Last week I realised that I had been at Beamish for exactly ten years – something of a personal anniversary perhaps, but one that caused me to dig back through the photo files to see what some of the changes to the transport and industry aspects of the Museum in that time looked like.  If nothing else, seeing how small the resolution on digital photographs back then has been a revelation!  Here, then, I present a selection of views, accompanied by a meandering narrative of personal observations, showing some of my personal highlights over the past ten years, at a time when we look ahead to many more developments and changes for the Museum and the transport collection here in the years to come. It may also serve as a useful historical reference point for future students of the Museum’s history – I wish that such a thing had existed when compiling the various books on the Museum’s transport collections and their role at Beamish for over 40 years.  To some extent the blog performs such a function, but I might print this lengthy page (I’m writing this paragraph last and there are over 8500 words ahead of you!) and place a few copies down the backs of various carriage seats, under a few bricks and behind a few paintings!

Rowley Station

Below: In November 2004 this was the state of play at Rowley – long disused but with the station still well kept by regular staff member Bill Turnbull (RIP) who worked so hard to keep the exhibit looking like a plausible railway station and must have grown weary of the endless questions about why there were no trains and what was happening to the J21 (which is now to be restored by its current owners, the Locomotive Conservation and Learning Trust, in which Beamish still takes an interest), not that he ever showed it!  The track in the cutting was waterlogged and overgrown, as shown here, and the prospect of running again was remote to say the least.  We did tidy things up enough to operate the Bowes Railway locomotives on an ad-hoc basis, and this gave me valuable experience in operations and the particular needs at Beamish, but it wasn’t until later that we were able to consider regular steam operation here once again.

Below: In 2008 (September as I recall), in a somewhat ‘do or die’ move, a small gala was arranged featuring FR20 and Bellerophon.  Two coaches from Tanfield were borrowed, and Mike Sutcliffe sent his LNWR charabanc.  These created the core of a photo charter which paid for the event, which also used goodwill (in kind and financial) from hiring out Puffing Billy and Locomotion.  The arrival of Richard Evans at Beamish at exactly this moment, and an event which attracted over 7000 visitors over three days gave the impetus to looking at revitalising Rowley and creating a regular operation there once again.  I was concerned that we had to work towards a sustainable operation, as the previous one had largely used the remaining working life in each locomotive, all now long used up.  So we would need to sort out the rolling stock.  But first we had to address the track condition.

Below: They say ‘Shy bairns get nowt’ – nothing could be truer than the relaying of most of the running line at Rowley in the summer of 2009.  Knowing that we needed to renew both sleepers and trackbed, I approached Komatsu, who have a factory in nearby Birtley, regarding the loan or otherwise of an excavator, to assist Darren and Mark (the track and plant team and who seem to play a central role in most of my schemes to expand the railway network at Beamish!) in the renewal work.  Komatsu not only offered a very large excavator, but a team of six skilled engineers, full time, for a period sufficient that we could renew the running line starting from first principles.  So it was that the track was lifted and a proper foundation (something not felt necessary when originally laid in the early 1970s!) created.  Drainage and a cess were also new features and ones that have ensured this previously waterlogged area is now free draining and remains very tidy.  A start on the trackbed is seen being made here.

Below: Whilst the NER favoured ash ballast for its branch lines, we didn’t fancy it nor could we get it in the quantity we needed, so local whinstone ballast was used instead.  The original rails and chairs were generally serviceable, but the sleepers were all renewed with good quality reclaimed timbers.  The result was a very smart and reliable stretch of railway track.

Below: Our operation has relied, and continues to rely, on a variety of hired locomotives, usually for lengthy operational stints. Here Vulcan, usually based at Barrow Hill and which operated in both the Colliery and at Rowley in 2014 (and was repainted at Beamish) is seen on the still fresh looking permanent way, rounding the corner behind the stables.  This location is due for a good tidy, some landscaping and selective planting to improve the views for passengers.  We have booked 2015’s motive power, but from 2016 we should be using our own locomotive, of which more shortly.

Below: A long term-hire was LNER Y7 class 0-4-0T No.985 which came to us from the North Norfolk Railway and operated at Beamish for three years.  It is seen here shunting wagons, one of the more unusual activities as the regular operation has been weekend passenger running with the ex GER royal saloon hired from the Furness Railway Trust, and in action from Easter until the close of the year.

