The Truck from Above - not for the Faint Hearted

   These views from the top of the water tower show the inside of the frucking tuck in all its awfulness.   They also give a further idea of its size.

It will take some restoring but when it's done we shall have a very useful amount of storage room inside it.

The Eagle Has Landed

        The Aviemore truck has landed in Settle.   The pictures are preliminaries to show the nature and scale of the job,   It had sat on its isolated siding at Aviemore for many years and it is all credit to those involved in the removal of it that it has arrived in one piece.  

we knew that its wooden chassis was in a dire state and it can be seen that it has broken its back on one side.   Nothing that cannot be fixed though.

No sooner had I arrived and seen it in situ a FoSCL member from Settle came and drooled over it.

"Wow" he said.   "A Charles Roberts wagon with Morton brakes and Attocks axle boxes.   How fabulous.   What a find!"  

As with the navvy hut, we shall do a lot of thinking and research before we do anything else.   Ideally we shall seek out the original plans so that we can get things right or the wagon world will not forgive us.

The first picture shows some lettering on one side of the wagon.   Nothing to get excited about - it said Speyside Railway and was relatively recent.


We have already located a serial number on the wooden chassis which will give us something to go at.

Wagon on the Motorway

Text messaged by low-loader driver Brian Thornton at 1134 today whilst Pat and I were walking in Regents Park:
"On way home.   Eta 1900   Brian

This sounds like good news.   Aren't modern communications wonderful?   Fingers crossed that modern low-loaders are too!

Wagon Rolls

Keith Holyland at the Speyside Railway in Aviemore reports that our wagon has made its very last rail journey from its disconnected siding at Aviemore Speyside station to a position near their workshops where it can be craned onto Settle Coal's low loader for transporting to Settle.   This meant craning it from one track to another, then another- not without difficulty because of the state of its wooden chassis.

With the help of a pinch bar the wagon actually moves on its own wheels.   Pictures later.

I all goes to plan the wagon should arrive in Settle next Wednesday morning.

Sunshine

Nothing serious (as it turns out) but I went to Airedale Hospital as an out patient today on an urgent GP referral.   As these things go is was a totally pleasurable experience.

There were two highlights:
1)   I discovered I was the consultant's very first patient in her role as consultant.   Somebody has to be.     Jolly good she was too.
2)   A sample of my blood was taken painlessly.   When having such procedures you are never quite sure where to look.   The nearest thing to me was the needle lady's name badge.   It read Airedale NHS Hospital Trust  - Lynne Sunshine.   I could not resist asking if she was born a Sunshine or if she had married one.   She told me she had married one, for a while - but had decided to keep the name.   She went on to reveal that a fellow Airedale blood extractor had the surname Fog.   They were, of course, called the Weather Girls.

Where Did Our Water Come From?

Last Saturday Pat and I took former S&C signalman up the line a little way so that he could point out to us the source of the water tower's water.   As a relief signalman Derek was qualified to work any of the S&C signal boxes and knows the line intimately.   Indeed, he once walked the entire line from Settle to Carlisle.

One of his signal boxes was the one that dealt with the sidings off the main line leading to the Hoffman kiln and Settle Lime works.   There was once a foot crossing over the main line between the Hoffman kiln and the signal box.   You can still drive up to the now permanently locked gated crossing.   Derek told us that the source of our water was just to the north of the Hoffman kiln on the up line side.   He told us that there were two holding tanks for water which was piped along the track to Settle.   These tanks were fed by a stream that crossed the line of the railway, the overflow from the holding tanks went under the line and on to the River Ribble.

Here is an impression of the Hoffman kiln in its heyday - and lo and behold, there is one of the tanks to the left (north) of the kiln.   Presumably it also served the needs of the kiln.  The kiln was built in 1873 - specifically to exploit the potential of the railway, then being built.

The location of the tank, well above the level of the track, would have added considerably to the pressure of water by the time it had been piped to Settle - easily sufficient to lift the water to the top of the water tower.

Seasonal Visitors to Settle station

  June 1st and not long to Appleby Horse Fair.   By happy chance this was the colourful scene in the car park at Settle station as Michael Ransley and caravan waited to collect a friend off the 1545 from Carlisle.   He told me his journey this year had started in Cornwall.

In good journalistic style I asked for the horses' names.   You need to know that the black and white one on the right is called Tarateeno andthe one on the left is called Findus Lassagne.   Food for thought.

click image to enlarge