'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!

Donation from afar

I heard an interesting bit of news today. The appeal for the replica 'Stainmore Summit' sign is going well and we are on target to have raised sufficient funds to erect the sign during August.

But Mike tells me that one of the cheques that arrived today particularly delighted them both It arrived on their door mat all the way from New Zealand.

The contributor was Charlie Oxley, a former shedmaster at Kirkby Stephen who will be known to many of the ex-employees who read this blog and who will be around at Kirkby Stephen East on 29th August. Charlie is now 83 years old and lives in Taranaki which if I remember right is on the east side of North Island somewhere north of Wellington.

Charlie was shedmaster at Kirkby Stephen shed from 1956 to 1957.

Amazing to think that half a century later and half way around the world the old line should still remain so vividly in some one's memory. But it doesn't surprise me at all. Charlie says that he is beyond making the trip back to the UK now to attend the reunion in August but he is delighted that the sign is going back up at the summit again.

'70007'

Few things are certain in life but I guess one of them is probably that BR 'Britannia' Class 70007 'Coeur-de-Lion' never hauled a 'Blackpool Special' over Stainmore. It isn't beyond the bounds of theoretical  possibility that one of the Class might have found itself running into 'Barney' station on a troop 'special' from Darlington or even possibly 'around the block' from West Auckland on a 'running in' turn after attention at Darlington Works. But such large and heavy engines were absolutely verboten over the wrought iron viaducts of the Stainmore Line.

To be honest I'm not even sure where 70007's 'native turf' was. I am no expert on 'Britannias' and my only reference book is on a bookshelf 7,000 miles away. But I think she was an Eastern Region engine. Can any of our readers tell us?

Anyway the reason I am posting today's image is that it is one of the beautiful paintings by John Robinson that we are currently stocking in the shop at Kirkby Stephen East. I just love the late 1950's atmosphere of this work and the portraits of the footplate staff.

But if you want a copy, don't delay. There are only a limited number of this picture available in our stock , and we are expecting it to be popular. Drop in at the station soon!

D3 at Kirkby Stephen

Here is a neat picture I came across in a collection Mark let me have recently - a Great Northern Railway 'Ivatt' D3 4-4-0. The picture was taken by H.C. Casserley, I think on the coaling track at Kirkby Stephen shed. It must be between 1933 and 1935 which was when '4349' was based at Kirkby Stephen.

The D3's cam north in 1931 and were originally based at Darlington for trains to 'Barney', Saltburn and Bishop Auckland. But two years later they found their way 'over the top' and they were not popular. Not only were they designed for the flat lands of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire but they had spartan cabs too. As you can see complaints by footplate crews led to the fitting of a cab extension with a single window but they certainly weren't as 'roomy' as Worsdell cabs. Those 6'8" 'drivers' were probably dodgy on greasy rails too. Pretty little engines though.

Anyway they were gone by 1935. As luck would have it when they closed the Redhills direct link between the Eden Valley and Cockermouth lines the engines were too big for the turntable at Penrith.

If you look just above the front buffer you can see a railwayman working on his allotment on the embankment side.

One way of watering a locomotive

This made me smile up at Kirkby Stephen East today. The Peckett 0-4-0 Saddle Tank 'F.C. Tingey' is now almost completely reassembled and due to be steamed soon and the time had come to fill her up with water for the first time this year.

Unfortunately we are lacking a water column at the Heritage Centre. There hasn't been one for fifty years and I'm not sure where we would find one these days, let alone any ample water supply to run through it.

The only answer is a garden hose. Mike attaches it to the sink in the 'Gents' and runs it across the platform. As the locomotive is being filled from scratch it has to be filled through the boiler inspection hatch rather than the tank. When the engine is in steam and running of course the injector will be used to carry water from the tank into the boiler.

I never thought that I would see some B&Q plastic hose being used for this job. It takes all day to fill to half way up the glass, but it works.

