I Made That....

Our train at Llangollen pulled into Carrog Station and there in the siding was an old North British Class 03 six wheeled diesel shunter. Many years ago when I worked at Alston Foundry in Cumberland as it then was, I helped make many of the castings that went to make up these locos. We also made replacement bits and pieces for older steam engines from time to time. But what caught my eye was these 32" driving wheels. Each one weighed in at 10 cwt, half a ton, each. The wheel was 6" thick. What is particularly memorable about them was, my job involved cutting off the ingates and risers with an oxy-acetyline torch. Now the riser was on the balance weight where the metal was at its most dense. The riser covered the entire surface of the balancer. The wheel was cast flat. Because the cut was 12" or so deep it needed something like 200psi of oxygen pushed through a 1/8" nozzle. Oh, and a steady hand to hold the burner (cutting torch). There were no profile machines in those days and we measured things in English, not this foreign metric stuff. I got very well paid for doing this because the wheel had to be cut while the metal (cast steel) was still at dull cherry. Warm work to say the least.

We also made the brake shoes and its mechanism which you can also see here.

The connecting rods were not cast but drop forged and not by Alston Foundry.

I can truly say, "I made that," my mark is still on the inside rim. Mind you that was over 30 years ago.

GWR or God's Wonderful Railway

After a prolonged absence from this site, due mainly to my studios which were beside the West Coast Main Line,having been taken over by developers and so I was perforce removed from access to trains, - I'm back. Went on a coach trip to LLangollen yesterday and took a ride on the Llangollen Railway.
This is a short stretch of standard guage track running a regular steam service. The track is a disconnected fragment of I. K. Brunell's great GWR network. Back in the pre-British Railways days it was dubbed "God's Wonderful Railway. The locos are some real classics. None of the Pacific Giants of my LNER days here. The terrain had no use for them. Instead it was smaller, more compact machinery that was called for; saddle tankers and pannier tankers. The largest loco would have been something like the 2-6-0 that hauled our train shown here.
A view inside the cab. Notice how the regulator is set up for a driver on the right. Old LNER stuff had the regulator on the left. Take a look at "Mallard" of the "Green Arrow" in York to see what I mean.

Here is a shot of her moving down the opposite track enabling a decent look at the Stephenson's Link Motion.