Canal News Street Organ Festival at the National Waterways Musuem 03 – 11 Aug 2013 And Gloucester Waterways Museum’s 25th Anniversary – Aug 4th

Canal News

Street Organ Festival at the National Waterways Musuem

03 – 11 Aug 2013
11:00 am – 3:00 pm

Street organs will be on display – and playing – all around the Ellesmere Port museum.

The museum will be echoing to the sound of evocative street organs as they are played in the nooks and crannies of the site – bringing a real flavour of the streets of days gone by.

And

Gloucester Waterways Museum team get set to celebrate 25th anniversary

Join Gloucester Waterways Museum‘s 25th anniversary celebrations

04 Aug 2013
10:30 am – 5:00 pm

It’s 25 years since HRH Prince Charles officially opened Gloucester Waterways Museum. Join the museum team as they celebrate the ongoing success of the museum with an anniversary party to remember.

There will be traditional waterways music, waterways craft demonstrations, children’s activities, boat trips and much more when Gloucester Waterways Museum celebrates its 25th anniversary.

The museum’s famous steam dredger will be in operation and visitors will be asked to share their favourite memories of the museum over the years.

Some Early Lines Princes Risborough to Aylesbury Line

Some Early Lines

Princes Risborough to Aylesbury Line

Aylesbury, around 1910 with a GCR local train. Originally part of the GWR’s Wycombe Railway from Maidenhead to Princes Risborough, with branches to Oxford and Aylesbury, the High Wycombe to Aylesbury section became part of the Great Western & Great Central Joint Railway in 1906  (spellerweb.net

The Princes Risborough to Aylesbury Line is a rural branch line from Princes Risborough to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England. The line is single track throughout with a maximum speed of 40 mph.

History

The line was built as a single track broad gauge branch of the Wycombe Railway in 1863. The branch became part of the Great Western Railway when the latter took over the Wycombe Railway in 1867. The GWR converted the line to standard gauge in 1870. The branch was incorporated into the newly formed Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway in 1906. Network SouthEast made the branch part of its Chiltern subdivision in the 1980s.

The Wycombe railway opened its 7½ mile branch from Princes Risborough to Aylesbury on 24 October 1864. On 27 May 1962 0-4-2T No. 1455 (84C) runs off the branch and enters Princes Risborough with the 2.25pm service from Aylesbury. (L.Sandler

Traffic

Passenger services are now operated by Chiltern Railways. The line is regularly used by freight services operated by Freightliner and DB Schenker. The trains, referred to as ‘binliners’, carry waste from London to a waste facility near the site of the former Great Central Railway station at Calvert. For this purpose, during Chiltern Railways’ Evergreen 2 project the line was resignalled with two new signals at Little Kimble, one for each direction of travel. These allow two trains to travel in the same direction, thus allowing a passenger service to follow the freight train or vice versa.Against the backdrop of the Chiltern Hills 0-4-2T No. 1455 (84C) approaches Princes Risborough on 10th June 1962 with the 2,22pm service from Aylesbury Town. (L.Sandler

There were three intermediate stations on the branch: Monks Risborough & Whiteleaf Halt (opened 11 November 1929), Little Kimble (opened 24 October 1864) and South Aylesbury Halt (opened 13 February 1933). On 3 June 1962 0-4-2T No. 1455 (84C) and autocoach ‘Thrush’ stand at Little Kimble with the 10.35am service from Aylesbury. South Aylesbury Halt was close to passengers on 5 June 1967. (L.Sandler

During the big freeze in 1963 the branch required the assistance of the Wycombe snow plough seen here on 21 January 1963 as driver Johnny Bloxham poses for the photographer alongside ‘5700’ 0-6-0PT No. 3622 and ‘2251’ class 0-6-0 No. 2289

Bloxwich Photos

Hi Stuart – try these – Regards, John (CWS)

Plus geograph info on a couple

Bloxwich Signal Box

Date 21 November 1984

Source From geograph.org.uk; transferred by User:oxyman using geograph_org2commons.

Author Tim Marshall

Permission

(Reusing this file)

Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0

English: Bloxwich Station.

View northward, towards Rugeley; ex-LNW Walsall – Rugeley (Trent Valley) line. This station was closed on 4/1/65 when the line was closed under the Beeching recommendations, but the line remained open for freight and in 1989 a passenger service was restored, Bloxwich station being reopened on 17/4/89 and on 2/10/90 another (new) station was opened at Bloxwich North.

Date 15 April 1962

Source From geograph.org.uk

Author Ben Brooksbank

Permission

(Reusing this file)

Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0

248 – Chasewater Railway Museum Bits & Pieces From Chasewater News – Summer 2002 – Part 2 – From the Board Room

248 – Chasewater Railway Museum Bits & Pieces

From Chasewater News – Summer 2002 – 2

From the Board Room

Narrow Gauge Lines – Evesham Vale Light Railway

Narrow Gauge Lines

Evesham Vale Light Railway

St. Egwin Evesham Vale Light Railway

© Copyright William J Bagshaw and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

   The Evesham Vale Light Railway operates in Evesham Country Park in Worcestershire, England, where it opened in August 2002. Constructed at 15 in (381 mm) gauge, the line runs for over a mile through the park, including a lengthy section through the fruit orchards. Passengers are conveyed throughout the year, although operations tend to be limited to weekends during school term time, becoming a daily service during school holidays.

