08:30 Shunt sister Class 33 ‘Crompton’ D6566 (33 048) to the DEPG yard. Depart Williton (WN) with loaded ballast hoppers and deliver ballast to Doniford (and/or other locations as determined by the Infrastructure Engineering Department).
Other workings may take place. The railway is to be considered as LIVE at all times.
Please note that the stations are closed to the public and trespassing is not allowed. During the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the best way to view these workings is via the webcam at WN.
It is with sadness I have to report that long-time friend and previous DEPG member Len Renwick passed away peacefully at home on 9th March 2021.
Len, known to everyone as Lennie, was a railwayman through to the core. He started his railway career on the Southern Region of BR, initially on steam but switching to diesel fairly soon after as steam was eliminated on the region. He drove diesel and electric units and diesel locomotives on the mainline for many years and amassed a wealth of driving experience.
After finishing his career on BR and settling in Somerset, he found he could still put his mainline skills to good use on the WSR where he was often to be seen at the controls of the DMU or one of our Class 33s.
A great story-teller, he enjoyed the messroom banter almost as much as the driving itself and he would often be found keeping other DEPG staff enthralled with his stories of life on the footplate, with no profanities left out! He was also kind-hearted and unstintingly generous when passing on his traction knowledge to our own crews.
Many will recall that for many years Lennie was infamous for having a rather rotund shape and one delightful memory I have of him during this period is when he was conducting 56302 off the mainline in 2016. I was to accompany him for route-learning purposes and we were taken by car to Silk Mills to meet the loco. As soon as it stopped, Lennie was quickly up the steps before me but struggled for a moment at the top to squeeze his frame into the doorway. From down in the cess all I could see was his backside still out of the door! I remember thinking that I just hoped the handrails would hold!
Fairly soon after this Lennie retired from his work with the WSR and began a quieter period of his life. I next saw him a year or two later when he surprised me when he turned up at Williton. The small slim man who appeared before me was almost unrecognisable with his greatly reduced frame having given up the booze and hand-rolled cigarettes which had been for so long an integral part of his life. He kept in occasional touch with developments at Williton and I’m sure he was waiting to see us running again in 2021. Alas it was not to be, but I hope to arrange some kind of Class 33-based memorial for him in the near future when circumstances allow.
Len Renwick, Diesel Driver and Railwayman. RIP
Martin Howard, DEPG Chairman
Lennie Renwick, driver extraordinaire, in charge of (L-R) Class 25 D7523, Class 08 D3462 and Class 42 ‘Warship’ D832 ‘ONSLAUGHT’. Images 2007-8 by Pat Langan and Andrew Padfield CC BY-NC 3.0
Last week, it was our Class 14 ‘Teddy Bear’ D9526 that was in the spotlight, but this week, our Class 33 ‘Crompton’ D6566 has reclaimed the top spot after having an ‘A’ exam performed at Westridge Shed, Bishops Lydeard, last weekend. This was to prepare her for duty on the ballast trains that have been running from Williton to various places along the line, delivering ballast as required by the Infrastructure Engineering Department.
Eight hundred tonnes of ballast have been ordered by the WSR for distribution along the line. The ballast is used in quantity when relaying track at sites such as at Doniford, but it also used in smaller amounts for topping up and building up the shoulders of the trackbed at multiple places along the line. Considering the length of the line, a little ballast spread along both sides of a very long line will amount to a lot ! These photos, posted on wsr.org.uk last week, say it all:
The ballast workings are set to continue on Monday and Tuesday next week, and no doubt at other times that have yet to be confirmed. Sister Class 33 loco D6575 (33 057) has been re-positioned from Platform 1 at Williton (the ‘down’ line) to Platform 2 (the ‘up’ line) to leave the line clear for the ballast train workings. D6575 remains on standby and is fully ready and available for use by the WSR.
The DEPG offers its DIESELGENservice where we (try to) let you know by advance email whenever one of our locos is called into action. In previous years, this service was used to post the dates and times of loco-hauled passenger services, but since Lockdown 1.0, we have expanded it to include ANY working. The difficulty with engineering workings is that they run under the direction of the Infrastructure Engineering group, so dates and times will be varied to suit the circumstances on the day. The webcams provide the answer – we include webcam links in the Dieselgen bulletins so you can watch the live action !
Although it is great to see these locos and their crews at work on the WSR, we must all remember that the railway and the stations are still closed to the public. Safety is the number one priority.
