Contents

I must start this issue by first of all apologising to you all for the late appearance of the last issue of YDR News. It was already late by the time it was sent for printing and then there were terrible problems with opening the files at the film makers. At the third or fourth attempt, I forget which, it was resolved but we lost several weeks in time with all of this. The problem was tracked down to the drawing of Embsay Station the file size of which was causing the computers to stop working.

Whilst on the subject of apologising, I had hoped that this issue or indeed the last one would contain photographs of No. 29's visit to the railway. Unfortunately my one and only visit to the railway to see it working was during the late part of a Sunday afternoon, and requests for a decent exhaust produced nothing at the chimney, and a silly headboard. I hope other members can produce photographs of it as it is a favourite engine of mine. The sound of it setting off from Bolton Abbey could be heard up beyond Stoneacre. With a background of calling curlews, lapwings and sheep it would have made a superb recording of which Peter Handford would have been proud. I do hope we will see this engine at Embsay again during the currency of this current boiler certificate.

It is my sad duty to begin this report by mentioning the recent passing of our President, John Keavey.

John, as a Founder Member and an amazing driving force for the YDRMT, will really be missed and he is, I believe, quite irreplaceable. To paraphrase an often-used quotation, his Memorial is visible all around us when we visit or work at the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Railway.

John passed away following surgery for a long-awaited solution to heart problems and the new lease of life the operation would have given was sadly not to happen. A part of the trust died with John and, whilst other founder members are still with us and there are other driving forces in the railway and there are other enthusiasts (in every sense of the word) for the railway they simply just aren't John.

So, JK and a whole era of the YDRMT pass into history and and we are all the richer for having known and worked with him.

Onto brighter things and news that JK would have loved to hear, the summer season was a resounding success for the railway! We managed to buck the Dales trend on tourism and log a massive 26% increase on the same period in 1999. Well done everybody who played their part in our summer operations. Now all we have to do is deliver the same or better in 2001!!

This 26% is excluding the 'Day out with Thomas' events and these have also recorded an increase in business, so Stephen Walker and Ian Douglas are both wearing smiles. Stephen, as Business Manager, has a key objective in his job: more bottoms on seats whilst Ian hopes to get the finances ship shape for winter when we don't earn so much.

The boost to Summer traffic may, in some part, be attributed to the regular showing of Bolton Abbey station (complete with Business Manager and dog) on the 'Dales Diary' TV programme. Just the right thing to bring in the summer business: come to the railway and see the 'man off the telly' and his pooch.

A number of real successes have been notched up this summer, quite apart from the increase in revenue. Vintage Trains using Stephen Middleton's saloons have been carrying a healthy number of passengers using the second path in the two-train timetable. Utilising Stoneacre passing loop (itself a useful occurence as it needs more usage to keep things operable) for crossing trains. Summer Sundays this year have seen Lambton No. 29 in service with either Peckett No. 9, Annie, or Manchester Ship Canal Railway No. 70 on the Vintage Train. This state of affairs has been excellent for volunteer morale; the trains looked well and were a credit to the railway.

Until this year, No. 22 has been a serviceable engine more or less since it came to the railway, but it is surprising that it has remained in the working fleet as it is an awkward little devil to work on and is very unreliable as a performer. However, its rugged Barclay appearance and attractive livery have always managed to hold my attention. The problems with No. 22 have been recounted in these pages before and I will not go over them again. Basically the engine is rough riding, a poor steamer and now with a 5 mile run, the railway soon outstrips its coal capacity. What has never been in doubt is its power.

Photo: No. 22 with a permanent way train at Stoneacre whilst the crane helps erect the signal gantry. (c) Pete Walker

I and one or two others have always wanted to know how did its past drivers cope with it? 22 lived life (to the full?) on some long, and in the case of East Hetton Colliery, severely graded lines in the Sedgehill district of Cleveland. That's best known now for being Tony Blair's constituency or the place for horse racing. It is really an area of attractive rolling countryside and coal measures.

We know that No. 22 was originally No.53 and was new to East Hetton Colliery, from where it went to several other collieries on loan for various periods. Its last transfer was to Fishburn Coking Plant in 1974. Long dieselised, the transfer here was to cover for one of their diesels going to Lambton Engine Works for overhaul. The big question was did No. 22 ever get used here? I walked part of the branch in October 1995 but no one I met walking the line that Sunday morning could remember the little engine. I visited again on February 18th 1999 and again set off to walk the line; as I left the car I met a man walking his two dogs. Yes he remembered steam, as a boy, working the line, but not a little red engine; I should look up Jimmy Atkinson in the village and ask him as he was the last driver on the railway.

I walked on down to the line. The railway is 3 miles long and goes from the site of the colliery and coke works down into a cutting. It then passed under the A177 up a gradient towards a bridge over a beck which was in fact the infant River Skerne. Curving more to the north west it then continued towards the half way point where there was another bridge over a river and then continued straight ahead towards the BR line which was the Ferryhill to Stockton line. Here the line entered the exchange sidings with BR. These were on a left-hand bend towards the south and there were three parallel loops with a main running line. BR would drop off 25 loaded wagons here or a similar number of empties.

On the way from Bishop Middleham to Fishburn I got halfway back when I met a man with his dog. Yes, he had worked at the colliery until it closed and then went to East Hetton. The drivers he remembered were Jerry Mason, but he was dead, and Jimmy Atkinson, who was my best bet. I wondered, had Jimmy ever been out on the engine, perhaps he started after 22 had gone, perhaps it was never used, perhaps they only ever used it in the yard.

