Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Lovely piccie .... thanks Tom. Even that was over 20 years ago now. Where the hell did all that time go?

 

So is W11 facing south looking at that photo of her on the lorry?

 

We were told for the Charter, that it was expected to face South.

 

I fired W11 then. Is that the KESR one behind it? W11 is the best of its type I've been on.
Don't know if that's the train I was on. Where does the time go indeed?
I'm driving during the event but on something bigger. I pity Tom for his choice of Driver on one of the days...
I'm looking forward to it as a participant.

 

Same driver I had my first turn with after passing my test - I'm sure it'll be fine.

I'm RF on Friday as well, looking forward to having lots of movement on and off shed.

Tom

 

From a photo on Facebook, Poplar is facing north and W11 is facing south.

Tom

 

Was looking forward to coming down from Yorkshire for a Terrier fix on Saturday, but my colleague's recent bout of covid as well as the ASLEF strike has rather kicked that plan into touch. Ah Well, we'll have to try a visit later in the year. At least I saw W11 in action during its visit in 2001, when I also secured this rather unusual view of her, taken from Birch Grove on which I was given a ride.

Hope the event goes off well for everyone.

Peter

 

What you really need is a Terrier to head north on it's hols at some point. Two, if you want to shift any large numbers of passengers on pretty much any line north of the Humber!

Actually, it'd be great if one could make it to the Strathspey for a visit at some point, as a fitting homage to their less well known Highland Rly ancestor. Well, we've been lucky enough to have a couple of magnificent Scottish locos pay us a visit down south .... it'd be nice to see the compliment returned some time, should a suitable opportunity arise.

 

Well I missed Knowle's visit to Embsay last year as I was in Scotland at the time, but by all accounts she did not give a very good account of herself.

Peter

 

You sort of forget how low they are - the eaves of the cab are hardly up to the top of the boiler on the Billinton E6 behind:



Fenchurch and E6 No 32418 at Newhaven © Ben Brooksbank (CC-by-SA/2.0)

Tom

 

I'll not pretend to understand the finer points of the Terriers, but from what I do know of their histories, but with at least one having worked for five owners, all (except Boxhill) having undergone various versions of the rebuild to A1x (The IWC locos were rebuilt on the island, with detail differences to Brighton rebuilds .... I believe ex-FYN/LSW W8 wasn't rebuilt until 1932, when it was also renumbered from W2), I very much doubt any two of the survivors are all that close to identical. I've no clue the state of Knowle's boiler, or cylinders (both IoW terriers have recent Israel Newton boilers). Any idea if the loco had a crew familiar with the class during it's visit?

 

32678 was quite entertaining at the Moors a few years ago. I was lucky enough to have a footplate ride while it ran round at Levisham. It's a bit cosy in the cab with three people!

 

Not only are none of the survivors identical - As far as I can tell, none of those that made it to BR ownership were! - there were so many different permutations of chimney, sand boxes, bunker, brakes, lamp irons, toolboxes, etc - and of course many bits were swapped round (such as 32662 gaining 32677's cab and bunker after the latter was scrapped). There were at least 5 different variations of bunkers alone...

 

From what I’ve been told, she wasn’t right when she was released into traffic after overhaul. Guessing she was okay enough to honour the bookings but surprised they didn’t get it finished first

 

In an attempt to lengthen their useful lives, several Terriers spent a few years around the turn of the 20th century running as 2-4-0Ts, achieved by merely removing the front coupling rods. Marsh apparently had a long standing aversion to leading coupled wheels on passenger locos (believe it or not, there was a genuine proposal around that time to rebuild the Gladstones as 'Atlantics').

Additionally, most (if not all) of those Terrier turned into 2-4-0Ts had their cylinders lined down a couple of inches in diameter, the intention being their employment as an alternative to purpose built steam 'railmotors' (of which the Brighton had just two).

All eventually regained their front coupling rods but continued to run with reduced diameter cylinders. Maycock & Silsbury's history of the IWC lists the cylinder diameter of.their quartet between 12" and 14" dia., so at least one of that flavour was flogged to the impecunious outfit across the Solent.

I've a vague memory that at the start of that exercise, Marsh had the cylinders on one unsuccessfully lined down to 9", before settling on 12".

IIRC, not all those lined down to 12" cylinders kept 12" cylinders.

 

When she went up to Embsay, she was nearing the end of her ticket. Subsequently, the overhaul took place, and she managed fine at Didcot and the Spa Valley. When Knowle got back to us, it was inspected, and concerns were raised. (I must stress, I am not suggesting that the problems were caused or made worse by either of those groups.) The main problem is that the engine is 140-odd years old, and things do go wrong! There will need to be a fair bit of remedial work done, but with the works busy with 65 and Charwelton, and the 4253 group getting on with their engine at pace, Knowle will have to take it's turn when we can get to it.

 

Well, they are very long-lived, so it clearly worked

 

Knowle visited Embsay in June 2021, not long after the overhaul was completed.

Sent from my SM-J610FN using Tapatalk

 

I knew it didn't sound right as I was typing it, but I couldn't figure out why.

 

I believe it was just two that had the 2-4-0 conversion (Boxhill and Beulah), but several more got the smaller cylinders - and some had larger (14") ones fitted, the originals, I believe, being 13"