D7054 – A genuine Diesel Hydraulic in 10 ¼” gauge - Aidan Favell

 

 

I guess the story of D7054 started at Christmas 1967 or ’68 – Giles or Dad may remember - at the family home in New Road, Rubery, near Birmingham. Giles and I went down stairs at 5.00 on Christmas morning (we were forbidden to get up before that, though the contents of Giles’ stocking were unwrapped at least four hours earlier) to find a large square parcel on the hearth rug. This was found to contain the latest in O gauge train sets (we had a Hornby clockwork set about three years previously), the Tri-ang Big Big Train. This consisted of a circle of bright red plastic track, a brightly coloured plastic mineral wagon, an equally bright quarry tipper wagon and a battery operated Hymek diesel loco. Unlike the wagons and track, this was realistically coloured in BR blue, with white cab windows, but was spoiled with raised lettering on the sides proclaiming “Blue Flier”

This was received  by both of us as an excellent present, and as we had four hours or so to kill before appearing in the Church Choir on Christmas morning we began what for me became a deep acquaintance with this loco (I have it still!)

 

Ironically we were at the time living only five miles from the famed Lickey Bank, where the Hymeks performed so admirably right up to withdrawal, but believe it or not we were never brought up to be “train spotters” ( a popular misconception) so it meant nothing to me. Something in the aesthetics of the Big Big made its mark, and while school friends reported on their recent acquisition of a Tri-ang Class 37 or a Joueff Playcraft North Brit I only had eyes for the Tri-ang Hymek.

 

 

At about this time, Dad somehow discovered the Hilton Valley Railway, and we began to make excursions there on a Sunday afternoon (we could get there and back before Evensong). Whilst Giles began a lifelong love affair with “Queenie” and narrow gauge, I would dream of driving Lorna Doone or one of the diesels. The HVR affected both of us in a way I can’t overstate. Dad always used to say that 10 ¼ “ would be better, but as I don’t believe either of us had ever seen a 10 ¼” gauge railway we were more than happy with the HVR.

The end of 1969 saw a move to our Grandmother’s house in Edgbaston nearer Birmingham, and only ten minutes bike ride from Bearwood Models. This wonderful emporium had a full size signal outside, and it is still hard to recall it without genuflecting! The proprietor Mr Lamb and his assistant (Malcolm? – he used to drive a vintage 3 litre Bentley) were always friendly and patient with two schoolboys who wanted the whole shop, but had no money! Shortly after, I finally saved up enough to buy the CKD version of the Tri-ang Hymek, which was 10/- cheaper than the ready-to-run version. By that time it was only produced in the Blue livery with small yellow warning panels (sad isn’t it!) and not the green I really wanted, so it wasn’t very long before it got painted. Painting with a brush was never my strong point, and I would have better left it to Giles.

During the time at Edgbaston, after a couple of OO gauge railways, I eventually joined Dad in his first love – 0 gauge, selling all my elderly Tri-ang OO at the Warley MRC show, of which I was a member. The new railway ran across the end of my bedroom, through the roof void in a boxed tunnel, into the box room, and was fine scale, the track being old Tri-ang Series 1, Series 3 and Super 4 rail dog-spiked onto stained balsa sleepers. It included several points and a single slip. I did the electrical bit linking all the contact studs and installing H&M point motors recovered from my OO layout. Motive power consisted of  a  scratch built L&Y Pug, and the Hymek, now also painted green (by me – still not a good idea), and fitted with a Lionel motor bogie purchased from the Warley show. The two Big Big trucks were joined by a couple of kit built wagons Dad produced (with the Pug) one Lima coach (they carried on making the Big Big mineral wagon) and an odd assortment of Hornby tin-plated. I seem to recall we had trouble matching the Hornby couplings to the scale three link couplings on everything else!

