, then again to pick the guard up after the gates have been closed) would be too great a strain for two terriers. A driver working that formation a few years back asked, after first trip, whether anyone could be found for the gates as they were "tearing the guts out of these locos" trying to restart on the bank.

 

No problem, different livery each side, if you don't like one side turn the loco to see the other side.

 

Spin it fast enough and you could even get a third colour as the two merge into each other. Not sure what that would do to the water level in the boiler, or for that matter the engine crew...

Steve B

 

Further update to the RVR blog here showing the preparations for the lift of the turntable.

 

I believe “Fenchurch” ran like that for a period in the 1970s.

Tom

 

Yep. Black with red lining and "Fenchurch" on one side, "Newhaven Harbour Company" on the other.

 

It's an excellent piece of PR, that the railway are using entirely local contractors for this- Coussens heavy lifting from Bexhill, Playfoots from Bodiam for the engineering, and Mick Gould from just up the A21 at Flimwell for the road movements. And I seem to remember a firm in Lamberhurst being used for the initial refurbishment, too.
Support your local economy. The RVR certainly do.

 

It was more in the 1960s than the 1970s. I think she was painted like this during her first winter at Sheffield Park ('64/'65) and ran like this until about 1972. Certainly by 1974 she had lost Newhaven Harbour Company in favour of Fenchurch on both sides.

Peter

 

A further update (they seem to be like buses!), showing the pit walls starting to rise:

At a guess, there will need to be another 3-4 courses, and judging by the rebar,the hollow blocks will then be concrete infilled, the ground behind made good, and the top rail attached for the outriggers to roll on.
One could imagine that once all that tonnage of steelwork and running gear is fully mounted, the finished article is going to produce quite a sonorous rumble in motion!
http://rvrailway.blogspot.com/

 

Think the North London tank had different liveries either side for a while too didn’t it?


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There's one I'd love to see back in harness. I wonder how long the list of repairs needed is? Or if it's even got any place in a substantial queue for overhaul?

When it comes to the amazing small engine fleet, which served the (much shorter) Bluebell so well in the early years, the line's arguably become a victim of it's own success.

I'm old enough to remember howls of outrage over 75027's arrival, on account of it being bigger than some thought "appropriate". Well, weren't they wrong?!

 

I'd hate to think what said driver thought of us using Knowle to lug full ballast hoppers up to Cranbrook Road, then! The video of it re-starting is around somewhere....

 

The turntable at Robertsbridge progressing toward completion

 

Wow. Thats spectacular progress, for just a week or so since the previous update. Many thanks for this, Mike

 

Thanks Mike for the excellent pictures - Still some work to do but the progress is great.

Does anyone know the purpose of the recess in the perimeter wall which is seen in the pictures?

 

Harold asks why the small inspection pit was built into the perimeter wall.

The ex Hither Green turntable thats now at Robertsbridge is a unique survivor of a type relatively common on the Sothern Railway. Its was built by Ransome Rapier of Ipswich in 1928 and is of the 'decked' type with an angle iron rotating framework that runs rounds around the central bridge unit on the circular rails. In our case it had a pair of walkways mounted alongside the bridge and a rotating fence on the rotating framework to protect people from falling in - most commonly found in confined depot sites (see picture of our Turntable back in the 1970's when still in use at Hither Green). Its planned to fit all that over the next few months. Some other turntables, on very confined sites, used that framework to completely board the pit area in (see picture of its sister slightly shorter length turntable at Cannon Street Station). The small pit enable access to the outer ring including the bolts in the circular channel shaped ring just inside the pit edge as they were at only accessible. from the outside. Hope that helps. Mike

 

Thats really interesting, what you say there, Mike. I think most people (including myself) believed they were one and the same, and that it got moved to Hither Green in the early 30s.
Is that not the case?

 

This one?

 

Don't think I've ever heard a Terrier make that noise before .... not even Fenchurch lugging a passenger train packed to the gunwhales up Freshfield bank, back when HK was still the terminus.