Below: Hiring locomotives is both expensive and creates difficulties over longer periods in terms of managing wear and tear and adjusting the hire fees to reflect this.  It also means that each steaming must be costed and this can reduce flexibility.  We therefore drew up a ‘hit-list’ of engines in 2009 that we thought would be suitable for regular operation and that we might seek to purchase and operate ourselves.  The J21 had already left the Museum and was also considered far too large for regular use.  Top of the list was the Y7, No.985, which was not available for sale but which we did hire for three years.  Second on the list was a leftfield option, the former Duke of Sutherland’s locomotive ‘Dunrobin’ which hauled his private train from Inverness to Dunrobin Castle on occasions from 1895 until nationalisation in 1948 (though it was little used after the 1920s in reality).  In 1950 it had been sold and was displayed at the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway in Kent, until sale and export saw it overhauled and returned to steam in British Columbia, Canada, in 1965.  Shortly afterwards it was moved to the Fort Steele heritage site where it was used very very many years, in the occasional company of the Duke’s private saloon coach No.58A (though from 1969 this was replaced by an exported BR Mk1 coach).  Through railway journalist Tony Streeter, we learned that Dunrobin might be available, and following negotiations it became ours for $160,000 (including the coach) and arrived in the UK in May 2011.  It is seen in this photo awaiting departure from Fort Steele on the first stage of a long trip by road, rail, sea and road which took it to the workshops of the Severn Valley Railway where it was to be stripped for assessment.  The SVR eventually won several of the contracts for the phased restoration and the anticipated return to steam is late 2015/early 2016.  It will then become our regular locomotive at Rowley though I expect it will do some touring of other heritage railways too!  Incidentally, the fourth locomotive on our ‘hit-list’ was a Manning Wardle named Newcastle – which we eventually purchased and brought to Beamish in 2012, a longer term project but which will supplement and provide a back-up for Dunrobin.  The coach, 58A is being restored at the moment and will join the running fleet in 2015, and in time our own NER luggage composite coach No.3071 will be overhauled, repainted and return to regular traffic too.  Meanwhile we continue to develop the Rowley operation to make it more sustainable, including provision of a water tower, stores and a pit (this winter).  There will also be plenty of work restoring some of the important collection of NER rolling stock to populate the goods yard with, so this area will always continue to see new developments and attractions in the years to come.

Waggonway

The 1820s steam waggonway, known as the ‘Waggonway’ at Beamish, was well established by 2004, and was looking forward to the imminent arrival of Puffing Billy.  Jim Rees and Andy Guy had pushed forward early railway research at the Museum and ensured that Beamish had a prime role in the awakening of studies into the subject which now justifies a learned and academically invigorating conference every five years or so.  For me, one job that hadn’t been completed but for which European funding was available, was the creation of a length of wooden waggonway, and encouraged by deputy director John Gall, this work began not long after I started at the Museum.  The locomotives themselves remain popular for hires, and we have seen the three of them journey as far as Japan, the USA, the Netherlands and widely across the UK for events and festivals.  This looks set to continue, particularly as we approach numerous 200th anniversary dates for railway history.

Below: When Puffing Billy arrived in 2005 it ran so well that the testing period was really one of enjoying the moment.  This included the first (and to date, last) Waggonway double header – seen here with Puffing Billy and Steam Elephant, driven by their creators Dave Potter and Jim Rees.  We really ought to do this again some time as it worked well and created quite a spectacle witnessed only by a few stragglers late in the day.

Below: The wooden waggonway was based on the archaeological excavation report from Lambton D Pit, where in 1995 a significant sample of wooden railway had been discovered and fully explored.  We hired Anthony Eveleigh (who had built Puffing Billy’s wooden frames and has carried out numerous other wood based projects at Beamish) to be our waggonway-wright, and prepared a base of crushed brick and ballast.  With a gazebo to shelter him from the sun (really!) he set to, laying oak rails onto hardwood sleepers (which would be hidden).  The work accelerated and a reasonable length of line was soon created.

Below: A turnout also featured, along with a crossing (which required communications with the Railway Inspectorate as it crossed a public right of way and which clearly hadn’t been something they had previously encountered – it being more a guided cartway between fields than a railway), the route curving from the gin-pit at the end of the steam waggonway out into the Pockerley landscape.  The track was later buried and sown with wild grass seed, then it was left to mature.

Below: The wooden waggonway has seen little use, but we did carry out trials on it using the late Bonnie (one of the Museum’s heavy horses), as seen here.  Note the welt trodden grass and well bound turf – exactly what we hoped to achieve when we started.

