Ecclesbourne Valley Railway: Countdown to Opening on 8th April"

I have started this thread to bring you all updates Ecclesborne Valley Railways Dash to Duffield. This project is nearing completion at last nad over the next few months I hope to be able to bring photographs of the work and test trains as well as news on it and of course the official, but yet to be announced opening day.

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Duffield Platform nears completion this week as the railway gears up for its next event, the model railway gala. Featuring Ferrybridge No3, the DMUs and model railways across 3 venues in the town of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. See the website for more details. http://www.e-v-r.com/modelrail10.htm

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Hi all,
Sorry I havent posted much recently. Updates including are the arrival of "The Duke" a bagnal austerity 0-6-0 saddle tank and the 8624 group. NOTE this does not include the locomotive itself, which has for the time being other commitments, but does include alot of skilled people who are being put to use with the restoration of the second andrew Barclay "Henry Elison", before they begin to restore "The Duke" next year. This means this locomotive could be operational soon, but as always this will depend on funding and available labour. There is also much progress with the railway towards the opening which will feature some interesting motive power in the form of both resident and visiting locomotives and DMUs and (yet to be announced) celebrity guests to open the railway. The trackwork is complete for the mainline, although it does need tamping. Spot resleepering is ongoing. There is work in hand to extend the incomplete loop at shottle, which will give the railway much needed siding space to cope with the recently expanded wagon fleet. The duffield platform copping stones are in, but the yellow tile edging is not yet and the platform needs to be resurfaced. As always photographs of the work will appear on my site shortly.

It is also noted that passenger services are still running on the EVR, although they are mainly for the benifit of the Day with a Driver customers and so run ad-hock on the next two saturdays. This offers excelent veiws of the valley from one of the resident railcars especialy now that the winter has got all the lineside vegitation on the backfoot. Steam will be returning in 2011 both on the Ravenstor and Duffield lines in what promises to be a good new year to celebrate the railways opening.

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Great progress, looking forward to attending the re-opening.

Am I right in thinking that both The Duke and the 8624 guys were Peak Rail based? if so that must be about 50% of their steam fleet that's upped-sticks?

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Good news. Having met 8624 at CVR recently I look forward to hearing her on EVR eventually. Is a gradient profile of Duffield to Wirksworth available please?

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Hi
In answer to your questions. Yes both 8624 and "The Duke" were at peak rail. 8624 formed half of peak rails working steam fleet until it departed on hire to Churnet Valley Railway in may 2010. It is not my place to comment on why they have left peak rail.

"The Duke" previously worked at peak rail, but more recently has been awaiting an overhaul. It arrived at the EVR along with a some wagons owned by Tim Oaks at the beginning of November. It is currently residing in our engine shed being painted ready for display during the upcoming santa special weekends. After this it will be overhauled. I personally know nothing of its condition and so cannot speculate on how long it might take.

Peak Rail does have other steam locomotives on site and these two were just private owners who saw the EVR as a good alternative to some of the other railways that are much further away from them and harder to get to for restoration and operation, thus keeping their valuble machines local.

As regards to a gradient profile I will find out if there is one and see if it can be publish in PDF format on the website. Failing this, when I go for a lineside photography session next year, I can take a note book and pen to write down the information and make one my self.

The line from Wirksworth to Ravenstor is a former mineral branch. This has a gradient of 1in27 (still the steepest standard gauge adheision worked passenger line in the UK) and is on an almost continuous curve. However, pulling up the incline is not allowed so this has limited photographic opoutunities. It is also only able to handle single coach trains or two car DMUs.

The line to Duffield is much more gentle, but still steep. There is only one level stretch and plenty of curves. However with limited platform length, steam locomotives will not be working hard at first.

