NYMR Back in Steam for 2005 (long)

[captain swoop]

Well, the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (http://www.northyorkshiremoorsrailway.com/)has started it's new season. It was running over Easter but the full timetable starts this month.

Specials this year include the 40th anniversary of the original closure of the line with specials running out onto the 'proper' line to Whitby. This line has just been upgraded by Railtrack and it can take 'proper' trains again, nut just the little 'regular' service of small diesel railcars.

As part of the celebration of Sir Nigel Gresleys first appointment.
Three weekends of specials including no less than TWO A4 pacific Streamliners (Mallard Class) Union of South Africa visiting alongside our own 'Sir Nigel Gresley' fresh out of a major rebuild funded by the National Lottery. They will be hauling two full trains of LNER Teak coaches assembled from various other preservation lines around the country along with our own rake of 4. Green Arrow will be coming up from the National Railway Museum and various other unconfirmed engines will be visiting.

In October it's the WW2 Weekend. This has grown to huge proportions with all the shops in Pickering Market Place dressing up windows and staff, it seems that half the towns population join in with Civil Defence Lectures, 40s Fashion and Hair styles, Wartime movies at the cinema, Band concerts and dances etc. Along the line the stations are dressed up and all the volunteer staff get into costume. Last year we had hundreds of reenactors in uniform defending stations and marching around.

Last of all is the HArry Potter Wizard Weekend, it coincides with one of Whitbys famous 'Goth' weekends, all very spooky.

Sprinkled through the year are various Vintage car rallies, steam Galas, Diesel days and such.

Last year we carried 303,112 fare paying passengers taking £4,012,851.
all this is swallowed up in running costs and staff wages. New projects and Loco rebuilds need funding from donations, fund raising events and grants.

NYMR (http://www.northyorkshiremoorsrailway.com/)

(SP edit)

[Swift]

8)
Have a great season. Sometime when I'm on your side of the pond, I'll have to visit.

[Charlie in Dayton]

Break out the camera! We want pitchers!!!

A few years back, one of our radio club members was a volunteer on the Whitewater Valley Rail Road (http://www.whitewatervalleyrr.org/main.php). We did a little volunteer work for the WVRR for a few weekends, and got permission to rig a ham radio transmitter aboard one of the cars. Notwithstanding a few collisions with low branches, we worked a dozen states and maybe a hundred different stations over a four-hour train run. A good time was had by all...

...dagnabbit...we gotta go have fun like that again...

[Captain Kidd]

Have a great safe year!

We (Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum (www.tvrail.com)) opened on March 12th. Unfortunately, the hydro test of 610's boiler was done a bit late and it was discovered that three staybolts had broken. So opening weekend was with our Nashville, Chattanooga, & St. Louis diesel #710.

610 was repaired and under steam the following weekend. I got behind the coal scoop last Saturday. Ahhh, there's nothing like the smell of coal smoke. There's also nothing like the smell of roasted hair, more on that later.

Thomas the Tank Engine will be visiting in a couple weeks so the push (read: semi-controlled panic) to get ready is reaching the home stretch. Over 30,000 people in 6 days (2 3-day weekends). Not exactly big numbers for the larger metropolitan groups, but that's a fifth of Chattanooga's population we gotta cram into 5-car trains. (Thanks Atlantians!)

On a personal note, the operations guy called me up and "strongly suggested" that I take last Friday off to get another fire-up of 610 under my belt. (It's still the slow season so we only run steam on weekends.) I'm really close to getting my qualification as fireman! I then ran Saturday, great day except for the cold! Gaaa, welcome to spring in Tennessee, 70+ degrees on Fridays and freeze your buns off cold on Saturday. Contray to popular belief, the cab of a steam engine is cold in winter. (And hot in summer.) There's this wall of water between you and the fire that tends to suck up all the heat, as it's designed to do.

