'Fred Tingey' back in steam today

A big weekend up at Kirkby Stephen East this weekend! Yesterday was the Stainmore Railway Company AGM and then in the afternoon Mike Thompson lit the fire in his 'Peckett' Saddle tank. The plan was to test all the boiler and pipe seals under full steam pressure and doing this kind of work you can only take it very carefully. If any of the seals are unreliable you have to stop the process, drop the fire and get back to work.

Mike was at the station all night, sleeping with our cat 'Quaker' and getting up to tend the fire. By lunchtime today we were up to full boiler pressure and the engine 'blew off' its safety valves and after a few minutes checking that the injectors and steam brakes were working he was off up the yard - the first time that 'F.C. Tingey' has steamed in the last ten years.

During the afternoon a few of us got a footplate ride a little way up the yard too. The passenger line is passed for traffic now but we are still very canny, checking every last nut and bolt for safety.

Still - a fine sight eh? In a few weeks time you will be able to see the engine in action on passenger trains too. Make a note to get up to the station soon!

'Fred Tingey' back in steam today

A big weekend up at Kirkby Stephen East this weekend! Yesterday was the Stainmore Railway Company AGM and then in the afternoon Mike Thompson lit the fire in his 'Peckett' Saddle tank. The plan was to test all the boiler and pipe seals under full steam pressure and doing this kind of work you can only take it very carefully. If any of the seals are unreliable you have to stop the process, drop the fire and get back to work.

Mike was at the station all night, sleeping with our cat 'Quaker' and getting up to tend the fire. By lunchtime today we were up to full boiler pressure and the engine 'blew off' its safety valves and after a few minutes checking that the injectors and steam brakes were working he was off up the yard - the first time that 'F.C. Tingey' has steamed in the last ten years.

During the afternoon a few of us got a footplate ride a little way up the yard too. The passenger line is passed for traffic now but we are still very canny, checking every last nut and bolt for safety.

Still - a fine sight eh? In a few weeks time you will be able to see the engine in action on passenger trains too. Make a note to get up to the station soon!

Return of '65033'

I was selecting some pictures this week to use in the main 'Stainmore 150' guide and we have been given permission from the Locomotive Conservation and Learning Trust to use this photo of '65033' in the section on 'visiting locomotives'. It is a timely reminder of the attractions of J21's as some of us will be across to Shildon next week to help get the engine ready to bring over to Kirkby Stephen next month.

If you haven't seen a J21 with a full boiler of steam you simply haven't lived!

The occasion here is surely the RCTS Railtour of 7 May 1960. I thought it was earlier in the year because of the bare oaks but looking carefully at the picture the 'May' is already in blossom. And the light fits too - from the south west and quite low in the sky. I'm not sure where on the Eden Valley line this picture was taken but the train was timed to depart 17:01 from Penrith and arrive at Kirkby Stephen East 17:48. That is the last time any J21 showed up at  KSE - a quick 'back of an envelope' calculation suggests that it has been 18,688 days since '65033' last drew up on the Darlington Platform.

But next month you will have the opportunity to see her here again.

Pay attention in the pram at the back there!

Meet the Stainmore Railway Company's youngest shareholder, my grandson Thomas Halstead. He was only born three weeks ago but already he has a £10 stake in operations at Kirkby Stephen East. In fact he had it on the day he was born.

You know what Francis Xavier used to say "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man ...". Must make a note to get him here as often as possible over the coming few years so that he has a chance to grow up with the sound of safety valves 'popping' in his ears just like his grandfather. My first memory of steam locomotives even in my pram is certainly as being noisy beasts. When I was a small child we lived in a Nissen hut on Croft Aerodrome south of Darlington and my first dim memories are of (BR experimental blue!) Gresley Pacifics racing by. Who could ask for better first memories than that?

Young Tom is going to have to shape up though - no point in sleeping on when there is train spotting to be done.

And if you have a new child or grandchild in the family too - why not buy them a share in the Stainmore Railway Company and pass our heritage on bit by bit to a new generation?