I left home at sixteen leaving Giles on his own at last; he proceeded to make friends with my Form-mates who had sensibly stayed on for A levels, pursued his love of narrow gauge, and went off with Stephen (Sam) Holland to join the Welshpool and Llanfair Railway, where they teamed up with Steve Bell, many years later to be met as one of my colleagues from the excellent Evesham Vale Light Railway.

 

In 1976 Dad accepted a Parish deep in the valleys of South Wales, where for the first time in his life he had room for a 10 ¼” garden railway – perched above a precipice down the side of the house. Some lengths of 20lb rail where helpfully liberated from the local pit, together with a load of timber pit props which some one had accidentally sawn down the middle.

Dad immediately produced plans for a battery electric railcar and with a week’s holiday from the Forge looming it was suggested I might like to bring some odd bits of steel and a welder, cutting list to follow! A couple of days work in the heat wave of August 1976 produced two bogie frames of welded hollow section with angle iron horn guides. The rest of the week involved riding round South Wales with Giles and the next door neighbour’s daughter in my aging Rover 105s. A visit to Barry Island pleasure park was totally eclipsed by a walk round Dai Woodham’s yard, of which I knew nothing (I said I wasn’t a train spotter!)

 

Over the next months the railcar gained a main frame and body work largely produced from the remains of the up-and-over garage door which the Parish had agreed to replace. Traction motors consisted of two car dynamos with the field wiring modified from series to shunt, each driving one axle via a vee belt. Dynamos were used rather than starter motors because of their continuous rating. The resulting vehicle served at least once at the Church Fete giving rides, but I never did see it working properly. The biggest problem was batteries – none of us could afford a new one, so we were limited to car batteries which had already failed in their first life, and so were less than startling in their second!

 

At this time Dad began to have grand ideas about building a half size version of Rev. Teddy Boston’s Bagnall, ‘Pixie’, of which much more elsewhere; Giles left home to work in Manchester, and Dad’s health declined, the railway declining with it. A routine phone call from Dad advised me that he was breaking the railcar and what should he do with the bogies? In one of those rash moments, I said that I would like to build a Hymek around them: I had no idea how long it would take to do, perhaps it’s just as well!

 

By now (1988) I had married Nikki; we had a daughter Katie, and were living in Cowfold, West Sussex. The bogies duly arrived joined a lot of “stuff” in the garage. I was working as Fleet Engineer for Billingshurst Coaches, so had a fairly large workshop at my disposal, together with a lot of engineering plant left over from an engineering business venture with Giles in the early ‘80s. For no good reason that I recall, I went in to work one Saturday morning and laid into a length of surplus steel hollow section (left over from creating a topless Beetle for the Boss), and left having created a chassis frame. I think I must have done some rudimentary scaling from the Big Big Hymek, I don’t remember having any drawings at that point. Some slight alteration was required later, but it wasn’t far out.

 

At this point some fresh enthusiasm arrived in the form of a schoolboy called Chris Knibbs whom we had introduced to the Lavender Line, a small steam railway in East Sussex, privately owned at that time, which we had recently got involved in. Chris was looking for a suitable project for his A-level CDT course, and asked if he could take on the Hymek under my supervision. I regret to say that at this point I “bottled out” and after Chris had stripped the bogies for painting the whole lot languished for the next ten years and progressed not at all.

In fairness, there were technical problems that I hadn’t sorted in my mind, and which were critical to the way the project would develop. In short- how to transmit drive to bogies. There are various ways to achieve this, and each has its own benefits and problems.