On to the roasted hair. We have a tunnel on our line. It's a rather unique tunnel for America, a keyhole shape as the bottom is narrower than the sides. They say they're popular in Europe but very rare here. Anyways, the clearance is extremely tight, on the order of a foot if you're a miser on how long an inch is. That puts a rather large back pressure on the stack. The blower wasn't set high enough when we entered one trip and tiny fingers of flames were coming out of the holes in the firedoor. Both me and the called fireman reched for the blower valve. Unfortunately, his foot also found the door pedal and triggered it. I've been told that it's a rather... um exciting... experience to see the fire blast out of the doors. It is... and once is enough for me. It shot back all the way to the coal bunker in the tender. Unfortunately the fireman was right in the path. He got singed pretty good. No burns but he's only going to have to pay for half a haircut for the next month or so until the sides even back out.

Yaa, this is long. Didn't mean to hijack you.

[captain swoop]

Break out the camera! We want pitchers!!!

...


here is a good set of galleries (http://www.freefoto.com/browse.jsp?id=24-18-0) of pictures from around the preservation lines in the UK. There are 5 pages of us and dozens of pages from other UK preservation lines, some of these only have a few miles of track, others are big outfits like the NYMR. By passenger numbers and revenue we are the biggest.
Page 2 NYMR has some lovely shots of Goathland our prettyest station (Hogsmead in the 1st Harry Potter film and star of numerous TV series)
Some of those other galleries are OK but ours is best :wink:
We have strong links with the Severn Valley and the Tanfield Railway is a specialist Industrial Loco outfit.
Bluebell are the original preserved line.

[captain swoop]

Notice our lovely old North Eastern Railway Victorian Lower Quadrant Signals. They and their signal boxes somehow survived unchanged until today. I an a signals volunteer \:D/

[frogesque]

Here's a wee taster (http://www.wingsandwheelssociety.org.uk/torbay%20express.htm) for you! 60009, Union of South Africa, used to 'live' near me at Markinch. Truely magnificent when she's in full steam.

[captain swoop]

Our K1 the 'Lord of the Isles' goes up to the Fort Whilliam line every summer to run the specials.

Imagine the 'Union' and 'Sir Nigel' running full teak stock, passing at Goathland or Levisham station. It's going to be a good summer.

'Sir Nigel' will be in the 'Garter' Blue LNER express livery.

[captain swoop]

Gresley Gala went well but some slight disappointment.
For the Bank Holiday weekend we had standing room only on all trains all day. Had to use 'Banking' engines up the incline out of Grosmont to Goathland (1/49 for 5 miles) Two full rakes of varnished Teak Gresley stock all 1930s vintage. 'Green Arrow' and the 'B1' up from the National Museum at York and 3 days of sunshine.

Unfortunately Neither of the A4s were running. Sir Nigel Gresley wasn't ready in time, still waiting for it's 'Ticket' after a full rebuild and 'Union of South Afdrica' had to pull out with boiler tube problems. We sent engineers over to the Severn Valley to inspect it and nothing could be done.
When it's tubes are fixed the owners have promised it will come to the NYMR in the summer.
On balance it was a good weekend. Diesel Gala next. =D>

[Captain Kidd]

Thanks for the update. I really want to get over there some time to see some of your stuff.

So... um, 8-[ what's the chances of one of us Yankee firemen getting to throw a few scoops of coal if we happen to come by for a visit? :D

(No, I haven't gotten qualified yet. Next couple months hopefully.)

[frogesque]

Great pity about both A4s not being able to make it but it sounds like you had a great weekend anyway. I think part of the fascination about steam trains is the 'real' rolling stock that's been preserved, conservered and converted back from chicken sheds and otherwise given rebirth by the dedicated craftspeople and fundraisers who will never get to shovel coal or stand on a live footplate. A great joy and triumph for all =D> =D> =D>

[captain swoop]

You might get a footplate ride if you made contact in advance and explained who you were but you would have to do it well in advance. We have to follow all the regs of a commercial railway, we have half a million paying passengers a year, full 8 coach trains and 5 engines in traffic on a summer weekend. For obvious reasons we have to comply with quite strict operating procedures when there are hundreds of people on a train descending a 1/49 grade.
I will take a picture of our USA Transportation Corps loco, it looks remarkably similar to the picture you posted a couple of weeks ago. It looks a bit sad at the moment, it's awaiting a boiler rebuild.

[Captain Kidd]

Yeah, what I expected. We've got the same rules here too since we're under FRA regulations. If only we had the same passenger flow.