New picture stock arrives

The railway artist John Robinson called around at our house yesterday to drop off a stock of reproductions for the shop at Kirkby Stephen East. His painting "Those were the Days ... Heading For Stainmore" has been one of the most popular items in the shop and we sold the last copy in our stock three weeks ago. Now, thanks to John's generosity we have a good stock available for the summer. But if you want a copy better to drop in sooner rather than later as the are likely to sell quickly again. When they are gone, they are gone!

In with this stock that we have there are also examples of other work by John, including his popular painting of footplate staff with 70007, 41350 with a passenger train at Holmfirth and J21 65089 ion the Weardale branch with a passenger train, but just a few copies of each.

Why not drop into the shop and take a look at them soon? We are open Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM throughout the summer.

Old drain new flood.

I had to go up to Kirkby Stephen East this afternoon to pick up some things but as I was putting my shoes on around three the heavens opened. We had the biggest deluge that I've seen anywhere in England for a long time (although to be honest it was tame stuff compared with some of the autumn monsoons we get in Japan). It fairly stair-rodded it down here for two hours and going up to the Station seemed a bad, bad idea, especially with the old place so churned up by diggers over the last couple of weeks.

Anyway in the end it did stop raining and I drove up through the floods on Nateby Road. When I got there it wasn't as bad as I'd feared - there were some small ponds formed near the Tebay Platform extension but not the lake I had anticipated.

The reason soon became apparent. A while back I mentioned that we had discovered the old cast iron water column feed pipe hereabouts, but today's heavy rain had also revealed the location of the iron cover of the old drain that the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway had installed to drain away overflow from the water column. Amazingly after 150 years that drain is still working! It was very successfully coping with this afternoon's deluge.

Classic Car Rally looms ...

I had some details yesterday from Phil Thompson about this year's Classic Car Rally. If it isn't in your diary yet it is going to be held at Kirkby Stephen East the Sunday after next - The 3rd of July. Admission is £2. Don't miss it!

Scanning down the list it looks as if Phil has had quite a lot of entries this year - so far 28 confirmed in total. There are four classes - 'pre-1930', '1930 to 1960', '1960 to 1990' and 'after 1990'. He calculates that there is space in the main car park for 40 cars so we should be OK BUT if you are one of the people who expressed interest but haven't got back to him so far to confirm PLEASE let him know this week to make sure we have sufficient space.

Years ago my dream used to be to own a Citroen DS14 - I loved those 'Maigret' programmes where the Paris cops use to hang onto the running boards shouting "That way patron!". But I'm afraid the only vaguely 'classic car' I ever owned was a pea green 15 year old clapped out Vauxhall HA series that had long been used by the driving instructor up in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands. It cost me £40 and it wasn't a good buy.

Read all about it!

On the North Eastern Railway many local station masters had the valuable 'perk' of acting as the local coal agent, ordering household fuel in by the wagon load and selling it on to local merchants. This was a practice that began in the earliest Stockton and Darlington Railway days. So I guess they were amongst the first of the modern 'franchisees'

But someone in the KSE shop yesterday reminded me of another perk that often came the stationmaster's way - to act as the local W.H.Smith wholesaler for newspapers and magazines. The person concerned had begun his railway career as a 'porter lad' at Castle Eden station and a part of his job had been to cycle around the area every day delivering the papers off the train. For this he received two shillings a week (10p).

I wonder if similar arrangements applied at any of the Stainmore line stations? I seem to recollect that the papers were dumped off the 7:14 AM from Darlington at Bowes by the guard every morning into the shelter on the down platform but it is only a hazy memory. Can anyone remember papers being dropped off at any other stations along the line or porters delivering them door to door?

Platform lamp-posts installed

Another chilly day at Kirkby Stephen East - whenever is this summer ever going to arrive? Today the volunteers installed the three cast iron lamp posts on the new platform extension, fitted the cable tubes and cemented them into place.

