Of trains, tanks and tyres

11th September 2025

Been trying to find the time to write this up but somehow without the once-allocated Sunday night it hasn't been that easy. Read on for the exploits of RS8, the 03 and Morris Dancers... 

Thank you for the kind messages I have had saying how much you've missed the blog and welcome its return; abeit not as frequently. I'm still trying to find a balance as to when to write up without being put off by how much I would like/ought to say and the time it would take to do it.  I'm touched by comments that I treat my readers as having a decent amount of intelligence - of course you must be to have the discernment to find and stick with this blog - but I wasn't really aware that I was doing so, in fact when I try to explain something technical I am guessing as to how much you understand and whether you gloss over it as too confusing. I'll guess I am somewhere about right and try to remember to back it all up with pickies. 

The transport side has been a bit quiet of late: not that his bothers me, it is not as if I am trying to develop an expanding empire or anything, and a break from it is not unwelcome, provided that the trailer can be kept legally on the road without a drain on my finances. It also - should - give me the opportunity to carry out some of the improvements that have been planned. First and foremost is to re-arrange the hydraulics. At the moment there are 3 hydraulic tanks. A small one, which is original to the trailer and feeds the electric pump which lifts the neck up and down and occasionally works the steering, a bigger one which is currently there but empty after it started leaking, and another temporarily (i.e. now over 12 months) there as a replacement for the leaking one and only held in with straps. It would be much better if there was one tank, which can initially supply both the electric pump and the diesel driven pump (which is used for the winch) and then cross-connect so that the neck can be operated by the diesel driven pump, which has far more power than the electric. In fact, there is provision for this already, in that the trailer has a changeover valve and hoses that are intended to hook up to your tractor unit if the latter has a hydraulic pump of its own, so it ought to be quite simple, except that much of the pipework is located under the timber floor of the neck and access from underneath is restricted by the kingpin and its pivot arrangement.

With all this in mind Andrew spotted on ebay a s/h hydraulic tank which showed potential. Aluminium, with outlet, gauge and return filter assembly, and about the right volume, it was long and relatively thin and could go across the trailer. The only thing it lacked was any form of mounting, save a tab at one corner, which from my point of view was in the wrong place. In due course it was purchased and brought across to Darley, where I am in the throes of working out some means of securing it safely to the trailer, preferably without starting some sort of galvanic reaction between the aluminium and steel.

The last job the trailer did was to uplift Tony S's North British 0-4-0DH from Chasewater and bring it back to Rowsley, and as it was sheeted down it doesn't make such a worthwhile photograph. The only incident from the move was that one of the trailer tyres punctured, and this was on its sidewall, rendering it scrap. Go back a bit and you might recall we had problems with a detached brake cylinder while moving a bogie wagon - this was the tyre that suffered the cylinder rubbing against it during that incident and this loco was the heaviest load carried since, so the conclusion is obvious that the two are connected. Just a pity that it was one of my newer tyres with plenty of tread left on it!

The puncture meant that Jeff was stopped for a couple of hours at the roadside and instead of unloading that Friday evening as was planned, we had to unload at crack of sparrows Saturday morning, so as to be finished and away before the Peak Rail train service started as the SMS prohibits loading or unloading operations when passenger trains are out. The original track plan at Rowsley was for a headshunt at the Matlock end of the site where these transfers might take place as the current location is the planned extension north towards Rowsley proper. The turnout to create that headshunt is now beginning to appear from the new bay platform road, but that is getting ahead of things. After RS8's exploits at the gala event I had gone back up to Rowsley with a selection of alternator pivot bars and a specially welded bolt (made out of 2 and ground back roughly round) for the compressor. The belts have suffered a bit from twisting and such but the alternator- crankshaft-water pump loop could then be properly tensioned with enough slot left to take it further if neccessary, and the two belts for the compressor, also much the worse for wear, put back on and set up (the wheel scotch had come adrift anyway!).

RS8's first test was to collect the NB and take it back over to the loco shed pending a transfer southwards to Darley D. In the end this didn't take place until the 2nd of September and unusually I had Jacob S as escort as we trundled slowly down the line. Now, that same day Mark had been on to Andrew about using the 03 for the Saturday service. Work on the dmu is continuing at Rowsley (one of its compressor governor valves is down with Andrew) but for the moment it is regarded as not fit for use until its support team have ironed out all the little niggles that have beset it, and the HST's 09 has been deputising.

The problem was, we have been scheduling some work on the 03 in readiness for a gala later this month, but not had time to start on it yet. Indeed, Andrew had already conceded that some of the envisaged upgrades (such as switching from diesel fuel to hydraulic oil in the converter) wouldn't happen until after. It might have been simplest if we had worked the 03 back up to Rowsley after dropping off RS8 and the NB, but at the time we thought we could get a go at the more urgent matters the following day and left it, which meant that Jacob and I had to walk back to Rowsley in order to get back to our cars!

Of course the following day didn't work out as planned, so about half-past two the day after I was back at Darley, trying to sort out the 03 - which was parked close to the shed on 3B, with in front of it, Pluto, the Hatramm, a flat wagon with a load of rails and an n.g. bogie wagon underframe on, the newly arrived NB and at the head, RS8. Oh and it was raining. The logical thing was to pull everything forward with RS8, and get the 03 out from behind, then push them all back. The track descends towards the shed on both 3A and 3B and as we haven't had the weed-killing contractors in for a year or so, is becoming a little green. Not only that, RS8 is only about 22tons and on wet rail, this lot (about 100tons trailing) was asking a lot. In the end I had to hand-sand one rail to get enough grip. One useful characteristic of RS8 is that there is a slot in the running plate where once a mechanical lubricator drive is said to have passed, position yourself carefully at the cab window and you can see through this slot the side rods going up and down, and from that judge when the loco is slipping even before that characteristic left-right-left, so you can play the throttle accordingly.