The hopper wagons in use are ex-BR ‘DOGFISH’ types that were built in quantity from 1955 onwards. These wagons are very useful for heritage railways and many have been preserved. They incorporate three discharge chutes that allow ballast to be dropped to the right, to the left or on the centre line of the track, with each chute controlled by the white-painted handwheels that are mounted on the operator’s platform at one end of the vehicle. Each wagon is fitted with the continuous vacuum brake so a brake van (or Guard’s van) is not needed. The smaller white-painted wheel low down on the side of the wagon is for applying the handbrake when the wagon is not under the control of the vacuum brake.
There was a tradition in BR civil engineering days of naming types of wagon after fish or things ‘fishy’. This goes back to the old days of telegraph communication when a codeword was the most useful way of describing a type of wagon with the minimum risk of a mistake being made. There were MERMAID, TURBOT, SEACOW and other types of wagon. The WSR also has several of the smaller ‘CATFISH’ variety. Here’s a photo of a ‘DOGFISH’ (well, a ‘DOGFISH’ hopper wagon, actually):
LOCO NEWS: Other than that reported above, the status of our locos remains unchanged this week, due to lockdown.
DEPG NEWS: The DEPG has been invited to attend at the STEAM & VINTAGE RALLY that is planned for the weekend of 7th and 8th August this year, subject to Covid and the weather of course. We are DELIGHTEDto confirm that we will attend and we will be bringing along some of your favourite vintage diesel locomotives!
There is a dedicated website for this rally and there is also a Facebook page so you can find out more about this event from these two sites. We will be contributing to these sites as soon as we have had our plans reviewed and accepted both by the DEPG Board and the WSRA event team. We are really looking forward to it !
DEPG WEBSITE: Our ONLINE SHOP IS NOW LIVE so go ahead and visit our store!
We have just updated our online store to include our new range of coasters. These complement the new range of mugs that we placed on sale last weekend, so we now have multiple products featuring ALL of our heritage locomotive classes. Here some photos to show you what we have been doing:
Mugs featuring your favourite locomotives !
Coasters featuring your favourite locomotives !
WSR NEWS: The WSR have announced that public services will resume on Saturday 22nd May 2021, subject to the reduction of Government restrictions in force at that time. This announcement was made in the WSR’s ‘THE PLATFORM’ e-newsletter. This newsletter has been posted on the WSR website so this news is definitely in the public domain !
The re-opening date allows us to focus on the planning and resourcing of the multiple tasks that need to be completed in order to support the railway, not least of which are staff competencies. The staff ‘refresher’ training could start as early as 12th April, but the work of the infrastructure, signalling, rolling stock and operations teams has to be sufficiently advanced so that the ‘refresher’ trains can actually run at this early date. There is much to do, but we will all pull together to support the WSR and make sure that this season is a success.
The WSR will be running another of their Zoom sessions for volunteers on Wednesday 31st March at 1800 and we encourage all of our volunteers to join these sessions. The next session will be hosted by Steve Williams and will cover Business Development.
Some movements have been planned by the WSR Infrastructure Engineering Department for Wednesday 10th through Friday 12th March and again on Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th March as follows (timings are approximate):
08:30 Depart Williton (WN) with loaded ballast hoppers and deliver ballast to several locations, as determined by the Infrastructure Engineering Department.
Other workings may take place. The railway is to be considered as LIVE at all times.
Please note that the stations are closed to the public and trespassing is not allowed. During the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the best way to view these workings is via the webcam at WN.
After the news bonanza of last week, it is a bit quieter this week because we only had two volunteers back to Williton since then to perform repairs on a malfunctioning door lock on Class 14 ‘Teddy Bear’ number D9526. Maintaining the security of our heritage assets is a priority task, so that issue was resolved first, then the loco was started up and moved back to her previous resting place, closer to the Old Goods Shed, with ‘Hymek’ D7017 in tow.
Just a reminder, last week, we had to move the locos away from the Old Goods Shed to allow access for a structural survey, but now that has been conducted, we need them back up tight to the Old Goods Shed to maximise the space available to the WSR infrastructure team who are using part of our yard for materials handling in connection with the Doniford track relaying project.
Here’s a couple of photos of D9526 from 2018, to give us a taste of what we hope to see later this year, after restrictions have been eased:
Last week, we provided some background to the pre-heating equipment that is fitted to all of our Maybach-engined locomotives. The article stated that it takes four or more hours to get the coolant up to the required temperature, but I have been informed that it only takes that long if the pre-heater is playing up !
