Tuesday Mixture

Brian & Ronnie working on a ground frame

Picture Puzzle

I came across the photograph below, showing Ayrshire coal miners on New Terrace around 1918,. in a museum in Kilmarnock.   Notice the attire similar to NE miners of the period.   Can you spot someone we know?

Tam Cowan, P. O'Brian, Tot Close & Hugh Boland
(photo copyright East Ayrshire Library Service)

Sunday at Causey

An audience for Cochrane at Causey .....
(photo courtesy of Stu Armstrong)

Tomorrow's Trains

Sir Cecil A Cochrane will haul trains from Andrews House for Sunniside and Causey at 11 am, 12.15, 1.45, 3 and 4.15 pm.

There will be no passenger trains beyond Causey due to track relaying on East Tanfield bank.   AW No.2 will be Causey pilot loco.

Cochrane heading into Bowes Bridge in February 2013
(photo courtesy of Ken Snowdon)

Our Past and Our Region

About 10 years ago, the University of Newcastle completed the Structural Images of the North East SINE project.   This provides an excellent educational resource which is catalogued, indexed and mapped.   It spans several local photographic collections, including those of Grace McCombie, Stafford Linsley, Norman McCord and Thomas Harrison Hair.

Kibblesworth Crossing on the Bowes Railway, 1974
(copyright Stafford Linsley & University of Newcastle)

There are many ways to access the project.   You may find it interesting to approach via a map of structures in your favourite locality, eg around Tanfield Railway.    This shows houses at Marley Hill pit, the old bridge at Houghwell Burn, etc.   Get used to the zoom in/out and cross hairs.

These links and many others are provided on this blog - click  under the heading picture.

Our Past and Our Future

How we appear is part of our overall presentation.   Something to strive for is shown below.   There are more excellent shots of ordinary working people on DCC's Colliery railways.

Sunderland Glassmakers (BBC)

We recommend Durham County Council's websites as tremendous sources of railway, local, geographic, historic, current and other information.    See Workwear for a few more examples.

Try also DCC's Railway engineering for photos of North Road, Stephensons, Stooperdale etc.

These links and many others are provided on this blog - click  under the heading picture.

Our Recent Past

The Tanfield waggonway dates from 1725 and earlier.   Tanfield Railway in its current form has a history going back to about 1971.   You may be interested in the photographs of early days on the  Flickr site  which is maintained by Tommy and Robert Knox.

Neil with a kettle - Pickering's Sentinel is being used as Causey station pilot in the early 1990s,  like AW No.2 currently - at that time the line from Causey to East Tanfield was under construction.

Flickr is one of the key links provided under the heading picture on this blog.

A Few Jobs

Ian removing a brake block from the Husky .....
(photo courtesy of Nigel Wheeler)

Viewing this Blog

There are different ways of viewing this blog for those using modern browsers.
To try these, amend the URL in the address bar to one of:
    http://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com/view/snapshot
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            http://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com/view/mosaic
                http://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com/view/flipcard
                    http://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com/view/sidebar
                        http://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com/view/magazine
                            http://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com/view/classic

However, please note that the usual http://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com is the recommended method of viewing this TR blog, because it usually loads faster, works with more browsers, and shows several areas which the above views omit.   The alternate views are supplied by the Google Blogger host, on a trial basis, and are not built into the TR blog.

If you think that one of these views is particularly useful, or find that one doesn't work on your browser, please email

This information was first posted on 13 August 2011.

Sunday Variety

Tom the fireman oiling HL No.2 this morning
(photo courtesy of Malcolm Parker)

Narrow Gauge

Neil and Tom working on the 2' gauge Lister

(photos courtesy of Kyle Allsopp)

Tomorrow's Trains

HL No.2 will haul trains from Andrews House for Sunniside and Causey at 11 am, 12.15, 1.45, 3 and 4.15 pm.

There will be no passenger trains beyond Causey due to track relaying on East Tanfield bank.   AW No.2 will be Causey pilot loco.

HL No.2 approaching Terrace Junction 24/03/13
(photo courtesy of Ken Snowdon)

Friday at the Railway

John updating EHSI Trainee Richard's notes ....

East Tanfield to Causey Arch

All the photos below are courtesy of Ken Snowdon, and were taken on 3/2/2013

Repeating these shots awaits the completion of the track and bridge replacement - volunteers always needed, including Sundays.

