The more observant among you have possibly noticed that, with no news update since March and no website update, period, since the first of July, Mike must be up to something (or, if you're not feeling terribly charitable, nothing). June was very busy, most of the engines you may have seen on the stand at Harrogate Show have now gone, but of course that only means that another three dozen have come in to take their place. 

During the last month Geoff and I have been splitting our efforts between servicing and testing new stock, whilst at the same time trying to keep the workshop machinery busy making new engines (which, if I might blow our own trumpets, we have managed to do to good effect). All of this, however, has meant that my correspondence and the website have taken very much a back seat (so apologies to anybody who was been left waiting for more than a day or two for a reply to either an email or phone call).

Things are getting a little more back to normal now (although I can see the day fast approaching when we're going to need another body in the workshop). I have listed about half the new stock on hand today, there is as much again to photograph and list as soon as I have recovered from my touch of cameraman's elbow.

As mentioned above, we exhibited at Harrogate Show again this year, the second time I've done this one. Having kept the same stand from last year, setting up was much easier (as we allegedly knew what we were doing), we were out by 6pm on the Thursday and arrived more or less fresh on the Friday morning, waiting for the doors to open.

More pictures

I think we took either twenty-five or twenty-six engines this year, enough to keep the stand fairly busy for the three days. By one of those very strange coincidences, which I only noticed when comparing the 2007 show pictures with this year's, at the corner of the stand last year was a dark blue liveried Great Eastern engine with white cab roof (it was a 5 inch gauge "Petrolea"). This was quite unusual - I don't get many GER engines. This year, in exactly the same spot, stood the 7 1/4 inch gauge "Claude Hamilton" style vintage engine, again in dark blue with white cab roof. I'll have to keep my eye out for another one for next year, we can make it a tradition!

As usual, if it wasn't for the team of skilled and enthusiatic helpers who did everything while I ran around panicking, the show wouldn't have happened. So, thanks to Mrs P who planned it all, David N for coming and setting it all up (including doing all the clever wiring and lighting bits which he is uniquely qualified to do), Geoff for working night and day in the workshop for a month beforehand getting engines ready to go, then being there throughout, David B for encouragement, clever marketing insight and a genial, informed presence on the stand, my father for looking after people who couldn't get to talk to me (although they got a good deal, as he knows a sight more about railways than I ever will) and Martin who, just like last year, arrived like the cavalry to break down the stand on the Sunday afternoon - thanks to him I was home and in the bath by 9pm.

A continuing pleasure as I ride around the country is visiting other people's workshops - as I have said many times before, it's rare that I talk to an engine builder without learning something new.

Last week I spent two hours with a fine engineer, remarkable for the scope and diversity of output from his workshop, which comprised a single garage, divided in two across the middle, with a "hot end" containing the brazing hearth and gas bottles and a "clean end" housing a small but well-equipped machine shop - recent Super 7 lathe, Boley precision lathe with lever-operated collet chuck and a Tom Senior mill. 

More pictures

The walls were lined with finished locomotives and work in progress, the book shelf contained build manuals for those he'd built in the past - Tich, Sweet Violet, Rob Roy, Firefly - before moving over to his own designs. Remarkably, after acquiring a good, side-on photograph of an engine, he sketches out a general arrangement with key dimensions, a detail sheet for the valve gear, then builds the rest at the machines, a la LBSC.

Repairing inside for tea, biscuits and a chat, I was struck by the immaculate tidiness of his house. Since apprentice days he has insisted that workshop muck stays in the workshop, his first workshop, in a second floor flat, was built into a cupboard behind the kitchen. It was in here that he produced patterns for a full-size marine vertical engine, then machined the resulting castings. The complete engine was run on air and, finally, sold for use in a boat. Come the time to remove it, a plant moving company brought in refused to take it down the stairs, on the grounds they couldn't take the weight! In the end it was craned out through a window. Undeterred, he went on to produce drawings and castings for a compound engine of similar size and then a triple expansion engine.

My visit was to assist in a certain rationalisation of his projects - currently involved simultaneously on a 7 1/4 inch gauge Shay and 3 1/2 inch gauge A3, both to a fine standard, he has a Prairie tank on the bench when the other two are finished. Many of his projects get a boiler early on in the build - he is in demand locally as a talented boilersmith, with over thirty to his credit at the last count - and several of these appear on the projects page at the moment.

