Derbyshire Dales Railway

Henry and Mary Frampton-Jones have been involved in railway preservation for a number of years. They have a particular interest in 2-foot passenger carrying lines. Having gathered a collection of 2-foot gauge wagons, coaches and industrial diesel locomotives, they organised the building of a short demonstration line at the Rowsley site of Peak Rail called the Derbyshire Dales Narrow Gauge Railway. At present, the railway comprises extensive sidings (with one container as the locomotive shed and a second as the carriage shed), Parkside Station (complete with refreshment facilities) and a running line around two hundred yards long. Work is currently in hand to extend the running line.

I became involved a few years ago to assist with the paperwork involved in obtaining permission to carry passengers. Although 'miniature' railways operate under a less-onerous regime, a track gauge of two feet requires most of the precautions expected of a standard gauge line. Every aspect of the operation had to be risk assessed and procedures set up for maintenance, certification of the volunteer staff and safe operation of the railway.

We obtained permission to operate in time for the planned public opening, initially using a single air-braked bogie coach top and tailed by a Ruston 'LBT' and a Lister 'Railtruck'. The Lister was loaned at short notice after the intended Ruston '48DL' had to be 'stopped' for attention to the tyres. After 'shopping' the '48DL' took up duties working the service with the 'LBT'. A combination of the demands of work and other projects I'm involved in means that I'm no longer Operations Manager and Health and Safety Advisor on the railway but I'll continue to assist in any way I can.

Click for my photos of the narrow gauge.

The Peak Rail website has a narrow gauge page.

Lionsmeet 2007

Every year, the Old Locomotive Committee ('OLCO', the supporters group for 'Lion' and modellers of 'Lion') hold a good-natured competition to see whose live-steam model can produce the most work done in ten minutes. In 2007, Bristol Society of Model Engineers had agreed to host the competition, known as 'Lionsmeet', which took place on Sunday 29th July at Ashworth Park, Bristol.

England had suffered heavy rain with flooding towards the end of July and, until the last moment, it was feared that the event might have to be postponed. In fact, we could not have had a better day and the event was enjoyed by all.

Ashworth Park is a former 'stately home', now a country park. Bristol M.E.S. have a mature, well-developed site with both an elevated multi-gauge track which the 'Lionsmeet' competitors used and a 7.25 inch gauge ground level track which remained unused (when are we going to have another 7.25 inch competitor, chaps?).

Jan was once again press-ganged into being the observer, riding behind each competitor, recording the performance figures from the dynamometer car and ensuring that the competition rules were observed.

All the competitors put up good performances but, once again, John Swindlehurst carried off the Mike Parrott Cup for another year.

More photographs.

'Gothenburg'

I first came across the locomotive 'Gothenburg' around 20 years ago. She was famous as one of the locomotives which inaugurated the passenger service on the East Lancashire Railway. Later, when I was involved with Padiham Railway Society (that's another story), we'd hoped to get 'Gothenburg' to operate the service, but arrangements fell through. 'Bellerophon' came to the rescue on that occasion. By the time 'Gothenburg' and I met up again, the locomotive was posing as 'Thomas'.

The Battlefield Line ran a number of 'Thomas' days in July 2007 and I drove on the 7th and 15th July.

Photographs