I went to see Jimmy but he now works at the local hospital as a porter and was on shift work. He was on nights that week and was asleep. I met Mrs. Atkinson and she gave me their phone number and sugegsted I rang the next week. I did just that and spoke to Jimmy. I plied him with questions.

Yes, he remembered the engine, it was sat in the back of the shed when he started on the locos in 1975. They had two sheds, one with a pit in it which the fitters used and another without a pit in it. 22 was always in the one with a pit. He never took it out, he said. I was crest fallen.

'Was it never used therefore?'
'Oh yes, it got used, it went out two or three times and I went out with it.'

What Jimmy meant was that he never drove it, but when he was the shunter he did go out on it. I'd cracked it, I'd found someone who could tell me about it. By the time No. 22 came, Jerry Mason was the only driver who knew about steam locos and he would use it on the morning shift. They went out to the exchange sidings and brought in some 20 x 21 ton hopper wagons with it.

'How many?!! That's 600 tons you've got on there!' I nearly fell off my chair.
'Oh yes, with the diesels we would take 25 but Jerry took just 5 less with the little steamer.'

'You must have had the sanders on all the way.'
'Well, yes, Jerry certainly used them but although it was uphill coming back, it wasn't too steep except in the colliery yard and we stopped in the sidings before we got that far. It would only take 5 on to the teamers; that's where we dropped coal into the coke ovens, but that's the most a diesel would do, 5 at a time.'

'How did you go on, would it do the trip in one go?'
'Oh no, Jerry would stop half way'
'What for?'
'To get steam but that was all right,' said Jimmy, 'because it was by the beck.'
'What was good about that?' I asked.
'Well, we could get water.'
I hesitated here, my mind running riot, 'was there a water tank here?'
'No.'
'Did 22 have a device for getting water out of streams like a traction engine?'
'No.'

'You're going to tell me you used a bucket, aren't you?'
'Yes,' Jimmy laughed, they used to fill it with a bucket!

God knows how long this took and how many bucket fulls! Apparantly they put enough in until Jerry reckoned they had enough to get back with.

'He knew what he was doing did Jerry, he was always tinkering with it when we had it out.'

'What did Jerry think of it?' I asked.
'Well he liked steam but he preferred the diesels as I did.'
'Did you say "Oh God, it's going to have to be the steamer today" when you took it out?'
'Oh no, I didn't mind it that much. It was rough though, to ride on, being a 4 wheeler; not like the diesels, they were 6 wheelers.'

So there we have it: No. 22's life at Fishburn is out and the little bruiser actually acquitted itself well.

Well you say? Yes, I mean well. Okay, it had a jimmied blastpipe, okay it needed to stop for steam, okay it needed water, but 600 tons, my God, that's more than the Pacifics haul on the mainline, but to a man of steam with working sanders, what is 600 tons to an engine like that. How many preserved railway engine drivers would dare to try and start that lot off, let alone be capable of it. As for 22, well its sheer guts have never been in doubt.

Jerry Mason, I wish I had met you.

As most of you will have gathered, I enjoy researching the history of Industrial Railways and their engines. When S112 was purchased by John Marrow I started to delve a little more deeply in to its history. We knew quite a bit about its work at Ackton Hall but nothing about its life at the Port of London and whilst in Army ownership. There was a strong rumour going round that it never worked for the Army.

Whilst chatting to a friend Mike Wood who has one of his engines at the embryonic preservation centre at Long Marston Depot he told me that one of the drivers called Bill Cuthbertson from the depot often came down to see the volunteers at Long Marston. He drove the 50550 locos when they were new when the Army Depot was being constructed. I had to ring Bill and Mike set this up for me. Bill told me that the 50550 arrived in 1942 and that they were a godsend as up until then they had had to do with Dean Goods 0-6-0 tender locos. These engines were entirely unsuited to the work, they slipped a lot, had open cabs and were awkward to handle for shunting. They had three of the eight 50550s and they were numbered 65,66,67 in large yellow letters painted onto the tanks, the livery being a mid-green.

Photo: Bill at work at Long Marston on 7th October 1972 cleaning the ashpan out on Austerity Royal Engineer. (C) Mike Wood

One day a GWR Hall had just brought in a train of construction materials comprising some 45 wagons. As the Hall pulled up level with Bill the GWR driver said good humouredly,
"You'll never pull this lot with that puppy of yours",
"Come on Bill", said his shunter "let's show him."
So they did. They went and hitched onto the train and lifted the whole lot without any bother, it was in fact quite normal to take over the whole train from the GWR locos. When they came back the Hall driver was amazed
"I've never seen anything like it", he said, "what sort of engine have you got there?"

Bill was very interested to hear that 66 (as he knew the engine) was still about and I sent him some photos of it at Ackton Hall. "It looks like its had a hard life" he said "we would never have got away with letting it get into that state". A few weeks later I was surprised to get a letter from Bill asking to join the YDR and telling me that he trailed a caravan and was coming to stay at Stridwood Caravan site near to Bolton Abbey for a week so he could volunteer. I should mention at this point that Bill is now 81. I went to Stridwood caravan site on July 2nd and met Bill. A few weeks later Bill was back again, this time staying at the railway and he did various jobs to help on the railway including some with S112. Bill is very keen to get his hand on the regulator again and it is wonderful that despite living down at Chipping Camden he is able to join us.
Welcome to the YDR, Bill.