Given we are now in the school holidays, Sam had come with me for the trip - he was much inspired by the visit and came away with great new plans for what he plans to build next (such is the enthusiasm of being thirteen years old). His many questions about the engines we saw and how they were built were answered with a great deal of encouragement and insight - it was a privilege to meet the man.

I've been looking for a flypress for the workshop recently, this one popped up on eBay. It's smaller than I want so I didn't buy it, but his method of "refinishing" certainly seems to avoid any time-wasting with dismantling, degreasing, priming or any of that other fiddly nonsense, it could save us hours with engines...

FLYPRESS JUST BEEN REFINISHED READY FOR WORK

I have been up to friend Martin's a couple of times recently - once with Mrs P and again on a whistle-stop visit with Sam, so he didn't get any meaningful work out of me (as in pick and shovel type) but we did have a steam-up on both occasions. Having had my six months of gloating whilst I was ahead of him in the railway construction department, the tables are now well and truly turned - he is powering ahead, with 100 yards of track down and ballasted and a very fine slate-roofed engine shed.

Some pictures of me driving around whilst he drives the camera

Driving on the railway last week, it was difficult to imagine that this time last year the whole thing was still in the planning stage. I went up for a week in September last year after a man with a mini digger had taken out the basic trench, Martin and I spent the time putting in gravel board edgings and levelling the base - I haven't had so many blisters in years. After I came home he made fast progress getting track panels made up and laid, using aluminium rail fastened to wooden sleepers using the estimable Mr Norman's excellent track clips.

Pictures of construction over the last twelve months

Less than a year later, it's hard to imagine that the line hasn't always been there. I'm looking forward to seeing it grow over the next few years, he's got four acres to go at with plans to put in a thirty foot span bridge over a river that runs through his woods.

You see all sorts of things in this job, but this is one of the most frightening things I have ever seen attached to a (large, 7 1/4 inch narrow gauge) boiler. 

Larger picture (it doesn't get any prettier)

A soft-soldered seat warmer - copper recovered from a flattened-out hot water cylinder had been soft-soldered into a sandwich with a grand total of six stays, covered in a bit of "leathercloth" type material, plumbed into the fountain with three feet of copper pipe and stuck in the back of the cab. When you turned the tap on there was 100psi on about 250 square inches (and yes, you're quite right, that's a tad over eleven tons just waiting to crush you onto a hot backhead - bit like lying face down on the Aga with an elephant sitting on you).

30th July 2008

News Archive

March 2007 - New machining centre, solid modelling software, fixing the roof
December 2007- new lathe delivered, 7 1/4 inch progress in Dumfries, visting an interesting engineer 
 September 2007 - Holiday in North Wales, new machinery for the workshop
June 2007 - Station Road Steam at Harrogate Show, herd of Tinkerbells, Martin's railway
March 2007 - Building a garden railway competition, A Workshop in Herefordshire
January 2007 - Miniature lathes and photography, Midlands Exhibition, Churnet Valley Railway, testing small boilers
October 2006 - Updates on part-built and projects
July 2006 - Evergreens Miniature Railway, local 10 1/4 line, collecting the Pacific from Cleethorpes
April 2006 - Progress in the workshop, visit to the National Railway Museum, visit to Woody Bay
January 2006 - Moving to new units, grit-blasting my hands, shiny Romulus
October 2005 - Stamford SME, Sam starts the restoration of "Pendle Witch", Casterton Working Weekend
August 2005 - New workshop, Thurston Pacific back from Cleethorpes
May 2005 - Berkely Light Railway, dodgy boiler certificates, full-size ploughing engines at auction
January 2005 - digging
October 2004 - initial planning for the garden railway
July 2004 - Fowler ploughing engines in Yorkshire
May 2004 - Moving the workshop, a 9 1/2 inch gauge garden railway
Apr 2004 - Holiday in Shropshire & The Severn Valley Railway, LNER liveried Black 5
Feb 2004 - Refacing a Tangye slide valve, new acquisition 10 ton Aveling roller
2004 - 12 1/4 inch gauge Pacific