Of a day out with two heads*

18th June 2023

Yep, it's one of those cheesy grin shots again. (*Janus - a two headed god of mythology)

Monday and I spent most of the day in the workshops - I had visitors due at 10.00 but they didn't arrive until 11.00 ('we stopped for some breakfast'). They were actually going to carry out some work reassemnbling the exhaust system on their (Alstom's) loco for which I had acquired a new 45 degree 5inch bore exhaust pipe section. They proceeded to cut and carve this thing but couldn't get it to line up. This was because it was one of a pair that joined into a Y piece and they'd found the latter corroded so had cut a section off which I and one of them thought would make it impossible to line up but they tried and tried and eventually admitted defeat, blaming the other 45 degree of the pair which was rust-welded to the Y and wouldn't budge in any way at all. To get this far they cut several sections off the bend, one cut of which caused the motorised hacksaw blade to snap (though to be fair, it'd been in since before Covid and at 10tpi was probably too coarse for the thin section tube) and in the end they went away with Y, other pieces and what was left of the 'new' bend (and cut off sections in case they needed to weld them back on again) and asked me to buy two more bends in time for their next visit. This particular piece of exhaust pipe doesn't appear on my drawings. My fitters (back in 2001) told me to leave that to them and they'd make it all fit while I concentrated on other, more important jobs. So my CAD drawing of the loco has a blank bit.

Monday evening it was time to move Hudswell 1387 up to Rowsley ready for a Tuesday morning departure. Nothing really to report there and no intermediate pictures (as I had forgotten my camera) just a final record as it parked up in the yard. First thing Tuesday Adam and Ian arrived and the Hudswell was winched aboard with me sitting on to maintain the brake off and deadmans system.

It was a quick jaunt to Langwith Junction where the loco (which some wag over there has dubbed 'Shania Train') is re-housed and in the heat of the day we unloaded it and after a while reloaded with their Barclay 0-4-0 (whose engine is already at Darley) to make the return journey.

Coming through Bakewell Adam just (he said) made it round the roundabout with his 4 axle but the town busy with tourists made a considerable audience. Back at Rowsley I'd arrived first and had Bagnall the Barclay ready so that when Adam arrived I could draw it off, but when we let out the winch it rolled immediately and all I had to do was buffer up at the bottom of the ramp and draw it away, leaving it on the headshunt as Peak Rail had an operating day on the Wednesday.

Andrew has bought something else. We always planned to have a decent overhead crane in the shed but it would have to be somewhat of a customised thing and as we have never had the time to get the rest of the beams/rails up, let alone the crane to go on it, it has got no nearer. The Hatramm showed the benefit of craneage outside but is limited in its capacity and he has campaigned to get a road crane from time to time. A family conference took place last weekend and accepted in principle, and if I secretly hoped he wouldn't be succesful too soon, he was (on line) at an auction on Wednesday, and a for a grand less than his max price. At one point we were all set to collect it on Thursday but that couldn't quite happen so it's down for this week, and its forthcoming availability for use by the railway (once the neccessary legalities have been gone through) has been declared. Don't get me wrong, I am sure that in 12 months time I'll be singing its praises, but for now we have rather a large number of claims on time and cash and a shortage of space to park it.

Thursday evening we had another move. This time it was the Janus. moving up to Rowsley for a 'shakedown' day of passenger running, but to make life easier, RS8 was brought off the turntable where it was standing with Sentinel Tom, collected the Davis' Barclay and headed first to Darley, where the Janus came out and thus we returned ourselves to Rowsley without the usual hassle of getting ourselves or Harvey back by car.

This was the first serious run with the Janus and it continued to throw out lumps of carbon/soot as it ran at full power from Church Lane northwards. Indeed, some of the carbon was sparking and as we stood at the crossover we even managed to start a minor trackside fire, soon extinguished. But nothing exceptional occurred and the Janus was parked up on the far side of Mr Waterman's class 47 to await the weekend.

Friday and other than a trip across to the anticipated alternative oil suppliers there was nothing much else on my plate but preparing manuals for the Hudswell and outstanding invoicing.

First thing Saturday it was back up to Rowsley to go over the loco, grease and oil what was required before taking it out in traffic. I am indebted once again to Stuart Graves for some of the 'action' shots with this edition - whether this is in advance of 'A Day in the Life of Pete Briddon 2' I know not, but he stressed that I was to say that he didn't make it to Matlock in time for our first run 'because of those f***ing traffic lights' (on the main road).

