Great day out at Ravenglass

[Ohmisterporter]

We had a cracking day at Ravenglass on Saturday. It is 50 years since the railway was saved in its present form and suitable celebrations mark the occasion. Visiting locos from the Bure Valley and RHDR and all the R&ER locos running or on display.

I went to see two locos from the RHDR that I've not had a chance to see before, Northern Chief and Green Goddess but all did not go entirely to plan. A day ticket buys unlimited travel up and down the line from any station and we were taking full advantage of this. Unfortunately after travelling to Dalegarth on the 14:50 from Ravenglass there was a lineside fire at Miteside that stopped all the trains for two hours. Thankfully the Fire Brigades managed to control it and our train was allowed back, obviously the last of the day, it then being nearly six o'clock. That put paid to my plans for more photos, but hopefully nobody died.

River Irt crossing the bridge over Whillan Beck at Dalegarth.

 

Because RHDR engines are longer than their R&ER counterparts they have to be split to use the turntables. Loco and tender are separated, turned, then reconnected at each end of the line.

 

On our train up the valley there was no sign of fire at Miteside. We then heard over the radio that a train going down to Ravenglass had come across the fire and the Brigade was called out. It is easy to speculate that it was our train that caused the fire on the way up, but there were also plenty of lineside photographers, walkers, and birdwatchers in the area.

 

Thanks must go to the fire fighters for their efforts. I noted appliances from Bootle, Seascale, and Egremont. Also the railway's own fire fighting train. The picture shows the difficult terrain in the area.

 

Mods, this is the first time I have added pictures on my home computer, if they are outside the limits please feel free to deal with them as you see fit, even if that means dumping them.

 

Geoff.

[Ohmisterporter]

More pictures from our R&ER visit.

 

The first shows Northern Chief and River Esk at Dalegarth. There is a difference in driving wheel diameters compared to the third picture of River Esk at Ravenglass. The R&ER has some hill climbing to do at a moderate speed whereas the RHDR is more on the level running at higher speeds. The big wheels possibly make the Romney engines less good for hill climbing, that is why we only ever saw them double headed. Northern Chief with River Esk and Green Goddess with River Mite.

 

Bonnie Dundee was on display but is not in running order. Converted from a two foot gauge tank engine from Dundee gasworks this is thought to be too small to run an effective service on the Ratty and needs some extensive engineering work to get it running again. I think it looks smart in a typical British narrow gauge style.

 

Geoff.

[jamie92208]

Just for info River esk was built primarily as a freight engine to haul granite from the quarry at Beckfoot to Murthwaite for crushing so that is why it was designed as a 2-8-2 with relatively small wheels. The existing 1/4 scale models that were in use couldn't cope with the heavy traffic so Greenley came up with the compromise of building a 1/3 scale model on a 1/4 scale track, in a very similar fashion to how 00 gauge came about (Also due to Greenley). On delivery Esk had a further 0-8-2 booster engine under it's tender which was later removed and formed the basis for River Mite. When Greenley was asked to design the Romney engines he kept the scal/gauge ratio and produced the high speed passenger engines for the Romney.

 

 

I'm glad you enjoyed the day out. I've been a member up there since the 60's and spent many happy summer holidays up there as a volunteer till marriage and kids came along.

 

Cheers

 

Jamie

[Sam Moss]

Lovely little railway. Had a week long team building trip with work to a little village just outside Ravenglass. Crossed the railway many times on walks but never got chance to explore.

[Ohmisterporter]

Here is a picture I took of the tender of Count Louis masquerading as Sans Pareil for the weekend. I just realised the N on the tender is upside down!. How many of us would deliberately do that on a model to look authentic?

 

Geoff.

[Jordan-Leeds]

Hi I have a few Photos that i took recently over on my Blog if they are of interest thanks must be given though to the staff at the R&ER for assisting me in many ways its not often you get shown the drawings for the Big red diesel they have and it makes you realise that this is serious stuff and not a toy

http://lallratty.blogspot.com/