Apedale Valley Railway Gala

Apedale Valley Railway Gala

/ September 12, 2011 / 2 Comments / News
12th September 2011
On Sunday (after the long cross country run from Lowestoft!) I made it to Apedale near Newcastle under Lyme/Stoke on Trent. This is the home to the Moseley Railway Trust and their Apedale Valley Railway. The annual late summer weekend event was in full swing and the theme was ‘Made in Staffordshire’ and featured examples of Kerr Stuart, Bagnall and Hunslet (Statfold Barn, near Tamworth) engines in steam.
Below: A well known exhibit is the restored WW1 ‘Tin Turtle’ petrol locomotive, identical to our own example seen in an older post on the collection at Duxford. It is seen here complete with WW1 ‘D’ class wagon and soldiers!
Below: ‘Statfold’ is a Quarry Hunslet type locomotive built by the present Hunslet company based at Statfold Barn. On the right is newly restored Kerr Stuart ‘Joffre’ class 0-6-0T No.3014 and which was making its public debut.

Below: Another fabulous WW1 survivor is this WDLR H Class tank wagon, fully restored using a recovered and restored chassis and a water tank that had survived on the Nocton potato estates in Lincolnshire. It was in use, as it was designed for, for watering locomotives.

Below: Another visitor – ‘Isabel’, a Bagnall visiting from the Amerton Railway and seen here on a rake of Hudson wagons of various types.

Below: This Kerr Stuart 0-4-2ST ‘Stanhope’ was once used on the Durham County Water Board contracts above Burnhope, which saw a chain of reservoirs built to serve the populous of Durham and Sunderland etc. It later found itself on the Penrhyn Quarry Railway system and was restored from very few remaining components in the mid 1990s.

Below: A view inside the storage building at Apedale, which housed various exhibitions and model railways during the event.

Below: A temporary peat railway had been laid and this Lister railtruck was at work on an appropriate rake of peat wagons. Such railways were used as they offered very low ground pressure, ideal on the soft peat, and extensive systems can be found in Ireland where the peat is extracted for burning in power stations there.

Below: A view of the yard throat, with main line to the right.

Below: Two close up views of the two Kerr Stuarts, Stanhope and 3014, of the Tattoo and Joffre classes respectively. Hopefully at some point in the future these might make an appearance at one of our Great North Steam Fairs…

Below: The latest development at Apedale is the near completion of the reconstruction of the former Silverdale Station building. In front of this are the passenger coaches in use, including reconstructions of three originals (ex Ffestiniog and Penrhyn Quarry) as well as an MOD Hudson brakevan. The use of original passenger vehicles is particularly noteworthy and further developments along these lines are planned.

Another site well worth a visit!