Anyway with my train driver's outfit on again we were a few minutes late on to the platform as the steamer had the token for Pay-and-play and then had issues getting a vac - the vac hoses on the Janus are a bit stiff and they'd accidentally trapped a seal when getting them together. That sorted we got away with some concerns about the No.2 end exhauster. The loco has two dmu-type exhausters which are designed to run on their own oil reservoir, sucking it up from the separator (by virtue of the vacuum its creating) and routing the discharge back through the seperator to return it. For that reason the separator should be 12inches below the exhauster but even then some of the oil remains entrained in the air and is lost. To obviate the need to monitor and top up the oil, this loco was fitted with the exhausters fed by engine oil, a restrictor limiting the amount of oil delivered. The seperator is still required to return it to sump, but the person who did the installation routed the discharged air not to atmosphere but into the engine air intake. Now I'm sure whoever did it meant well, after all he was creating a form of closed breather, but when we stripped it we found engine oil in both the inlet pipe and air cleaner housing, suggesting that an excess of oil had been ejected and a risk therefore of the engine ingesting this and either becoming VERY smokey or even running away on it. So we had capped off the air inlet tappings and left the discharge to atmosphere, but No.2 end dumped a considerable amount of oil at first which spread over the engine bay base plate, though the loss did reduce later (and no, it wasn't because the engine ran out of oil!). The installation uses torque converter orifice assemblies as the restrictors. I don't know if they are 'as normal' but a standard orifice is 0.015 inch and far too large. Some empirical research would be required to come up with a suitable value for engine oil (hot or cold) at varying engine speeds compared to what the installation naturally draws up under vacuum from the seperator. My gut feel is that it would need to be a substantially smaller 'ole, after alll, not only is the engine pumping it up but the exhauster is still sucking as well.

Anyway, back to business, first trip away I set off with the cab door ahead of me open. The breeze was getting a bit much and it was spitting with rain, so I got up and tried to shut the door. The throttle control on Janus is heavily weighted back to minimum and in trying to get the door closed and secured I let the throttle drop back a bit - or so I thought - opening it back up again as I sat down. The engines continued their roar but we gradually lost speed. Panic rising within me, I wondered what was wrong, then twigged - I'd let the throttle back the whole way, the contactors had opened and I'd piled it back on too quickly that it skips the limit swtch and the contactors stayed open. So throttle back, forward a bit and hear the contactors click; throttle back up, on comes the amps and we're accelerating again. A touch fast past Church Lane but the token drop goes OK and it's steady into Darley Dale where I have to try stopping. I have 5 on today - two filled with seperate parties who are going up and down all day and three for general passengers, so I am trying out where to find initial application on the vac on a brake valve with worn detentes, a vac gauge that was actually reading 2 inches too high and can't be seen easily as it's hidden behind the box containing the earth leakage relay. And did I tell you the local MP was on the train on an official visit? You wonder I get a bit stressed?

A few minutes and then we're off, steady over the level crossing, watch back for any red flags from the back but then power on to take a run at the climb to Redhouse. After that it's the long straight downhill to Bridge 35 and at the far side hoping to get the yellow flag from the 'box to go straight through to Matlock. Once there it is a few minutes relaxation before propelling it back to the Bridge and forward into Riverside, where with 5 on I have to get almost the full length of the platform to make sure I don't foul.

Run round and almost immediately it's right away and the worst part of the trip, for what comes down has to go back up and it's a long, daunting pull when you look at it from the bend after the Bridge. The Janus gets us up to a good 15-16mph at the bottom of the climb but as it steepens a bit you can sense the speed fall but we still reach Redhouse with 12 mph or more and drop down under the bridge and past Andrew filming us from DD yard. In the platform, right almost to the far end (5 coaches - need to be well in to release the track circuit)- we're slightly early on a timetable that gives us oodles of time here before setting off once again. Actually this first run set off late because of some gremlin with the Pay-and-play returning the token to the machine at Rowsley.

Grab the token from Church Lane, then full power on and the loco accelerates slowly as the line climbs almost half way to Rowsley. In the 14's era this would be where it would belatedly change from first to second. the Janus has no such qualms and gives a steady pull, speed increasing, amps anywhere around 150 until you ease back on the approach to Rowsley, watch out for passengers unaware of your approach and try to stop, smoothly and carefully, at almost the far end of the platform.

Nope, I didn't always achieve that. Three runs like that make up the day's operation, and although everyone insists I was smiling and looked happy, it was either an act or towards the end, an expression of relief that nothing significant had gone wrong. The loco had behaved itself for the most part. There had been no failures - which would reflect both on me and on Peak Rail - it had ended up with much cleaner exhaust and running more freely than it had earlier and what it had carried out today was much more arduous than it will need to do at Kirkby Stephen unless they link up with Warcop any time soon. For now, it is resting back at Rowsley, but with a few last bits and bobs it can return home ready for action.

After stabling I changed back into the tatty jeans and tee shirt and wandered over to the station before heading home. One volunteer clapped me on the back and told me it was good to see me 'on the railway' again. A PRA Director disagreed with me about the comments I'd made about non-renewals in last week's blog and tried to get me to volunteer to take on the Editorship of the mag. It was all though in an atmosphere far, far removed from that of the 'previous regime'. Everyone it seemed had had a good day with the weather and variety in motive power. Andrew later joined some at Church Lane (the inn, not the signal box) but I headed home as with Steph away at our daughter's for the weekend basic catering was in my purview. Overnight we had a thunderstorm which woke both Andrew and me. I got up much as usual but Andrew didn't get out of bed until eleven-ish so headed down to the shed to do some tidying and be ready for a couple of visitors who, it transpired, had arrived and ridden the train from Darley Dale to Rowsley (for the bus gathering as well as the Fathers Day 'Whiskey train' which was apparently popular). I followed him down after lunch but it remained a quiet afternoon, punctuated by rain showers and occasional hints of thunder, though they didn't finally arrive in earnest until half-five.

So thats' about it. Early start tomorrow: Adam's off on more holidays but I have Phil and a programme of work to get through. Any pre-views? Nope. Come back next week and find out, see ya then.