Dougal, built 1970 by Severn Lamb of Stratford on Avon is about to be put to bed for the night. This site has four workable 15″ gauge steam locomotives.  © Copyright Chris Allen and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

 Route

Trains run from Twyford Station, opposite the country park’s main Car Park. The run takes around 10–15 minutes, through the Apple Orchard and around the Balloon Loop to Evesham Vale Station. Here, there is a few minutes break. Passengers can either break their journey here and enjoy a picnic or country walk (returning on a later train), or simply get out for a look at the locomotive. The EVLR staff are always on hand to answer questions. The train then carries on, out of the Balloon Loop, upgrade towards Twyford Station. The locomotive is then turned and run round ready for the next departure.

Steam Locomotives of a More Leisurely Era 1909 – Deeley ‘999’ Class Midland Railway

Steam Locomotives of a More Leisurely Era

1909 – Deeley ‘999’ Class

Midland Railway 

The late 993, renumbered 803, as running in 1926.

A series of ten 4-4-0s constructed by R.M.Deeley, said to have been designed mainly for the purpose of testing simple propulsion against the compounds.  Little in the way of actual comparative trials appear to have taken place, and the engines worked almost entirely between Leeds and Carlisle, which was no one of the principal domains of the compounds, although they were not unknown on that difficult road.

These locomotives were fitted with a valve gear of Deeley’s own design not unlike the inside-cylindered Walschaert pattern, although there were essential differences.  The boilers were originally pressured to 220 lb., but this was reduced to 200 lb. when the engines were superheated between 1912 and 1914, and the cylinders enlarged from 19” diameter to 20½”.

As they spent the whole of their working life on the wild Settle and Carlisle road they were comparatively unknown, and were rarely, if ever, seen in London, the furthest south they ever got being Derby on their periodic visits to works.  One, however, was tried out for a short time on the Somerset and Dorset in the early 1920s.  They did not have a particularly long life, and all were broken up between 1925 and 1929.  For the last two or three years Nos. 991-9 ran as 801-9 (No. 990 had been scrapped in 1925 and was not renumbered) in anticipation of their numbers being required for new compounds, construction of which was proceeding apace, but as it turned out the new engines never reached these numbers.

Original dimensions – Driving wheels – 6’ 6½”,  Bogie wheels – 3’ 3½”,  Cylinders – 19”x 26”,  Pressure – 220 lb.,  Weight – 58¼ tons,  MR & LMS classification – 4

http://www.railuk.info

247 – Chasewater Railway Museum Bits & Pieces From Chasewater News – Summer 2002 – 1 Editorial

247 – Chasewater Railway Museum Bits & Pieces

From Chasewater News – Summer 2002 – 1

Editorial

In recent years, Helen has been largely responsible for the organisation of the Chasewater Park Transport Show.

Canal News – Audlem Festival of Transport

Canal News

Audlem Festival of Transport

Audlem,  Cheshire

 27 – 28 Jul 2013

12:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Historical boats and vintage cars will bring history to life at the Audlem Festival of Transport.

Audlem Wharf, Shropshire Union Canal, Cheshire

The waiting area for Lock No 13 outside the Shroppie Fly pub is very limited, especially in busy times. This is a favourite gongoozling place, especially on a bank holiday when all mooring spots are taken and several boats want to tie up to wait for this lock but there’s only room for two! Maybe we should campaign for bad ale so everyone goes away !!  © Copyright Roger Kidd and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

 This festival has been getting bigger and better by the year.

This summer, more than 300 vintage cars, vans, trucks, buses are expected to join the festival parade from Hankelow to Audlem. The parade starts at 12 noon on Hankelow Green when it will proceed to Audlem through the village to the playing field off Cheshire Street. Here the entrants will be parked for viewing by the public for the remainder of the day.

A record number of vintage canal boats are expected at the Audlem Warf next to Audlem Mill and the Shroppie Fly.

The Shroppie Fly and Audlem Mill, Shropshire Union Canal, Cheshire

The Shroppie Fly was built as a warehouse which closed in 1970. Conversion to a pub, with a mock narrow boat as a bar, was completed in 1974. The crane on the wharf was “salvaged” from a former railway. The history of the mill, built in 1916 can be seen at Link  © Copyright Roger Kidd and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

246 – Chasewater Railway Museum Bits & Pieces From Chasewater News – Summer & Autumn 2001. 6 – Diesel Notes & P.Way

246 – Chasewater Railway Museum Bits & Pieces

From Chasewater News – Summer & Autumn 2001. 6 –

Diesel Notes & P.Way

DL7

Ecclesbourne Valley Railway Update!!

VICTORIAN LADY ARRIVES AT WIRKSWORTH JUST IN TIME TO ADD GLAMOUR TO THE CLASSIC VEHICLE WEEKEND

Wirksworth, 19th July 2013: The summer season has arrived at the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway and this summer is extra special as a vintage steam engine will be pulling passenger trains between Wirksworth and Duffield. Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway no.1300 in its guise as British Railways no 52322 has arrived at Wirksworth and undertook its first trial run to Duffield today in temperatures that touched 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Built in 1896, 52322 is an attractive Victorian lady who hauled trains amongst the cotton mills of Lancashire. Based in Lees, near Oldham for much of her life, the locomotive was purchased for preservation in 1960 and is one of the most attractive examples of a Victorian locomotive in operation on Britain’s heritage railways. 52322 will be the centrepiece of this weekend’s Classic Transport Weekend and will be featuring in several family events over the summer holidays and full details can be found here: http://www.e-v-r.com/summer13/.