tackling the water crane

A spell of spring weather lifts the spirits and prompts me to face up to renovating the water crane.    It needs painting and most importantly it needs a delivery hose, or bag.   That was the 'elephant's trunk' that delivered the water into the locomotive tenders.   These were made of leather or rubberised canvas.   Oddly enough, the Yorkshire Dales is a bit of a hot-spot for such hoses.   In Settle we have Hosetech - maintainers and repairers of fire hoses to fire brigades http://www.firehosetech.co.uk/- and just along the road at Bentham is Angus Fire http://www.angusfire.co.uk who manufacture fire hoses.   Through the good offices of both of these firms we now have 5 metres of enormous diameter hose - sufficient to equip the water tower and the signal box water cranes.  Pictures later.