In normal circumstances with a fully functional pre-heater, it will take between 60 and 90 minutes to warm up from cold and this period is built into the three-hour preparation period that the driver allows when readying the loco for service. Interestingly, in ‘railway speak’, the name given to the opposite process that takes place at the end of the day is ‘disposal’. A detailed account of the ‘Preparation and Disposal’ of a ‘Hymek’ locomotive is given in Chapter 5 of our booklet “HYMEK D7018”.
While on the subject of corrections, the WSR’s Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 diesel-hydraulic shunter, works number 578, ex-ROF Puriton ‘Number 1’ uses a 24V electrical system, not 48V as I had stated last week. Two errors in one roundup ? What a dunce ! Must try harder, as my school teachers used to say.
LOCO NEWS: Other than that reported above, the status of our locos remains unchanged this week, due to lockdown.
44 YEARS .. and a week … AGO: Last week, we covered the last working of the ‘Westerns’ on BR, the ‘WESTERN TRIBUTE’ railtour of 26th February 1977. Several of our readers have sent comments and photos, so we can now share their feedback:
From Neale Long:
“Although I was not present, it has been established that D1013 ran Newport-Plymouth on one engine due to a split engine coolant vent pipe which was replaced at Laira before the final leg of the tour from Plymouth to London. Interestingly, the original routing of the tour was London-Plymouth-Swansea-London but this was changed after objections from Laira who wanted to fuel the ‘Westerns’ for one last time, so the itinerary was reversed enabling Laira to service their locomotives for the last time. Thankfully, the diesel hydraulic story didn’t end that fateful night !”
From Paul Mear (with expansion from the editor):
“D1013 ‘WESTERN RANGER’ led from Swansea to Plymouth. Here’s a great photo by Brian Aston showing the locos climbing out from the Severn Tunnel on the Bristol side, having already passed through Pilning station. The two tracks are at different levels along this section of the line. The photographer is probably at Ash Lane footbridge or Over Lane bridge, just west of Patchway tunnel. By the way, the M5 goes over the top of Patchway Tunnel. The Bristol Channel and the hills of Wales are visible in the background.”
DEPG NEWS: The February 2020 edition of our quarterly newsletter has now been mailed out and all members should have received their copy by now. Please let me know if you didn’t get your copy.
A word of explanation on the current policy of mailing all of our members 4 times per year. A few years back, we asked members to indicate if they would prefer to have an electronic copy of the newsletter rather than a hard copy. This database of preferences was not GDPR compliant so it could not be copied across to the new and compliant DEPG email system.
We intend to set up a new system for member preferences and we will describe our intentions in a future newsletter, including a method of verifying that members do actually receive the emails that we send to them. Meanwhile, we will continue to mail out the Newsletter on a quarterly basis because this is the most inclusive and reliable method of reaching all of our members.
The synopsis from last weeks’ DEPG Board Meeting is not yet ready but we hope to include it in the roundup next week.
DEPG WEBSITE: Our ONLINE SHOP IS NOW LIVE so go ahead and visit our store!
We have placed orders for our new range of coasters to complement the mugs that we featured last week and we are expecting stock to be delivered in the next few days. We will then be able to offer mugs and coasters for each of the locomotive types that are in our fleet. We will add these to our online store as soon as we can take photographs of the different designs and get the products uploaded.
We now have stock of the caps including four colour scheme options with the DEPG logo and two options for D1010 (let me know if you want a cap that is specific to your favourite loco) and we are standing by, ready to ship !
Caps in four different ‘liveries’ with the DEPG logo and in two different ‘liveries’ for D1010 – these have just been uploaded to our online store, albeit with temporary photographs. Photo by Andy Jackson, Arena Screen & Design
WSR NEWS: The unofficial WSR website wsr.org.uk carries an update on the status of the replacement of Seaward Way level crossing, just outside Minehead station. The detailed news article is available by clicking this link.
Also posted on wsr.org.uk are the minutes of the Partnership Development Group (PDG) which is a multi-interest group that is tasked with looking at the ‘big picture’ for the WSR and the surrounding area. The report is well worth a read and is available by clicking this link.
Finally, there is a warning on wsr.org.uk/news regarding the increased incidence of trespassing on the railway since lockdown began. The railway must be considered as ‘live’ at all times.Engineering trains will be operating during this coming week and we have to make sure that the railway can be operated safely. With the improvement in the Covid situation and the planned relaxation of restrictions, we are getting closer to a re-opening – so let’s not jeopardise anything by reckless behaviour.
