Hampshire Area Garden Railway Group (Incorporating the Hampshire area of the Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers and the Southdown Railway Co.) Associate members of Fareham & District Model Railway Club

July 2015

Hello Everyone: Here we go with the July 2015 Newsletter.

Pretty short newsletter this month as I’ve been out playing trains in the sunshine.

Aside from the progress on the CSLR which now boasts a complete circuit of the garden, ballasting and track fixing/fettling moves forwards and I’ve been able to run a steam train for the first time in 20 months.

We travelled with a contingent to visit Ralf Műhlbichler and his 45mm gauge line, the photos show the variety of stock we were able to run.

Ralf models in 7/8th’s scale and his engines and stock are therefore much modified but very finely detailed.

The first picture shows his BO-BO diesel which features radio control and sound and you may be able to see in the picture that the driver in the cab always faces the direction of travel thanks to some clever servery and linkages. Ralf says the driver is very accommodating although he always answers questions with a “No”…

You can also see a Regner 0-6-0 tender loco altered to suit 7/8th’s and detailed tipper cars made by Ralf for his feldbahn. This loco has a modified Regner boiler and burner to suit the model which took some work to get the burner stable but now produces plenty of steam.

The visitors (ie us) took along examples of 1:22.5 scale in the form of a Regner Hartz 2-10-2 with detailed LGB/Chinese stock - these have had scale bogies and wheels fitted, the Chinese coaches being resprayed and custom decals applied. Representing 1:19 scale is the CSLR stalwart Lady Anne class #4 “The Chief” and SDFR #22 “Mallard”. Also appearing is a Regner Stainz: the level of detail on the Regner models is quite outstanding when compared to the other proprietary examples.

Whilst in the area we visited a couple of museums where we were able to get close up and even clamber on the exhibits in some cases. The first museum was in Speyer and is a huge complex containing all manner of technical exhibits from submarines to the Russian equivalent of the Space Shuttle, all open for examination. There was a great deal of Railwayana too, the pictures showing a narrow gauge 0- 8-0 Austrian tank loco that appeared mostly complete but clearly a restoration candidate. For comparison, there was also a Chinese QJ class loco – if you look carefully you can see our kleiner Englishman sitting by the front pilot.

An insert here from Harry Cullen who offers a wagon and a coach for sale. Harry doesn’t know what make they are, but they are resin with plastic axleboxes and plastic centre wheels with metal tread. Asking £10 for the guard's van and £5 for the coach, Harry will bring them to the next meeting for viewing and/or sale.

A little news on a project I’ve learned of involving the VoR and the Bala Lake Railway. A locomotive owned by Phil Mason (who comes from Eastleigh I believe) which will hopefully be running at Bala later this year is a Kerr Stuart Sirdar class tank engine, “Diana”. My interest sparked here as I’d seen that a Sirdar class locomotive was used during the construction of the Leek and Manifold and that loco had a long and varied career on constructions around the country. Some history of “Diana” follows: built in 1909/10 as part of a stock order of 6 Sirdar 0-4-0 locomotives so later than the L&M example, she was supplied new to The Home Grown Timber Committee in 1917 to operate on the reopened Kerry Tramway near Newtown in Central Wales, hauling timber to the sawmills for use as pit props and for the war effort. She was crewed mainly at this time by German prisoners of war.

Following the rundown of operations at Kerry, she was sold by E.Longhurst and Sons at Kerry Sawmills to Oakeley Quarry at Blaenau Ffestiniog and was on site by December 1925. Whilst there, she gained the name DIANA which was painted on the tank sides.

Following the introduction of a Ruston diesel, she was sold in 1942 to a dealer in Harlech called W. O. Williams. It is unclear if the locomotive stayed at Oakeley or was moved to Harlech. However, the locomotive was purchased by The Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry in 1945 and it is recorded as being there by 16th July 1946.

The boiler was declared unsafe by 1950, so she was shunted away into a shed where she remained until 1963 when she was purchased by Graham J Mullis and moved to his railway near Droitwich, Worcs. with Una and Eigiau.

When that railway was closed and the assets sold off, most of the rolling stock including Diana was bought by Hills and Bailey at Llanberis and she moved there in 1970. She was stored at times in the tunnel and outside the Fire Queen shed.

Diana then moved with Tony Hills to his new base at the Brecon Mountain Railway in 1976.

She was purchased by the Davies Brothers in 1978 and was moved to their home in Clydach near Swansea in 1981. Much work was undertaken here by the brothers, with other works being carried out by Alan Keefs, Bartletts and the Talyllyn Railway. By 2005, work on the loco was proceeding well when sadly, following the death of one of the brothers, Dennis, the remaining brother, was in ill health. He continued to carry out work on Diana as and when he could, making steady progress, but sadly with the locomotive initially in a polytunnel, which disappeared one windy night, and subsequently in the open, the condition of the locomotive slowly deteriorated until his death.

In February 2014, the locomotive was purchased by its current owner, a long time narrow gauge enthusiast and volunteer at the Talyllyn Railway, and following assessment in Hampshire, the decision was made to begin the restoration again from scratch. The locomotive moved to the Vale of Rheidol workshops in Aberystwyth for return to as near to original ‘as supplied’ condition as possible.

As you can see from the picture right, restoration is moving along well with many components replaced, Diana is one of only two Sirdar Class locomotives still know to survive, the other being a much modified 2-4- 2 version saved as a national monument and preserved in Namibia South Africa.

Finally for this edition, one roving reporter WDB-J spent time on the WLLR and the WHR last month and seems to have had a real good time about it! Locos that bend are one of his passions therefore being able to check up on Monarch (left) and a Garratt #87 in the same week must have been almost too much ;-)

I do hear that the WHR have now taken delivery of yet another NG-G16 bringing in total the number of these Garratts to five – nos 87, 109, 138, 140 & 143 on the railway, although only three are presently serviceable. The blue one, #87 shown was repatriated from South Africa and although a Beyer- Peacock design was built by Cockerill, a Belgian company.

Countess and Joan were in steam on the WLLR and I couldn’t resist this picture of the pair together.

We’re taking Southdown to the Llanfair Gala this year (September). Always a good show where the real trains are running just along the road from the garden railway show.

I’ve a rake of three four wheel coaches in 32mm that will be for sale this Friday, from the Peter Gault collection, plus some small resin buildings if you are interested. The coaches appear to be from Brandbright kits and are nicely assembled and painted with decals and handles applied.

We also have on offer a large quantity of Tenmille 32mm track. In yard lengths, most is straight but with some curved to varying degrees there are 75 pieces all in very good condition, plus eight sets of Peco points. The track is being offered at £1 per length so let me know if you are interested (I won’t carry to Portchester but can take your needs on the night.

(Coaches look wobbly as they are 32mm and would only run a bit bumpily on my 45mm track!).

Details of any steaming sessions you would like me to publish can be done so via the newsletter or I can email out details to the group if notice is short.

Happy Steaming!

Paul

If you want to contact me, my email is [email protected] The next meeting will be at Portchester on July 10th and then August 14th, as ever the second Friday of the month from around 8pm.

Please contact myself or William if you need 16mm Association boiler testing, so that we can arrange a suitable time and place.