Tramway

I joined the Tramway Museum Society in October 1990, after a visit there on my 13th birthday and observing Leeds 399 on test.  At that time I was probably beginning to cause some concern to my father with regard to the way my transport interest was developing and moving far away from the Western and London Midland Region pursuits of his own youth!  At that time I scoured what sources I had (no internet then!) for information on trams, amassing a small library containing a few TMS guidebooks, a couple of tramway handbooks listing preserved and operable tramcars and some modelling articles in issues of Model Railway Constructor and Model Railways.  Does anyone remember the magnificent model (1/4 inch I think) of Bradford Forster Square?  How times have changes, and I am pleased that Beamish was part of the process of the heritage tramways coming to cooperate and move trams between sites.  For us, the appearance of horse car L53 and later Leeds 6 from Heaton Park (the latter on a longer loan than planned) and Cardiff 131 from Crich for a long weekend with us began a chain reaction that to to date has seen 11 trams from outside our own fleet run on the tramway here.  We have also enjoyed seeing 31 in Blackpool and at Heaton Park, 196 at Heaton Park, 513 at the East Anglia Transport Museum and 114 at Crich.  Many future exchanges have been discussed and hopefully will come to fruition over the next few years, though we will run out of single deckers or open toppers to move and then may have to bite the bullet on cost and complexity of moving enclosed double deck trams.  The increasing proliferation of ‘wafer deck’ trailers with heavy haulage firms should ensure that moving awkward, tall and fragile vehicles remains possible and so long may the collaboration between all of the groups continue.  Allied to this are the various repaints we have carried out after overhauls, to ring the changes or improve upon previous versions (31’s purple shaded lettering springs to mind here!).  The tramway scene has become a vibrant one and with the internet enabling ready access to information and discussion, I think that its status in the heritage ‘railway’ sector has grown considerably.

Below: Newcastle 114, following an overhaul, was repainted into a new version of the livery originally carried, following research carried out both here at Beamish and by others, reflecting upon the rendition of livery in old photographs and the way in which the format may have affected the appearance.  As a result of one or two images, some reliable descriptions from former NCT employees and a paper giving our reasons, 114 emerged in this new guise a couple of years back.  It is seen posing for the obligatory evening photographs in the Town.

Below: In 2005 we trialled a scheme to have each tram sponsored, and carry period adverts of its sponsor for a span of time.  This has largely dwindled, but the launch evening gave us the opportunity to have the all of the trams in the Town street for a ‘Meet the fleet’ evening. It included 264, seen alongside 16, which remained operational though out of passenger use at that time.

Below: Two very well travelled Beamish exhibits (and we term ‘Tramway’ to cover buses and trolleybuses as a whole operation) are Sheffield 513 and Newcastle trolleybus 501, both seen here at the East Anglia Transport Museum, where 513 is on loan and 501 was visiting.  513 had previously been on extended loan to Blackpool Transport Services, but was in need of a new home when they began modernising the system.  An awkward tram to fit in at Beamish due to its modernity, it moved across the country to the EATM near Lowestoft.  Now that times have changes and Beamish will shortly start building a 1950s area, 513 will become quite relevant here, a similar story also pertaining to 501, which having waited so many years as an awkward fit, will now be star attraction of the new trolleybus system we will be building here.  Incidentally, it must be the only trolleybus to have run on all four UK systems available for operation on – Black Country Museum, Sandtoft Transport Centre, the East Anglia Transport Museum and Beamish, where we have had a section of overhead line for many years linking the depot with the main Entrance.

Below: The first themed special event, ‘Corporations and Contractors’ starred Cardiff 131 from Crich alongside Leeds 6 from Heaton Park.  Whilst both works cars, 6 could carry passengers and ultimately remained at Beamish for nearly three years.  131 came for the weekend but cemented the foundations of a relationship with the TMS that has subsequently seen Glasgow 1068 make a month long visit and Blackpool 167 stay for nearly four months.  Newcastle 114 has journeyed the other way whilst Oporto 196 was swapped for Leeds 6, and then Blackpool 31 took over as our Mancunian representative.  Such moves have generally proved very popular though without a doubt the most popular are the Blackpool trams, which have their own following and have been very well supported.  I do like the Edwardian trams though and hopefully we can redress the bias to the Fylde vehicles over coming events!