 

Battery Electric

This is the most straightforward, and was for the most part the favourite. Traction motors can be mounted on the bogies, with batteries carried within the loco body. The control equipment can be bought relatively cheaply and is very effective (4QD and Parkside). Cost was always going to be a major consideration, and the cost of sufficient suitable batteries was a worry. For motors I considered the Sinclair C5 motor, readily available in the early ‘90s and which I had used successfully in a small car for Katie. The problem with this motor lies in the mounting and drive connection. It has an integral epicyclic gearbox (very effective), with a pulley for a tooth timing belt drive, all made of plastic, making alignment and careful mounting critical, and I couldn’t see it standing up to the sort of use I wanted the loco to be capable of. Also considered was the motor found at the time on battery electric version of cylinder motor mowers. Not a bad motor, and designed for chain drive – a big plus, but they were already getting a bit rare. I had one in the back garden, and although I had no figures for it I guessed I would need at least two, and possibly four, for it to be any good. The problems of multiple motor control were a worry too; a single controller would work if all axles were driving ok, but in the event of slippage, how do you prevent dumping all the current into one motor? (Not a problem in practise, I suspect – G.)

 

Petrol Electric

This was my preferred solution, as I really wanted an engine in the loco and didn’t want to rely on batteries. What I wanted to do was use a 24v bus alternator, engine driven, to directly power traction motors. I hoped that by replacing the separate regulator with a field controller I could use the 200amp output to do anything I wanted. I had a bit of experience with them and there was generally an old serviceable unit lying around the workshop; in addition they were easy to mount, and vee belt driven – easy. However a discussion with the guy who rebuilt our alternators said it couldn’t be done and I would have to have batteries to provide traction current and charge them with the alternator. Back burner time again.

 

Petrol Mechanical

This, for much of the time seemed the most likely solution. I could get hold of a suitable engine and gearbox easily; the Ford 1100 Kent was readily available, a BMC A series from a Minor or an A35 would do well though a little long in the tooth. The little air cooled 650cc engine out of the Fiat126 also appealed (the only attractive feature I have found in a Fiat!). No list of possible engines would be complete without mentioning Reliant’s wonderful all alloy 750 and 850cc water cooled units. Very light, powerful, and they sound lovely.

There are two complications, first turning the drive through 90 degrees, and second, reverse. Any normal engine installation would result in a north/south crankshaft with a cardan shaft (prop shaft) over the drive bogie. Chain drive with carefully located shafting will cope with up and down axle movement, but small suitable gearboxes to drive at 90 degrees are not common. I considered several options from my earlier life – many grass cutters and pasture toppers in farming use robust versions of such a unit – the Votex springs to mind, however I no longer have access to parts like that, and I couldn’t quite face the thought of having to buy a whole machine from Cheffyns’ sale near Cambridge, much as it would have pleased Nikki’s cousin David. Any engine/gearbox configuration I considered would have had a reverse gear so at first this may not seem a problem, however the idea of four gears going one way and only one going the other offended my engineering sensibilities. In fairness, this arrangement is widely used where normal travel is in one direction as at Pulborough and need not cause a problem, however we didn’t have a railway, and I couldn’t envisage ever going to one that didn’t require bi-directional running. We did talk about building a short 10 ¼” line at Isfield (the Lavender Line), and there was always the beautiful Manor Railway, Ingfield from which one might hope for an invitation. Thus although I had at one point a 1300 Kent engine with auto gearbox in good condition, somehow it never came together. The easy solution is to buy a new marine gearbox. This is by far the best way, but the cost ruled it out, and I should still need that 90 degree gearbox!

 

Petrol Hydrostatic

This seemed a great solution if I could find the right kit. A hydrostatic system uses a closed hydraulic loop connecting a piston pump of variable displacement to a piston motor. The pump and motor are of the “swash plate” type with multiple cylinders grouped around a central shaft like a western revolver. A circular plate mounted on the central shaft runs on the outer ends of the pistons, its angle being variable from perpendicular to the shaft where the disc does not depress any of the pistons, and

a maximum of about 30 degrees, where on each rotation, every piston is pressed once to maximum displacement. The output is piped to a motor of similar construction but with fixed swash plate. The more fluid displaced by the pump, the faster the rotation of the motor swash plate. The motor exhaust is returned to the pump, such that when the pump is in neutral or “out of stroke” the motor is stalled out. A side benefit of this system is that no brakes are required as the system forms an hydraulic lock (an emergency/parking brake should always be fitted). Hydrostat units are readily available commercially at reasonable cost, but these commercial units are in one piece, which seems to me to be at odds with the flexibility of the concept, and to install such a unit I would still have had to located the 90 degree gearbox. Oh well.