I will take my camera and work out how to put pictures onto this site. (Failing that check out my fotopic site at the bottom where there are many pictures of other railways too)

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Hi,

given the fact that I am literally miles away (i.e. in Germany), it might come unexpected that I have the answer to that question, but, well, I have the answer to chopshopjohn:

I own a book called "The Wirksworth branch" by Howard Sprenger, Oakwood Press, Usk, 2nd edition 2004, ISBN 0-85361-625-6 which is a pretty good history of the line. (see: http://www.amazon.de/Wirksworth-Oakwood-Library-Railway-History/dp/0853616256, I'm not sure if EVR has an on-line shop, but I a rather sure I bought the book at Wirksworth.) On page 20 there is a gradient profile, which I will not copy here for copyright reasons. The gradients vary between 1 in 308 and 1 in 100 with the steepest bit just before Idridgehay but longer sections of 1 in 131, 1 in 120, 1 in 102 and 1 in 133, combined over two miles in length, between Idridgehay and Wirksworth. Does that help?

Kind regards

Christoph

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Thank you for your helpful replies Chris A and especially Christoph. EVR do not appear to have an on line shop yet so I tried the amazon link. Unfortunately my German is nowhere near as good as your English so I then tried amazon uk. They had one available at the right price so I bought it instantly and have already been informed that it is in the post.

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

John,

I'm sorry about that. I incorrectly assumed that you would be redirected to amazon.co.uk automatically or get amazon.de in English. Google does that. No matter which country's Google I use, I always get it in German.

I hope you will enjoy the book. Did you get the 1st edition (hard cover) or the 2nd (Paperpack)?

Kind regards

Christoph

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Hi All
No major reports to make, except that trains still ran in 6inches of snow! The railway has really ground to a halt in progress of the opening works now that winter has arrived. As soon as this is gone im sure things will be back to normal. There was much talk of Santas impending visit and also of the 8624 group. I have added additional pictures to the Ecclesborne Valley Railway 2010 section of my fotopic, but have not got the time or patience to work out how to post them here this week.

Interesting comments regarding an online shop and I will ask about the future possibility of it.
Chris

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

If you dont "do" Amazon, there is usually a copy of Sprenger's "The Wirksworth Branch" at Bill Hudson's bookshop in the station building at Matlock. I bought a good copy of the 1987 hardback from Bill in preference to the later softback because I was more interested in the historical content than recent developments.

( price at Bill's was comparable with the Amazon offerings, so arguably you save the postal cost if you happen to be passing Matlock, although that price comparison is not necessarily always favourable....."caveat emptor" !)

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

I have bought the paperback version from an associate of Amazon for less than £10 including postage. I didn't realise that the two versions had different content; am I missing anything by buying the later version?

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Just out of interest, why is pulling up the hill banned? Isn't it usually pushing/propelling they don't like?

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

chopshopjohn: I think the historical content of the two versions is pretty much the same, but the version you have is more uptodate in respect of recent developments, ie post BR closure.

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

I think you would lose-out if you chose to buy the hardback first edition rather than the softback second edition. The second edition adds a great deal of extra content and illustrations in addition to providing some history of the line under the custodianship of WyvernRail.

We don't yet have a web store and if you wanted to order a copy, may I suggest you go straight to the Oakwood Press? The book can be found on this page http://www.oakwoodpress.co.uk/books/books_wh-z.htm and I see that their website does have a web shop.

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

It's part of our Safety Management System. We have worked on the principle that it is safer to position the locomotive at the downhill end to prevent any possibility of a breakaway. Naturally, the brakes would come-on in the highly unlikely event of a split, but it's just the way we work. We also have a gravel drag at Wirksworth station as a final precaution: something we hope will never be tested!

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Is that what the unusual track layout is in the foreground on the right-hand track?


from http://evr.fotopic.net/

Richard

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Ah I see - so you operate Snowdon style to prevent the coaches "breaking away" as it were...

Thanks for the explanation

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

Yes, what you have there is a veritable cornucopia of interesting track bits. To begin, the 'straight-on' bit is the platform line and you can see how it is just leading into the gravel (ballast) trap: just out of the picture, the rails become buried by ballast. Then, to the right, the kinked bit is a section of interlaced track to line up with the loading dock. This is used both to receive ballast from road vehicles into our small fleet of ballast wagons and to act as an occasional coaling stage (as opposed to occasional table). The points are hand-operated and are usually padlocked in the direction of the platform line.

 

Re: Ecclesborne Valley Railway, The Dash To Duffield!

All part of the service