On local radio

On Saturday Belinda Artingstoll from BBC Radio Cumbria was up at Kirkby Stephen East making some recordings for an upcoming piece about the Stainmore Railway project. She interviewed nearly a dozen of us in total and it was interesting to see how she used different sound 'backgrounds' - walking outdoors for example - to add contrast for the listener.

At one stage during the afternoon she interviewed Louis and Jimmy Richardson about their working lives on the railway in the buffet car. They made such an interesting sight all hunched together around one of those Gresley formica tables that I just couldn't resist whipping out my tripod and going for an 'arty' photograph to capture the atmosphere of the occasion. I also provoked an occasional grin from the contributors as I aimed my camera through the carriage window.


And here it is - that high-tech microphone busy capturing oral history for posterity. Back in 1960 we still had reel to reel tape recorders! It seems to me that this 'oral history' angle is one of the most interesting and valuable elements of our complex project at the moment, there are still so many still around with interesting tales to tell.

Car Rally Fun

We could hardly have asked for a better day for the 'Classic Car Rally' yesterday - a gorgeous day and hot too. In the shop I seemed to be selling a constant stream of cans out of the fridge and it was so hot for Edera out in the sunshine on the door that I had to go and scrounge a hat for her from the Mess Room. Never thought that I would hear her complaining about how hot it was in Kirkby Stephen!

I was so busy inside that I only got to scout around outside a couple of times but what a wonderful collection of cars there eh? I guess that there must have been nearly forty and there was such a great variety. Phil Thompson and his team had their work cut out getting everyone a pitch in our car park and it was lucky that we could borrow some parking over on the other side of the station for other visitors.

So many beautiful cars. I look forward to seeing them all, and the really classic 'near vintage' end is so interesting. But personally I have a soft spot for the stuff that I remember in my youth - the Morris 1000 and Fort Escort end of the universe.

This event is really 'shaping up' as a part of the Kirkby Stephen East calendar and if you didn't manage to make it yesterday be sure not to forget it in 2012!

No Trespassing

Just eight weeks to go until the 'big weekend' in August and there was plenty of paint being slapped around up at Kirkby Stephen East today. A team was outside priming the 'Tebay Platform' shed doors and inside several paint jobs were also in progress.

Here is Edera priming two new replica cast iron 'No Trespassing' signs. They are EXACTLY the ones that I remember over the Stainmore Line - signed by 'C.N. Wilkinson'. Not sure when he was the Company Secretary but it must have been early in the 1900's because the penalty for trespass was already 'forty shillings'. Cheap by today's standards eh? I think the going rate now is £1200.

Somewhere I have an excellent photograph of such a sign by the stile at the east end of Tees Valley Viaduct taken with my first Brownie 127 camera in 1958. In the background is a stripy blur which I can tell you is the pilot BR 4MT on a 'Blackpool Special' legging it out of Barney for the foot of the bank. This was the first time I learned about the issue of shutter speeds. Nice picture of the 'No Trespassing' sign though!

Anyway the point I wanted to make was - if you are a 'dab hand' at painting or any similar tasks this could be a good time to turn up at the East Station as a volunteer ...

Aerial View

Here is an interesting photograph that Mark Keefe sent me yesterday. To take it he had to get a ladder and clamber up onto the station roof but it was certainly worth the effort. It shows just how far the platform extension has come over the last couple of weeks.

You can begin to see the final layout here quite clearly - which is just as well I guess as it will be in use in eight weeks time. On the right is the running line and on the left the siding into the Tebay Platform. In the middle is the new 'West Bay' where I guess the DMU will be usually parked up. Yes, for the first time in its 150 year history Kirkby Stephen East has its own 'bay' platform. I wonder why it was never built that way, as 'Barney' station was?

Still a bit of track to lay there lads ...

The really striking thing here is that we have a heck of a platform area now - you could actually use this space quite creatively to hold events. Outdoor concerts, shows, business presentations ... a space like this is an asset. Maybe we could even have a bandstand there!