I did at one point acquire an old Kubota tractor with hydrostatic transmission, which was duly stripped for parts, including a drive unit with separate pump and motor. This may well have done the trick and the diesel engine was a bonus. However the engine was a non runner and it all lay about for ages before being passed on. John Scovill took the engine and rebuilt it with many new parts at great cost to go in his Drewry diesel loco which has subsequently run beautifully as a bare chassis, so it wasn’t all wasted.

 

Petrol Hydraulic

With this arrangement the engine drives a gear or vane pump, the resulting pressurised oil being controlled by a proportional valve to either drive one or more motors, or diverted back to the storage reservoir. The valving can also be set up to reverse, most motors being capable of reversing (check the vent pipe). Ideal. All tractors have a hydraulic pump in the bowels of the rear axle, and vane motors are widely used for commercial conveyor belt drive. Should be easy to find good ones I could use. Ho Hum.

 

Bogie Mounted Engine

I should mention this arrangement in passing as it is a legitimate solution which I did think about, but not for long. A small lawn mower type industrial engine can be mounted on the drive bogie such that it moves with the bogie. Simple mechanical transmission using perhaps the once ubiquitous Albion gearbox found on so many garden machines and some small microcars or a single unit type hydrostat and commercially available belts and chains is possible without resort to rocket science. However, the dimensions of the loco limit the size of the power unit; I didn’t think an 8hp Briggs & Stratton would be up to the job, and a multi cylinder unit was well beyond my means. In addition I really wanted a “proper” engine mounted centrally in the body with driving cab at one or both ends. I particularly didn’t want to reproduce the commercial arrangement I had seen where the whole of the body is open and the driver sits in a choice of plastic chairs either side of central controls.

 

Over the intervening years a great deal of thoughtful pondering took place, never really coming up with any solutions. We became more involved with full size steam, Chris achieved his A-levels without my help, followed by university, ending up as the Operations Manager at the Blubell Railway; whilst periodically I would fall over a bogie or the chassis frame. The latter was even rescued by Chris from a scrap skip at Isfield where a non-engineering member had deposited it.

The turning point came at Christmas 1997 during a family party at Stratford –on-Avon. Giles was by this time proceeding apace with the Bagnall Dad had dreamed up twenty years before, and with my fortieth birthday looming Giles asked if I was serious about building this Hymek, because he’d spotted hydraulic motors in the RS catalogue, and if I was serious, would I like one for my birthday? That prompted some soul searching (was I really up to it?) and some earnest number crunching, trying to calculate from first principles what sort of rating we would need to pull a given number of people at a given speed (kept Dad going for days!). When I got home I went round to my local hydraulic hose supplier in Billingshurst (Hose & General Supplies) to get a bit more information. After a few minutes conversation, the assistant disappeared into a back office and came back with a hydraulic motor. Having been recently supplied on a new conveyor, it had been replaced with a larger unit capable of starting the conveyor fully loaded. The result of the discussion was that if I bought the valve from them they would donate the motor.

I still had the Kubota engine at this point although it was a non-runner, and no pump, but this didn’t seem insurmountable. As the weeks passed, however no solution appeared, and Giles wanted an answer.

 

The turning point arrived at a chance meeting with Kim who I knew from the past at Isfield. He had a diesel hydraulic breaker plant liberated from a SeeBoard skip for the loco he was going to build one day, but couldn’t see it happening. He offered me the unit on condition he could drive the loco when it was finished. Half an hour later the unit was in the back of my car, before he changed his mind!

