JMK

Luckily the museum itself is considerably higher than the surrounding ground, even our site is 2ft higher than the immediate fields either side. Lots of interest from the EA guys on the ground! I think they are fed up with playing around with these little tin pot pumps on trailers! However unless river levels were dropped our pump will unfortunately never be able to pump water from the surrounding levels back into the rivers. Seems a shame when it is perfectly capable of doing so!

I promised some more photos so will start with our brand new piece of rolling stock, a box/guards van. This took 6 months to build, and whilst I used to actively spend my time with model railways... this was abandoned in favour for 12" to the 1'! It was constructed entirely of waste/donated materials and boasts some rather modern techniques. The chassis was sourced from an old mining tub. The wheels have an integral bearing and so the axle is fixed. This makes the wagon scrub a lot less when taking tight corners and meant adding suspension was a lot easier. The extension to chassis was formed in recycled I section steel that was being thrown out by a warehouse (ex. heavy wracking system). The body was then formed with 50mm insulated stainless steel panels in an anodised aluminium framework. The roof features t&g board but has been finished with a modern fibreglass roof system. A complete air braking system has been designed and constructed utilising lorry components. The grill on the side is for cooling for the built in generator that is used to power track side equipment. My next project is to build a passenger coach with an identical chassis and roof height but with an open body and bench seats. The two will run together and offer short rides over the length of the line at Westonzoyland.

Yes it is one of the largest portable boilers built by Marshall's. It was used by Thames Water during WWII as a standby boiler to be towed in to replace bomb damaged permanent boilers. It was rated to 225psi but is currently passed out at 50psi for retirement! Heres a picture of it since boiler cladding had been added.

Attached are some images from the museum event 'Steam on the Levels 2013' where we had a visiting Lister locomotive. The railway is used to transport cut wood from the wood pile to the back of the Marshall Boiler used to power the 25+ Stationary Steam Engines on site. More info is available at www.wzlet.org At this years Steam on the Levels event on the 17th & 18th of May we are having two visiting locomotives in the form of a V-Twin Lister Railtruck and a converted Wickham Trolley. I will post images of some of the different rolling stock soon. Would make an interesting model. We also have an incline with Hudson skip being pulled by a steam winch.