Probably the best day out me and Brooklyn have had for ages happened on Sunday when we visited the Modeley Trust and their Apedale valley Railway in Staffordshire. Why so special? Rolling stock like this. First world war 2 ft gauge U.S Army flat wagon in full working order The railway has an enormous collection of Narrow gauge loco and rolling stock and we barely scratched the surface of what they have during our visit even though we took over 200 pictures and 40 minutes of video The event was their annual Military Railway festival where they get all the WW1 Trench Railways collection out and give it a run Star of the show was the Hunslet 4-6-0T. This was shipped to France in 1916 and served on the trench railways supplying the front line. At the end of the war it found itself working ion a sugar cane line in Australia before being repatriated to the U.K in 2008 Robert Hudson supplied some 0-6-0WT to the British Army that were actually constructed by Hudswell Clark of Leeds. 104 was built in 1916 and was rescued from a swamp in the Ashanti goldfields and brought back for restoration This Kerr Stuart 0-6-0T was also a 1916 build but wasn't in steam on the day More soon including the 'Tin Turtles' armoured Simplex locos Kev
Motor Rail Ltd delivered over 900 examples of the ir 2 foot gauge Rail tractors, The early examples with their characteristic bow frames and Dorman petrol egines were used in nearly all theatres of conflict LR 2382 was MR 1111 of 1918 Not much protection from anything flying about! So the semi armoured and fully armoured versuions were developed and fitted with a 40Hhp engine Brooklyn likes this 1/32nd scale running on H0 track maybe? More soon
adding another Loco driven to his list 1940s built Ruston Hornsby 4wDM 'Dorothy Motor Rail were still producing locos well into the 1980s and finally shut down in 1987, This example 'The Pilk' dates from 1960 Back to the armoured Simplexes Here is one in action in Stavros in Greece. Must have got pretty warm in there with the Greek sun beating down Yep, It,s a Caboose (or Brake van, as we call them in the U.K) Kev
They have a lot of 2ft rolling stock. Loads of U and V tippers Four wheel open and flat cars Some nicely restored More soon
I didn't realise at the time what this is. It is not an original but a recently constructed replica It is a gun carrier designed to transport artillery along the 2 foot gauge lines seen with a War Department bogie water tank Brooklyn drives the Ruston Kev
Thanks Kurt. I'm sure you haver noticed from my many posts over the years that in the U.K we are a lot more permissive about what we are allowed to do without fear of getting our asses sued off! The huge amount of new build steam and diesel locos under construction, the re-opening of impossible lines (Lynton and Barnstaple and the Southwold Railway),the opportunity for members of the public to participate and the remarkable amount of main line steam running This is the link to railtour info. The on-line bible to steam and diesel main line workings in the U.K http://www.railtourinfo.co.uk/tours.html Hope this llnk works outside the U.K. If it does you will see that it links to realtimetrains.co.uk for the actual timings of each train in real time . In the U.S.A I really think you are missing out on so much potential but the corporate world is the corporate world over there Anyway, Who said retirement wouldn't suit me? BTW. Must do an update on new builds in the U.K soon, The P2 Gresley 2-8-2 is coming on apace and the pioneering LMS 10000 Co-Co group keep sending me interesting updates More soon Kev
Over here we are drowning in the too many lawsuits. If my pet flea looked at someone cross-eyed, I'd get sued. It is far past being ridiculous.