Cochrane heading past the former fixed distant .....

Maintenance & Preparation

Bill, Geoff, Steve & Dave paint bridge girders .....
(photo courtesy of Ian Cowan)

General Work

All photos below courtesy of Ian Cowan:

Rob making a point detection bar

Monday in the Workshop

Peter calculating dimensions of replacement
crosshead slippers for  Horden .....

Sunday Continued

Cochrane's crew chat at the start of the shift .....
(photo courtesy of Malcolm Parker)

Sunday Stuff

What's Dave keeping an eye on?
(photo courtesy of Matthew Pickering)

Moonlighting .....

..... at the Great North Steam Fair at Beamish this weekend .....

Richard at the helm of a traction engine

Tomorrow's Trains

Sir Cecil A Cochrane will haul trains from Andrews House for Sunniside and Causey at 11 am, 12.15, 1.45, 3 and 4.15 pm.

There will be no passenger trains beyond Causey due to track relaying on East Tanfield bank.   AW No.2 will be Causey pilot loco.

Cochrane running round at East Tanfield in May 2012
(photo courtesy of Ken Snowdon)

Preparation

Shunting Cochrane to the front of MH shed

Beamish Ad

It's the Great North Steam Fair at Beamish this weekend:

Peter Pan brings rubble for hard standing, and has
pushed the waggon onto a portable turntable

East Tanfield Work

Ian, Nigel, John & Geoff preparing for packing
(photo courtesy of Nigel Wheeler)

Packing on East Tanfield Bank

Btw, are we all ready for the forthcoming  Festival of the North East ?

Vic putting ash ballast in the four foot .....

Boat Yard Visit

Tanfield volunteers paid a visit this morning to the North East Maritime Trust's boat yard at South Shields.

Viewing the stern of the Tyne lifeboat

Monday in the Workshop

All photos below are courtesy of Malcolm Parker:

Richard building up Horden's smokebox

Sunday Variety

Youth team members .....
(photo courtesy of Malcolm Parker)

HL No.2 at Work

All photos below courtesy of Dave Hewitt, except where stated:

No.2 passing Marley Hill box .....

Tomorrow's Trains - Two Twos from Tyneside

Newly recommissioned No.2 (Hawthorn Leslie works no. 2859 of 1911) will haul trains from Andrews House for Sunniside and Causey at 11 am, 12.15, 1.45, 3 and 4.15 pm.

There will be no passenger trains beyond Causey due to track relaying on East Tanfield bank.   No.2 (Armstrong Whitworth works no. D22 of 1933) will be Causey pilot loco.

David on HL No.2 at Sunniside while running in
on St Patrick's Day
(photo courtesy of Ken Snowdon)

East Tanfield Alignment

The photos below are courtesy of Ian Cowan, who has been using the muscle man to align the track on East Tanfield bank:

This Tanfield Railway Blog

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for helping to maintain the blog, including by sending photos, while I am unable to get to the railway as often.

Secondly, I have changed most posts so that they break after the first photo, as on smartphones - please click View more to see the rest of the post, or simply click the post title.

I would like to try this for several reasons:
1.  more posts are shown, so it should be easier to look back if you only visit occasionally;
2.  clicking on February 2013 (for example) shows every post in that month, so it should be possible to quickly look back for an event (this didn't happen when full posts were shown);
3.  because there may be more clicks to different posts, I think the blog should appear in more web searches, which will increase the profile of Tanfield Railway and its workers.

Feedback would be welcome.
Thanks
Derek

Causey Cant

The photos below were taken yesterday, and are courtesy of Ian Cowan & Geoff Lowe

They show Ian, Geoff and Dave adjusting the cant (or cross level) of the curve near Causey Bridge End farm.

Geoff & Dave check the existing cant

On East Tanfield Bank

All photos below courtesy of Ian Cowan:

The Wednesday gang (Geoff, Nigel, Bob & Danny) at work on ET bank:

Geoff helping Nigel and Bob to bar rail out

More from Sunday

The photos below were all taken by Carl Chambers on Sunday:

During the day:

Coach party leave Andrews House

Over A Year Ago

We have no shots from today, so I've looked back in time .....

The photos below were all taken by Carl Chambers on "Freight Train Day", February 2012:

Sarah & George crew Cochrane
on the goods

Easter Monday Ops

Matthew, Steve & Angela prepare Twizell
(photo courtesy of Malcolm Parker)