Whenever I did any work of this kind in my old garden in Lancashire I had a neighbour who just loved to come across and tell me that he 'couldn't help but notice' that whatever I had just cemented into the ground was not quite vertical. No risk of that with the KSE team. Everything was double checked for squareness and adjusted for height, lines and 'levels' were everywhere.

The heads of these lamps aren't fitted yet - they will need to await the wiring of the outdoor circuit. But I can't wait to see what they look like lit up on a warm summer evening when the trainshed doors are open and a locomotive is in steam with a couple of Gresley teak coaches in tow. That day is surely coming.

Mystery Photo?

I came across this interesting picture in a collection that I was given last week, and I wonder how many Stainmore line aficionados know where it is? I think that this is the only photo that I have ever seen of the location. Ivatt 4MT 43102 is working hard up the bank even with such a light load and that should offer a clue. But actually now almost everything in this photograph has vanished.

The road along the hillside in the background is the real clue. These are the 'summit cottages' - a row of (I think) four terraced houses a few hundred yards west of the summit box and close to where the road to Barras used to leave the old A66. Often in photographs of the summit box you can see that group of trees behind the accommodation bridge in the background. The cottages went a couple of years before the end of the line, maybe in 1959.

I can only remember the cottages when they were derelict. Signalmen going on duty would park up in the cinder lane in front of the houses and climb over the fence just behind the locomotive here and walk up the line to the right to get to work. Once slithering down that lane in winter we went nose first into a couple of feet of snow in his 'mini' HEC159 going on 'early turn' but my grandfather always kept a shovel in the car to deal with that kind of thing.

Now the summit cottage site is under the westbound carriageway of the A66.

Tees Valley Viaduct

When I was a youngster I used to haunt 'Barney' Woods and I today I love to walk up the left bank to Cotherstone when I have the opportunity. You can still find the two abutments of the Tees Viaduct about a half mile upstream from the castle. But sadly this beautiful view, which I came across this week in a collection of photographs forwarded to me by Mark Keefe, has long since vanished.

Back in the 1950's any walk up the Tees on a sunny summer evening would be punctuated at some stage by the sound of locomotive whistles and that distinctive rumble of a loose-coupled train of hoppers clattering over the high girders.  Depending on where you were you might just catch a glance of the train high above the trees. The viaduct was an exquisite piece of engineering, built on a 'skew' at an angle of about 30 degrees to the banks. Those ashlar sandstone pillars were amazing pieces of complex masonry, the kind of craftsmanship that these days can only be seen in the work of the specialists who look after the fabric of medieval cathedrals.

And there was something quite special about this location too - the Tees flowing deep and fast under the forest. Always a rather sinister river to me, that dark peat stained water. As kids we were ever warned about the danger of 'rolls' after heavy rain.

But you can still get some feel of the grandeur of Tees Valley Viaduct because the abutments are still there in the woods if you go and take a look. Well worth the trip!

On the record.

I was in the Links Centre at Kirkby Stephen this morning to meet up with Carole Lloyd. Two former employees from the Locomotive Department at Kirkby Stephen East, Ivan Dobson and Colin Walker, came in to let Carole record their reminiscences of working on the line, and I was also able to sit in on the conversation.

It was a very interesting session and I really enjoyed listening to their yarns, some of which involved old workmates of theirs that I knew myself as a youngster fifty years ago. I was keen to see how Carole organised a meet-up like this - we are very good the the UK at the techniques of recording oral histories.

Fun too. Once everyone had relaxed we forgot all about the camera and microphone and just chatted away about old times. I hadn't realised that Ivan was on the footplate of the Q6 63355 in the famous incident when it derailed at Smardale in May 1955. A real piece of Stainmore history!

If you have any memories of the line, either as an employee or a passenger or in any other way, and you would like to put them on record, please get in touch with us. You can click on my e-mail link here and I will forward your message, or drop in at Kirkby Stephen East any weekend and we will put you in touch with Carole. It is completely painless, in fact very enjoyable, and your memories will have been shared with future researchers.