The unit was quickly taken to the workshop at Billingshurst, and surplus tinwork removed. A new battery and a little diesel fuel was all that was required to get it to run – cracked it!

 

From this point I had a running loco chassis in about 3 months. In the intervening years Giles had bought a Coffee Table Book on diesels with drawings in 4mm scale. Some measurements of the power plant and some careful scaling showed that the engine wouldn’t fit in the body by about 1 ½”. A decision was quickly made to scale up the whole body pro-rata, adding 1 ½” to width and height and about 4” to the length. That way the end result would look right even if it wasn’t dead to scale. By this time our involvement in miniature railways had grown, and I had seen lots of diesels referred to as Hymeks, that did nothing to capture the careful coach lines produced by Messrs. Beyer, Peacock. I was determined that anyone seeing my loco would be in no doubt what they were looking at. In addition all the construction was to be welded steel – I had no plans to do any of the work again, and in the railcar I had seen what happens to wooden bodies. Steel is my preferred material of work anyway having welded commercially regularly since the ‘70s.

The bogies needed lengthening so they were cut, and 2” inserted. The wheel sets were sent back to Dad to re-machine to scale profile at the local technical college; the original profile, intended for 20lb/yard rail would be no good on the scale track I hoped to run on. Two 1” self-aligning flange block bearings were obtained from Trafalgar bearings in Billingshurst, made in China they were surprisingly cheap. With a 1” king pin on each bogie bolster, radial loads were taken care of. An old trolley jack provided a pair of cast wheels about 3” in diameter, which when mounted on a high tensile bolt with the head welded inside the chassis frame, one either side of the centre pin, provided support for the bogie. One of the drivers produced a second redundant jack with identical wheels which sorted the other end.

 

At this point the position for the engine was decided upon. The breaker came as a skid unit, with all the components mounted in a steel cage. The design was such that it was possible to use the base frame and cut off every thing else. The base frame was attached to the chassis with 4 Volvo Bus exhaust mounts. These are just like the Mini bobbins of the ‘70s, but much bigger.

 

After discussion direct with the hydraulic valve manufacturer, a spec was agreed upon, and the valve ordered through Hose and General. This was to be my birthday present from Giles, albeit a little late by the time I got it sorted! The Important Factors with a hydraulic system are pressure and flow rate. These will be stated by the pump manufacturer, subject to rotational speed. In many case the engine and pump were supplied as a governed unit, with a clearly stated pressure and flow rate. Pressure relates to output torque, and flow rate relates to speed; the motor(s) used need to be compatible, remembering that a motor supplied with half its rated flow will run at half rated speed. Running below rated pressure will reduce available torque. Some adjustment can be made in final drive ratio, but it is important to ensure by doing some simple sums in round numbers, that the chosen combination will do what is required. Our simple sums based on a required maximum speed of 8-10 mph produced a likely gear ratio which enabled me to order sprockets and chain from Trafalgar. I decided on steel plate (pilot bore) sprockets, which I bored to size and welded to the axles before the wheelsets were finally reassembled. They were very cheap (between £2 and £4 depending on size) and if I ever need to change them I will cut them off and weld new ones. A very good friend and engineer took great exception to this method, but I stand by it. Fenner taper lock fittings are the alternative, but to me at least, the cost is too great. As it turned out the performance of the loco fell beautifully within the chosen parameters, and there has been no need to interfere with the gearing at all.

The hydraulic motor is slung under the drive bogie, driving one axle. A second chain links the two axles. The second axle also carries a brake disc (turned up from ¼” plate and welded) onto which acts an hydraulic brake calliper thoughtfully declared redundant from a BMW motorcycle by our local Police. The master cylinder previously supplied the clutch of a Marina at the local breakers. It appeared to have been recently replaced. The mechanical advantage for the brake mechanism was not calculated, but has been found to be very satisfactory.