Below: The visit by the ex Blackpool Vambac No.11 from the East Anglia Transport Museum was probably one of our highlights on the tramway, though it revealed that we still weren’t communicating what we were doing too widely as it is very much the most frequent “I wish I’d have known as I’d have come to see it at Beamish” story transport wise.  It came for four days operation following one day on test and despite some anxiety as to how it would handle our longer run and whether its precious and fragile control equipment would cope, it ran beautifully throughout, looked stunning and made us new friends in the tramway World.  It is seen here on test, with Les Brunton taking the evening meeting of the Volunteer Focus Group for an unexpected treat around the 1.5 mile circuit.  Seeing it here was a real highlight for me and I still remain grateful to those at the EATM who worked very hard to ensure it happened and supported it throughout its visit to us.

Below: 2013 marked the 40th anniversary of our tramway and was celebrated in some style.  I originally hoped to attract visiting trams from each of the standard gauge heritage tramways in the UK, but this proved to be wildly ambitious and fraught with logistical cost.  The heavy snow that lay on the ground just before the event that April also caused problems, and Glasgow 1068 from Crich and Lisbon 730 from the collection at Birkenhead were both late arrivals due to the difficulties of moving trams in heavy snow!  As part of our Great North Festival of Transport, we held an event titled ‘Our Friends – Electric’ (a play on the similar song tilte) to reflect the collaborative spirit of it.  We also launched a book on the tramway, titled ‘Forty Years of Service’ (available from our shop!) and Train Crazy produced a DVD featuring the tramway, the home fleet of trams and many visiting cars over the years (also available from the shop!).  We had a cake, parades and tried to put on a great show with the slightly depleted numbers of trams available.  It is still fondly remembered, including by staff, so it must have been pretty good!

Below: The closing out of the ‘Our Friends – Electric’ celebrations was a parade of eight trams on the Saturday evening of the event, as seen here in this photo by Andy Martin.  Two parades were carried out, one with trams spaced apart and one all in one procession.  I stood at the far end of the street to this view and it was brilliant having tram after tram rolling past in the dusk, lights ablaze!  For the record, the trams shown are Newcastle 114, Gateshead 10 (as G&I 26), Sunderland 101 (nee Blackpool 703), Blackpool 233 (now in San Francisco), Oporto 196 (in South Sheilds livery), Lisbon 730, Glasgow 1068 and Blackpool 31 (which was running on one motor was it was mid-overhaul at the time!).

Below: Some years previously, during the preparations for an evening photo shoot as part of the ‘Corporations and Contractors’ event, Andy Martin captured this view, I think my favourite photo of our tramway, of Blackpool 31 gently cruising down the Town street.  It was painted green at the time, as No.4, reflecting its long service as the works car of this number in the Blackpool fleet (the reason it survived) and which was undertaken for only a few weeks as part of its full repaint into 1920s livery in readiness for its visit to Blackpool for their 125th celebrations in 2010.  I love the stillness of this scene, it feels cold (it was!), and the passing of 31 seems very everyday and purposeful.  It is a photo which adorns the wall above my desk – thanks Andy!

Colliery Railway

Dare I admit that the Colliery is probably my favourite place at Beamish!  I lived in one of the cottages in the village for five years and there has been great curatorial work carried out to create an industrial railway system (narrow and standard) which looks to all intents and purposes just as a colliery railway should look just before the First World War.  There is a great mix of railway and industry, the glimpse of trains through the back street of the Hetton cottages, the screens and winding house as a wonderful backdrop and a superb collection of locomotives and rolling stock which we are slowly working our way through towards restoring a fully representative fleet, in operation, for visitors to observe (and perhaps ride the footplates of), to demonstrate the operation (in as close to the original as we can) of a colliery/industrial/process driven railway as it would have appeared 100 years ago.  The railway was very much dormant in 2004 and has taken a great deal of work to bring back to life, but we can now enjoy two steam locomotives, a decent rake of waggons, correct environs and facilities (such as the water tower) and the narrow gauge stockyard railway.  All in addition to the delights of the Pit Village, Mine and Winding Engine.  It is a very atmospheric place to stand and watch the action, looks stunning on a summer evening and moody on a winter’s morning with the mist hanging in the base of the valley and chimneys curling smoke skywards.  It can also be very very cold!