Anyway, I succeeded in moving the load out and up the main line clear of the crossover, before returning to the 03, driving it out and clear so that RS8 could bring the rest back. Of course, in the return direction the grade was in favour of the load, and despite stopping short and marking how much farther to go and creeping gently forward, when it came to stopping poor old RS8 locked up and slid and overshot by several feet, fortunately without incident.

With the 03 parked by the level crossing, I phoned up to Rowsley and a while later Jacob was dropped off by Mark and we took the loco up to Rowsley together. And so on Saturday 6th I was up to Rowsley, initially in my orange hivi to check the loco over, oil and grease it. At the front of the engine is an additional drive shaft to power the compressor, exhauster, radiator fan and charge pump. This shaft is held in a bearing block at the front, but as the engine is on flex mounts it locates in an adaptor on the engine crankshaft and the drive comes through a rubber ring, with a series of bolts going horizontally into the crankshaft adaptor and vertically into the drive shaft. I first designed it for Pluto back in the early 1990s as it had been acquired without its obsolete Metalistik drive components and have used the arrangement several times since, so it has a proven track record. Andrew had asked me to check that the bolts were all tight, (the bolts come coated with a locking chemical that activates as it is tightened) but we knew that one was sheared. How long it had been like that we didn't know, so there was no reason not to believe that it wouldn't get through another day in traffic, but added a worry to the back of my mind.

As time to get off shed and on to the passenger stock neared, the only thing left was to put some fuel in. Mark had told me that it was simply a matter of fuelling from the new bowser the railway had bought, but that it required a 12V battery and the one he had been using had been returned to the loco to which it belonged. Could I use the batteries on the 03? I don't like differentially discharging batteries (that is, tapping off at 12V and so discharging one more than the other) and anyway the cables wouldn't reach so was about to dash back to Darley for a spare battery when it ocurred to me that I might just as well use the van itself, so I drove up to the bowser, squeezing into a gap between a pallet of oil drums and the 03, and flipping the bonnet lid to get the jumper cables on.

But the hose, which ended in a garage style nozzle, would not reach as far as the filler cap on the 03! So a quick run round for some clean drums so transfer fuel from bowser to drum, and with my two colleagues for the day we filled drums, carried them up the loco where I poured them into the filler. This was all taking time, and Tom D came over and started throwing full 20 litre drums from ground level up to casing top for me to catch(!). At last I could park the van, change from Fitter Pete (orange hivi) to Driver Pete (navy jacket and greasetop) and get the loco around to the platform. We left pretty well to time and headed for Darley Dale, where we were to pick up a party of Morris Dancers who would have been doing a performance on the platform prior to invading Matlock. Now, my mind's image of Morris Dancers are in white shirts and trousers and colourful acoutrements - this lot appeared to be from the dark side or maybe the Morris Dancers Gothic Chapter.

We discharged them at Matlock and continued with the service. I won't give you a full report of the day as (a) it's repetitive, (b) you've heard it before. Suffice it to say that the 03 did the job, but there were a number of bangs and other noises up front which left me concerned and on edge all day. I must record that one passenger apparently drove up from South Wales on the promise of sampling D2128, rode the 11am and 1pm departures, and then drove contentedly back home. One of the Guards commented how smooth it was in the train, and a station staff member at Rowsley said the sound reminded him of an agricultural tractor. Well you can't satisfy everyone...

Andrew is temporarily off work and on Monday we went in to make a start on the drive shaft, discovering that it was two, not one bolt that had sheared and if that was not enough, the banging was coming from the exhauster drive assembly. I might perhaps add here that both of these have been apart while the loco was down at Midsomer, so the understanding and procedure of the arrangements and assembly might not be quite as we would have wished. Either way, the stub shaft which carries the driven pulley for the exhauster (the exhauster itself being a Land Rover propshaft length away) had been worn as its support bearing wasn't quite in the right place and for now must be welded up until a new one can be produced. With the main shaft back at Darley, we made a start on extracting the remains of the old bolts, but stud extractors had no effect and after drilling a lot of the bolt away, Andrew resorted to an air-operated die grinder to clean out the rest without damaging the internal thread. What's a die-grinder? Think of a giant size dentist's drill - in fact it sounds much like it as well.

The 'front end' of Darley Dale as been rather cluttered of late, what with two miniloks, the crane, two containers and other mechanical oddities. Behind them, the former Mess Room, later styled 'Conference Room' has been mouldering away. Ages ago it as agreed it should come down, but the railway hasn't had sufficient volunteers to spare. Thus we agreed to take the project on, and after delays with disconnecting power supplies (one of which is still live as quite where it is isolated from has been forgotten over time) and it has been in the hands of Messrs Jordan T and his pal Clayton. For the last few Mondays the returning p/way works train has paused at Darley and loaded the arisings - internal wall pannelling, glass fibre insulation, damp kitchen units, mouldy carpet tiles, etc., etc.

This week things rose to something of a climax. On Monday the remaining external cladding was largely removed, leaving the structure rather naked and visibly moving if you pushed it. Yesterday afternoon it was time to lower the roof on to the floor, so that it could be safely cut up without it falling on you or you through it.

So the crane was set up, two massive slings put through, and the remaining vertical members knocked out with a sledgehammer or cut out with a saw. The result was as you see in the photos (above and below) and now we can continue cutting up the rest and passing it over to the works train(s) for onward transit and disposal at Rowsley. There'll be enough lighting up wood for quite some time to come.

So that's about it for the moment. D2128 is due out again this Saturday, so Andrew is aiming to get that shaft re-machined tonight at Rowsley and everything back together in time to be in action. I'll let you know how it went - later. See ya then.