Of silly hour starts

15th June 2025

Another short edition.

Once again a silly o'clock start in the morning, yet here I am at nine o'clock at night on what was not only Father's Day but my 51st Wedding anniversary, writing Weekend Rails. Anyway, Monday it was a day with Jeff, taking an 08 from Worksop to Peterborough. A sweltering hot day not made any easier by a mis-understanding whereby we almost unloaded the loco facing the wrong way , but we picked the trailer back up, turned it around and re-assembled the ramp to get it off as desired.

Jeff returned to base, I returned, later than planned, to the Cuntry Pile.

Tuesday and I was due to meet Jason at Scunthorpe. Getting back so late on Monday I didn't ring him to check everything was in hand. I envisioned he'd be collecting the trailer about half-seven, so I'd pass him on the way, or meet him at the pass office where we'd need our inductions before going on site - so I'd allowed an extra hour. But I didn't overtake him, and he wasn't at the pass office lorry park: I phoned him 'Where are you?' He answered 'At home'. 'But you're supposed to be here at Scunthorpe with me.' 'That's Thursday' he answered. 'It isn't, it's today.' My hour allowance dwindled away as he raced over, arriving at 11.15. Inducted, pass issued, we got on to site and loaded Aaron Boyce's Barclay that is going on holiday to Tanfield.

Unlike our usual Ruston 165 take-away loco, Tanfield brought out the Fowler which (as an aside) has benefitted from the parts I'd supplied. When Jason arrived, we unloaded the Barclay and Jason set off back, me following a little while later.

Wednesday and it's back with Jeff. This time there's a Barclay 0-6-0DH to collect. It has only one out of 4 buffers fitted (and of course, the one it has is the corner where our hydraulic connector is sited else it would not have to be dragged up the trailer so far) plus it is missing one spring entirely and another is 'free', and the side rods are on one side with the second set loose on the running plate. It loads with a few minor rail scrapes as the front right corner is the one with no spring to support it and we set off for Worksop.

It is late afternoon by the time Jeff arrives (he has a much longer route) and the place is becoming quiet - it might as well have been a Friday. The loco rolls most of the way off and then stops. I am disappointed but set about towing it clear but without success. Then I realise that the one set of side rods it has are not in a line. The middle axle has got out of step and locked everything up. I won't bore you with the cause, suffice it to say we jacked the wheelset back into line and towed it clear of the ramp, and set off for Derbyshire. Yes, both of us, the trailer duly arrived at the yard at about half-eight, Andrew was there having been down preparing things and we left Jeff parked up for the night, setting off to his next job at some silly hour the following morning.

I was at a customer's site on Thursday but returned on Friday to continue with the work of re-kitting the trailer to take a Pacer, or some such. The weekend was like old times, with Andrew down most of the two days working furiously to complete the extension fabrications and re-mount the old Chinese winch on the neck.

I took the control panel lid off in the hope of getting a new hinge welded but that didn't quite reach the top of the list. The two broken nipples on the chinese winch (from when it was accidentaly dropped) were replaced with new nipples and hoses, and although Plan A had been to take off the Lister and fit another power pack that wasn't going to happen so I did an oil and filter change instead. The rails had to be re-jigged to reach the back of the trailer, and as part of a general tidy I dumped large bits of crushed, rotten timber and installed more of the steel rail supports which I hope will do most of the work in future.

There is an old adage - a job takes the time available to do it in - and I add to that the 50% rule, that if you set yourself out to do so many jobs, provided you achieve 50% of them or more, then it hasn't been a bad result. That may sound a rather lazy attitude but all too often tasks take longer or you encounter unforeseens along the way. It is easy to think 'that will only take a half hour' and in fact it takes one-and-a half hours after you can't find a widget so have to make one, for instance.

Peak Rail had a gala event on so the last train was later than usual, thus Jason's Scania arrived about half-five although Jason himself was away up north. (No, it is not a self-driving Scania, he had arranged somebody else). As it was, it was nearly seven pm when the trailer departed and I still had to tidy up, eat, re-hydrate, shower, fuel the van and sit down to write this. Which brings me round to the beginning. It is coming up 15 years since this blog first saw the light of day. It has changed a lot over that time - Andrew now has a partner, 3 boys, a dog and a cat. It started with tales of him and me charging off on Saturdays to various places where we would do a bit on a loco he might have there and charge off somewhere else next day, and the weekdays were blank. Now it is as much a report on my commercial work as anything, and while that might be of interest, it is not what the blog started out as. Meanwhile I haven't updated Andrew's loco website in years and my own commercial one is out of date. So I feel it may be time to wind down Weekend Rails a bit. There will not be an edition next Sunday, but maybe it'll be fortnightly for a while until I see how I feel about it. So, until the end of the month - see ya then.