Below: The Colliery railway had seen a little activity in the early 2000s with the occasional use of Black Hawthorn 0-4-0ST ‘Wellington’.  This was out of ticket and semi-dismantled in 2004 and in due course was removed by its owner and is now in store at the Tanfield Railway.  Inside the shed was No.14 (later transferred to the Tanfield Railway as it was too large for potential use in the Colliery), No.18 (better known as Lewin and seen here as a dismantled frame), Coffee Pot No.1 (dominating this view) and Wellington.  Keen to look at returning something to steam, No.18 was my first choice, but No.1 was the more pragmatic choice.  It soon became clear that it wasn’t a runner up as it presented a fascinating history and a viable potential operating locomotive for the Museum.  With HLF ‘Your Heritage’ funding, some private sponsorship and the extensive efforts of a new volunteer named David Young who I had come to know, the restoration of No.1 got underway.

Below: Easter 2010 saw No.1 debut in steam, as seen below.  It featured a new boiler and had received an extensive mechanical overhaul as part of the restoration, back-dating it to its appearance as it would have appeared when new in 1871. It has become a regular performer in the Colliery and has also visited other railways including the Bowes Railway, Tanfield and the Severn Valley Railway.  Though we shouldn’t have favourites, No.1 is probably my favourite object at Beamish, having continually impressed me with its capabilities (and foibles!).  Perhaps that is because it was our first complete restoration largely in-house (or managed as such) or its totally unusual appearance, sound and operation.  Or perhaps I just like peculiar engines?!  This may become more apparent later on…

Below: As No.1’s restoration reached its conclusion, work on No.18 was well underway.  Always progressed on an ‘as and when’ basis, a comprehensive survey and conservation management plan was created to inform the work which would require extensive replication of missing parts.  Such was the degree of ‘loss’ of original material, that everything except the firebox, above the running plate is new, and quite a lot of what is below that has been replaced or extensively overhauled.  Once again Dave Young joined in with the project, whilst the boiler work was contracted out and Dave Potter completed a full drawn survey.  Vince Allen, who had carried out the final assembly of No.1, was once again contracted to pull the bits together into one locomotive, with major contributions also coming from the workshops at the Statfold Barn Railway and numerous small contractors around the region.  The work was largely completed in 2012, but numerous difficulties were encountered and the locomotive has only recently been signed off as complete, but even now is restricted to two drivers until we come to know and understand it in full.  It is certainly unusual, but I am pretty pleased with it and I am sure Dave is too!  Maybe the wood-grained cab interior is a bit over the top, but there is precedent for it and I enjoyed learning how to scumble.  The livery is an accurate reflection of that applied in 1936 and it would seem that Seaham Harbour, where the locomotive worked, had long memories to the NER’s standard locomotive livery which they would have seen passing through the town every day. Here it is, shunting the very waggons it had laboured around Seaham with for 93 years, looking very much at home in a colliery environment.

Below: This is surely what it is all about – before a large number of visitors enjoying the scene of No.18 shunting, its former driver from Seaham Hal Weetman takes charge of the loco (as if he’d never been away!) and spends a few happy hours recalling the job he hadn’t done since 1969.  An important moment, I felt, for Hal, the Museum and for me.

Below: I have been accused of modelling in full size, and this may well be true!  Needing a water supply for the locomotives in the Colliery, I drew up a water tower and coaling stage that was based on downloading from my head the many hours spent staring at photographs of industrial railways in the north east.  Good fun!  The tank to be fitted was an egg-ended boiler, recovered from a farm in Northumberland and which when I saw it (inside a byer) cried out ‘water tank’!  The brick pillars were designed to differentiate from the stone and brick mixed platform to suggest they had been built at different times, and the substantial wooden coaling stage was created from railway sleepers and strongly buttressed (with corner plates from old wagons re-used) to further enhance this effect.  The same design has been greatly expanded and strengthened for the Rowley tower and stage, which are due to be completed this winter.  Incidentally, I did build a model of this (in 7mm scale), albeit with a square tank in place of the egg-ender.

In the background No.5 (South Durham Malleable Iron Company No.5) watches in the background, awaiting its turn for restoration and a return to use at Beamish…

Below: I began my railway volunteering on a narrow gauge railway in Cheshire (in 1995 I think).  Furthering my father’s worries, I had developed a real interest in industrial narrow gauge, and as we developed the story at Beamish, opportunity arose to create a truly industrial railway to serve initially a contractors display and later as a colliery stock yard and surface lines – of which there were very many miles in the north east, not to mention the numerous brick lines, factory systems and quarry railways.  Graham Morris is well travelled with his Kerr Stuart Wren Class ‘Peter Pan’, and has visited both the temporary and permanent narrow gauge lines at Beamish.  It is seen here working in conjunction with a stone crusher, itself driven by traction engine ‘Mary Margaret’.