[captain swoop]

I found a picture of our US loco online Here (http://www.northyorkshiremoorsrailway.com/rolling_stock/img/usaclass2253-b.jpg)

[Captain Kidd]

OK, that was an interestig double-take. 2253 was the phone number where I grew up.

Ah a Baldwin, that explains the similarity, especially when compared to the European cabbed original version of our 610. Wow, they do look alike. The biggest difference jumping out at me is the air compressor placement.

Here's a good page on the Class S160 (http://www.winwaed.com/rail/LNER/locos/O/s160.shtml) with a nice side-shot of sister engine 2108. (Here's a photo of our 610 (http://donross.railspot.com/usa610.jpg) as she was during her Army days.)

[captain swoop]

Our 610 doesn't have a Pilot, it has a European style buffer beam and screw coupling. As for the Westinghouse pump, it's repositioned because it also has a Vacuum 'ejector' fitted for running with vacuum fitted stoc. It works like Air brakes but instead of using pressure to push the brakes off it uses a vacuum to 'pull' them off. Air braking is now used for everything but up until the 1970s Air brakes were on passenger stock and vacuum on goods stock.

[publiusr]

We really need a Bering Strait Tunnel/Bridge.

Then we in the 'States could ride the Trans-Siberian/Orient Express, then the chunnel--to London.

[eburacum45]

I think part of the fascination about steam trains is the 'real' rolling stock that's been preserved, conservered and converted back from chicken sheds and otherwise given rebirth by the dedicated craftspeople and fundraisers ...

I particularly like this example, from the DVLR near wher I live. It is a cut'n'shut of two NER carriages on a goods chassis, but it is really nice.
http://tinypic.com/4vmyc6

[captain swoop]

Are you sure that's a Cut and Shut? That doesn't look like a goods chasis underneath.

[eburacum45]

Yes; it was built from two carriages, NER 1214/2462; it has been constructed on a van chassis which has been modified with running boards. The QPV parcel van chassis was longer than either of the original coaches, so (as you can see in the middle) an extra half compartment has been added.

http://www.dvlr.org.uk/
(in the stock list)

I particularly like the round holes that have been cut between the comparments; like the communication cord, these were introduced into Victorian railway carriages following the murder of Thomas Briggs by Franz Muller in a sealed compartment in 1864. The holes in the compartment end ensured no-one could be murdered without the passengers in the next compartment hearing the commotion.

These holes were called Muller Lights, bizarrely enough.

[captain swoop]

It's very well done.
We have GNR Directors Saloon that can be hired for parties etc, they stick it on the end of the Pullman diner that operates on Sunday Lunchtimes and summer evenings. It's composed of a Full Kitchen and 4 Restaurant cars.

[publiusr]

On Christmas of 2002, the a celebration was held on the full electrification of the Trans-Siberian--complete after 74 years of work.

[Captain Kidd]

Got a question on coupling.

How is it done there (and elsewhere)? Here we use knuckle (Janney (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_%28railway%29)) couplers which are automatic. Too many people were killed with the link-and-pin system. The gauge of a person's "experience" on the railroad was measured by how many fingers were missing from not getting his hands out of the way in time. But all of the pictures I've seen of British trains are still screw adjustable link-and-pins. (But that's from Railfan magazines I've found laying around the crew lounge so I don't know how old the photos are.)

Along those lines, how long do trains get elsewhere? When I have my scanner on here, I regularly hear lengths of over 7500 foot reported by the automated hotbox detectors and that's with a few grades requiring helpers. Out West I believe they approach over 2 miles in length.

[captain swoop]

European trains use a 3 link and scew coupling. Passesnger sets use a type of knuckle coupler on modern stock, more of a perm drawbar.

Trains in the USA tend to be moving over a longer distance than in Europe and therefore tonnage is less. About 1000 tons is the upper limit for a train.

[captain swoop]

Bank Holiday running over the weekend. We have Specials out of Whitby along the Esk Valley to Glaisedale, connections at Grosmont. Should be good. We haven't had a ny trains down to Whitby for a while, the track rating was lowered to save Railtrack some money butthey finaly did the work to upgrade it to take heavy trains again. Usualy the local trains are just 2 car diesel railcars. We predict 3 days of heavy traffic and high passenger numbers. Whitby is heaving at the best of times :)

[Swift]

Happy steaming! Have a good holiday. :D