 

The new valve duly arrived, and didn’t look much for £160. It was very compact, and they had got all the functions into a single spool. The requirement stated to the manufacturer was for proportional speed control in both directions> after asking questions about the use, I was told that it needed to have what they called a “freewheeling spool”. This in effect connects the two ports on the motor together when the control is release, allowing oil to freewheel around the motor on overrun. The normal arrangement is to block both ports, which would cause the pump to run dry or “cavitate” on overrun – a very damaging condition for hydraulic systems. The whole unit was the size of a smallish cigar box with a single centre sprung control lever. I was enormously impressed.

The installation of the new valve and hoses (made up by Hose & General) produced a chassis that would theoretically propel itself and so plans were made to make it drivable.

An invitation was kindly made by Lynn Stratton of the Manor Railway, Ingfield to bring the vehicle for running trials. A plastic stacking chair appeared from somewhere, and this was welded to the chassis frame. Temporary controls were rigged up for transmission and brake; the transmission control worked like a tram controller, but not as well!

 

I seem to recall a dry autumn day for the chassis trial; this was quite an event as this was the first I/C powered loco ever to run at Ingfield, and I was keen for it not to be a disaster. Once the line was cleared of leaves the rails began to dry and the initial traction problems receded. A judiciously positioned Snap-On tool box helped, and the hydraulics performed perfectly. I had intended to modify the engine speed control, and possibly link it to the hydraulic control, keeping operator controls to an absolute minimum, but it turned out that the unit’s own governor control was better than any thing I could invent. Hydraulic pressure from the pump produced as soon as the engine starts holds the engine at idle. As soon as the driver draws hydraulic power the governor opens to working speed, just like the real thing really! In every respect the machine performed better than I dared hope, actually drawing a passenger train and even venturing up the bank. Traction was of course very limited by the absence of weight, and Lynn was concerned that the exhaust note of the original silencer would disturb the residents (the railway runs through the gardens of a school for handicapped children), but it was an elated team that rolled the chassis back into the Billingshurst coach garage that evening.

The next week or so saw the removal of the temporary controls and fuel tank, but not much else happened.

 

Early in the New Year a sudden change of job meant the loss of storage and workshop facilities which was a bit of a problem. The loco ended up on the large dolly made as a working platform, wrapped up in a black rick sheet outside a neighbour’s garage, while I spent several months working abroad. My embarrassed friend sadly informed me on one visit home that his neighbours were going to get the council to scrap my “junk” if it wasn’t removed immediately. A busy day helped as usual by my long suffering friends Chris Knibbs, Roy Harwood and Nick Kingshott, cleared enough space for the loco and dolly to hide behind my garage under the plastic sheet, and there it stayed, while I changed jobs again and adjusted to being an Electronic Security Systems Engineer in central London.

A group of like minded friends had formed the South Downs Light Railway Society around Chairman Barry Metcalf and his unfinished Bassett Lowke ‘Royal Scot’ together with the other locos owned by various members. Every one was on the lookout for a site for our own railway.

Around Christmas time negotiations started with the Garden Centre at Pulborough, and suddenly we had a home. The development of the railway is chronicled elsewhere, but it was apparent that there was going to be an initial shortage of motive power. From my full size experience, I was convinced of the benefit of diesel traction for instant power and tossed the Hymek into the ring; the only problem was that it wasn’t built yet!