Below: In 1995, the idea of having a Quarry Hunslet to potter about with would have seemed like a dream come true – but true it has become!  We have Andrew Neale’s ‘Edward Sholto’ based at Beamish and this year, following some work to the injectors, it has become something Matt or I like to steam whenever the excuse arises!  It is seen here hauling rolling stock from the Ffestiniog Railway – again, who would have thought this a few years ago?! Our little railway system continues to expand and there is a master plan for its ultimate extent.  We have also started to offer footplate rides for visitors, who greatly appreciate the opportunity to ride on the footplate and tick something off the bucket list!  This feature forms a core part of the future development of the narrow gauge line and I think will become a popular attraction.

Below: We’ve done rather well out of repatriations of UK locomotives.  We’ve seen Dunrobin earlier, and Edward Sholto spent many years in the USA.  Two rather special locomotives that arrived in 2012 are Ogwen and Glyder, both ex Durham County Water Board and later Penrhyn Quarry before being sold and shipped to the USA in 1965.  They were immediately stored and eventually became the property of Martyn Ashworth and Graham Morris.  We were delighted to offer somewhere to display them before their owners restore them, and the pair arrived directly from their shipping container and were placed onto track ready for movement into the Colliery Engine Works.  They have proved immensely popular and are the engines I have had most enquiries about.  We will quite miss them once they move on, but hopefully they can take part in a reunion of DCWB locomotives here one day in the future.

Below: This is one of my all-time favourite photos taken at Beamish – when we had Baxter on loan from the Bluebell Railway, working alongside Coffee Pot (they worked together at the Dorking Greystone Lime Company’s Betchworth Quarry), complete with the chaldrons, I felt that we had made it – an engine from a ‘big railway’, a recreation of a historic pair and a rake of waggons that couldn’t be matched anywhere else, all against a backdrop that couldn’t be more suitable and that weekend the sun shone and we beat our own records for a transport festival.  The Museum was getting used to steam/transport events by then too and people were starting to buy-in and want to be involved.  We’ll have a look at events later, but for now this is a scene to enjoy, as I do every day as I have a print of it on the wall above my desk!

Road Steam

Beamish has operated a road steam display on and off for many years, for some time using a Mann steam tractor.  But by the early 2000s this had ceased to operate and road steam was restricted to a weekend once a year, which as heavily marshalled and externally organised.  Not entirely satisfying and the parades always ran late and brought the site to a stand!  The team who operate Marshall traction engine ‘Mary Margaret’ (see next photo) and I got to know each other in 2008 and as a result of this, and the addition of working road steam to Beamish’s collection, we have operated road steam regularly throughout the years.  The two miles of internal roads are free of modern traffic and have proved a pleasant alternative to the public highway for engine owners and we have had several based here over the years.  Our events also make extensive use of such engines too and a select band are allowed to regularly foray around the site.  We are currently building a road mender’s/contractor’s yard which will house the Museum’s collection of road making equipment (including steam and motor rollers) as well as items on loan from the Road Roller Association, Leeds Museums and some private owners.  This will open in 2015 as a new attraction and will be the base for regular steam activity on the roads around the Museum.  I can’t wait!

Below: Built in 1889, Michael Davison had his Marshall traction engine ‘Mary Margaret’ comprehensively restored, making its debut in 2008.  It made its first appearance at Beamish in the September of that year, and has been semi-resident ever since, widely travelled on the rally scene and regularly operated at Beamish by a dedicated team of enthusiasts and enginemen.  It is exactly as a child would draw a traction engine don’t you think?  Always popular and capable of ticking over silently, it is always good to see (or rather hear, as it has a distinct jangle from the gears and straked wheels) around the Museum.

Below: The Marshall, even now, continues to impress with its haulage prowess and sure-footedness.  I wish this photo had sound, as the engine and agricultural ensemble roars up Pockerley Bank (in top gear I recall) – it’s exhaust ‘shooting pigeons’ as its driver, Mike, here observed!

Below: We reawakened our own road steam operations by borrowing this little Fowler T3 steam roller named ‘Fiddler’.  It was repatriated from its owner’s premises in France and received a light overhaul, but which included re-making the wooden inserts that fit between the rear tyres and rolls on this engine.  Unfortunately it was not a relationship that flourished and it was returned to its owner and I believe was later sold on, however it provided me with a good grounding in road steam and also enabled us to trial some features at events that have endured.  The bundle of sticks tied to the smokebox was inspired by a photograph of a sister engine carrying lighting-up wood in this manner while in service.  A nice touch I thought!  I also discovered the bundle recently inside one of the stores here, so the idea may be re-kindled (excuse the pun!) on Rambler…

Below: We met Rambler, a 1931 built Fowler single roller while it was owned by Guy Rutter and it was a fairly regular attendee at events here.  We were looking for our own engine, of docile behaviour and which could be used around the Museum (so a roller was preferred).  Some external funding became available and we were able to purchase Rambler, which has been at Beamish ever since and is a lovely engine to work on.  It is just completing a ten yearly overhaul and with its steam test imminent it will rejoin our working pool of engines and I hope that in 2015 we can resource an operation that will see it in steam for a couple of days a week – we have a lot of potholes around the site and so filling and rolling  them as something the visitors can enjoy watching would seem to be the sensible way of tackling them!

Transport Festivals

I have already mentioned the previous rather limited transport activity at the Museum, but as part of the huge growth over the last six years, we have transformed our special event calendar from two days a year to 20+ days plus regular weekends of heightened activity.  Our transport festival, each April, with the highlight ‘Great North Steam Fair’, has become something of a crown jewel in the event calendar and we put a huge effort, in partnership with some of the Friends of Beamish team, to create a truly spectacular event with a wide variety of working exhibits travelling around the site or carrying out traditional activities in the Colliery, Farm and so on.  We are very selective over what we invite, to keep the quality high and the event manageable, the result being large numbers of visitors attending and many new friends in the movement made – we know there are people who want to bring exhibits now (rather than us having to twist their arm!) and whilst the event is certainly tiring and quite challenging to put on and run smoothly, it is something I always think I would like to attend as an exhibitor or visitor if I were looking in from the outside.  There are numerous galleries on this blog of previous events, so do look there to get a flavour of what we do, but here is a small sample to give a feel for the scale and spectacle and I do think we have become a leader in the Museum field for putting on such a show.

Below: The mini ‘Geared Engine Gala’ featured Coffee Pot, Blue Circle and Sir Vincent (the latter two being Aveling & Porter Traction Engine locomotives) on the Colliery railway.  It enabled some interesting operation and the inevitable line-up of really quite unusual motive power!  Themes are usually evident in each event, but not so as to constrain it.  Usually several themes are possible and generally go down well for those in the know, and with the visitors who express appreciation at seeing exhibits in context.  This really isn’t an everyday scene!

Below: This is one of the earlier steam fairs – note the temporary contractors railway to the bottom left and also Coffee Pot mooching about on the standard gauge line.  It was scenes like this that cemented the pattern of operation – we have two miles of roads, we allow exhibitors free access to these and encourage them to travel about at will.  This creates period traffic jams in the Town, lovely open road motoring between centres and great cameo scenes where vehicles naturally tend to congregate (wherever tea is available usually!).  The mixture of exhibits, which includes trams and trains, is unique and I hope we continue to build our reputation in this regard – I would like us to be one of the top five vintage events in Europe – not for size, but for context, quality and variety – come and see us next April to see if you agree!

Below: Rather than labour the point that we are rather pleased with how our events and festivals are turning out, here are a few photos from just one day of one of our steam fairs (GNSF April 2014) to show just some of the variety that has become the ‘norm’.

Photo Charters

Before 2004 Beamish had hosted a small number of charters, but keen to develop an income stream to support events/loans/hires, we embarked on them in a big way from about 2008 onwards.  Most of the trams have featured, many visiting exhibits too, and still now there are numerous other scenarios that we know photographers are keen to cover, from a tram in the street at night to a grey misty day with an industrial locomotive lurking behind the cottages in the Colliery and all else between.

Below: A familiar scene from many charters as we shiver our way through a cold evening!  The photographers bring their own lights and several scenes are set up and posed for quite lengthy durations whilst multiple long-exposure views are captured.  Sometimes we pose, sometimes we eat chips, but every time we are entertained by the new appearance Beamish can take on after dark (I lived on site for five years and so managed to oversee all of these charters, and every one was different – and cold!).

Below: Andy Martin, a former member of staff at Beamish, has a particular love of the dark, and all manner of photography that takes place at night!  Here are some of his views, bucking the trend for highly illuminated scenes and finding a different angle on the regular shots. Andy later went on to rediscover the art of wet plate photography, which has featured regularly on this blog and which continues to amaze and delight those who see it and imagine the scenes recreated are not actually from the past.