Once again, Giles came up with the incentive to proceed, offering his services and the use of his workshop at RADA. Chris and I took the chassis up to London on Barry’s trailer and spent the New Year cutting and welding. The construction was made up as we went along, and used 16swg sheet steel, plasma cut to fit, and using light gauge welded tube of varying sizes to produce the necessary radii on the corners. Holes and recesses were filled with MIG weld and ground flush. The side sections were made to lift out for access to the dirty bits. We worked from blown up drawings from Giles’ book, and also some 4mm drawings Giles found in an old Railway Modeller, again judiciously enlarged on the trusty photocopier, however some of the detail such as the corners where the bodywork folds round the buffer beams, and the roof profile was obviously wrong, when compared to the photographs in the book and the magazine article. In frustration, we turned to the Big Big model stood at the side of the workshop as an incentive, and found that it was remarkably close to scale. We worked from the model from then on, if the blown up drawings were not completely clear. By the time Chris and I left at the end of the first weekend, the two cab ends were formed, and it was beginning to be recognisable. A couple more weekends, and a lot of Giles’ odd evenings and we had the slightly curved side panels and the lifting roof section. A little artistic licence enabled us to put the roof exhaust vent at the wrong end, with an electric radiator fan underneath to extract hot air from within the body, as I was concerned about restricting the water-to-air cooling system. The simple control levers took some thought, but ended up as a great success, being aesthetically unintrusive and very easy to operate. At the end of a busy weekend building the driver’s cab, sister-in-law Diane (RADA Head of Wardrobe) appeared with seat cushion and backrest covered in green leather cloth.

The only aspect of the construction that was less than a complete success was the cab end roofs. These are compound curved of varying radii. Giles did a very clever fabrication with laminated MDF, which when sanded and filled looked really good. Unfortunately several years of damp have causes the sections to delaminate, and ultimately we will have to do something different.

With the Railway’s planned opening on Good Friday, and only Chris’ veteran loco John Terence in residence, it was only with one weekend to spare that the Hymek arrived at Pulborough on another borrowed trailer, rather less than resplendent in several shades of red oxide. The weather was beautiful, however, and a couple of hours with a spray gun and some hastily mixed paint meant that we ended the day with a recognisable loco.

The first trials on the newly re-laid section of track produced some enormous grins, and several people who had expressed reservations about diesels on what was going to be a “steam railway” had to be surgically removed when it was time for someone else to have a go!

Subsequent jobs included applying detail, black vinyl for windows, and the lime green stripe. I was right to be concerned about cooling, and several modifications have been made to help this, including boxing in the supplementary silencer, and latterly adding an expansion bottle. This seems to have finally stopped the loss of water from the already very small cooling system. Direction lights have been added as a toy, and two-tone horns fitted, but the latter sound unrealistic, and will be changed. Much detail needs adding, and the roof sections need replacing as mentioned earlier. In addition some repairs are much needed to exhaust mountings and other bracketry.

Desperately needed is a supplementary alternator, as the charging facility on the engine produces only 50milliamps, the same as the fan uses. Consequently the battery works on a loss basis and requires regular charging. Addition of an alternator would remove this necessity and enable the fitting if an electric compressor for air brakes – always an intended installation.

In operational terms the loco has exceeded all expectations, and is regularly the chosen form of traction for early and late trains. It not infrequently acts as stand-in for a failed loco, often towing the failed loco and its train to shed, before deputising as train engine.

During close season public interest in the railway is such that the diesel is often left ready in the station with a coach, so that a member of the track gang can fire it up to give rides to public to save disappointment. On these occasions guests are generally invited to put a donation in the box rather than pay a formal ticket.

The loco has travelled the Great Dorset Steam fair twice, and visited the excellent Birchley Railway in Kent, Bob Symes’ garden railway in Surrey (where the Deputy Director of the Austrian State Railway had to be removed with a crow bar to let other people have a turn), and by kind invitation returned to the Manor Railway for a lovely Easter day.

I had no idea that such a project could inspire so much enthusiasm or give so much pleasure. I guess if I had I would have been too intimidated to start. I don’t drive it very often, I don’t even go to see it every week, but like the family narrow boat it gives me a warm feeling knowing its there.

Many thanks are due to Roy, Chris and Nick all of whom got cold and/or dirty helping and Giles for nudging me towards the dream and helping with the bits I couldn’t get my head round. Thanks to Mum and Dad for the original incentive and to Nikki and Kate for being there when I wasn’t, and still being enthusiastic!

 

 

Aidan F Favell

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