Below: The repaint of Gateshead 10 into it’s BR guise as No.26 (carried for its second life, a decade of operation on the Grimsby & Immingham Electric Railway) proved to be one of the most popular subjects for charterists.  This photo was, however, taken for our own amusement, after I purchased a set of photos on eBay which included the black and white photo below this one – the similarity of the Electric Railway to our Tramway was remarkable, and so with Andy and Stuart Jennings, this photo was set up to try and recreate the original as closely as possible – quite uncanny isn’t it?!

Below: One person deserves particular mention when it comes to photo charters at Beamish – Stuart Jennings, one of our Tramway Supervisors and seen here contemplating the scene as Blackpool 304 (which visited us in the winter of 2012/13 poses for the ensemble.  Stuart has endured standing stock still for many minutes at a time in often quite inhospitable conditions on many occasions now, and still volunteers to crew during these activities, no matter how prolonged they can become!

The RHEC

About three years ago I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to develop the Museum’s maintenance and workshop functions.  The former was very much reactive and the latter very basic – barely a working lathe and pillar drill available for a team which relied on the hard learned skills of time served and skilled men.  Also luckily, we attracted some funding from the Reece Foundation and so were able to create a restoration centre that befitted Beamish’s status and meant that we could meet and expand our objectives in this regard.  The result was the Regional Heritage Engineering Centre (we call it the RHEC – ‘wreck’!).  It is a multi-function facility, with numerous shops for specific trades and which I do now wonder how we ever did without it!  The staff too have changed over the years as the older generation retired, and we have been able to build the team to include a diverse range of skills.  Tony Vollans, well known in railway carriage restoration circles, joined the team as the RHEC Engineer, and his first job was to convert various barns and spaces into insulated, well lit (and in some cases, heated!) workshops.  We are very proud of the staff in the team, the facility and the work we do in it, and our ambitions have been bold – including heavy overhauls, reconstructions and even building a new steam locomotive.  The RHEC marries the efforts of staff and volunteers, in a shared space, and common objectives.  This is one of the biggest changes and whilst at times a bumpy road, we now have a great team and are producing some wonderful restoration work.  Here I have chosen just a few of the projects that illustrate the role and potential of the RHEC…

Below: We’ve met Dave Young before, in the section on the Colliery Railway.  Here he is with the ‘Steam Mule’, largely of his on making and done to the most feeble sketches and ideas from me!  We were given the boiler, the chassis was a design I based on a small blacksmith made portable engine observed in ‘Steam Engine Builders of Norfolk’ and the engine was reclaimed from something found deep in the stores.  The engine proved so unsatisfactory (not least its wooden piston!) that Dave rebuilt it entirely, on traditional principles and with castings poured from his own patterns.  Only a pocketful of components of the original survive, the rest is new, lovely and includes all the features an engine operator at Beamish will encounter on the full sized thing  – it has an injector, hand pump, steam pump and crankshaft pump; the regulator is a locomotive type; it is fitted with a reverser and the blast pipe can be bypassed to show the effect of draft on a fire.  The name?  Well, it is similar to the logging Steam Donkeys used in Australia and Canada in particular, so it is something like this but certainly no racehorse – so the ‘Steam Mule’ it became!

Below: As Dave and I reached the conclusion of No.18’s restoration, we turned our attention to our next collaboration. We both had an interest in ‘Samson’, built in 1874 by Stephen Lewin (who built No.18) and which worked on a tramway to the south of Weardale.  It was scrapped in 1904 but may have been out of use for some time, and only a single photograph (a side elevation) of it exists.  In addition, two engravings (of dubious accuracy) and one description are available.  So not a lot to go on with, but enough!  One thought was to make a large scale model, but there is little point given the full size engine is so small!  The result was a tentative start to see if the project was possible. I was keen, not only from the creation of Samson point of view but that it would test our new RHEC and the machine shop in particular, identifying what we needed and opening the gates to other projects that were to pass through the works.  To this end it has worked very well.  Dave is the draughtsman, pattern maker and engineer and whilst we are using some contract input, he can very much be known as its maker (it says so on the cast fire surround!) and so was very proud the day the engine unit was turned over on air, as shown below.  We hope to finish it in early 2015, whereupon it will join the working roster on the Colliery narrow gauge railway.  Then what will Dave and I do?  I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that as he is in his late 70s, enjoying the fruits of his labour would be appropriate but I am also sure the call of the workshop will be too strong to resist and so the RHEC will continue to turn out some extraordinary engineering.

Below: One project I could have illustrated was the nut and bolt restoration of a 1925 motor roller, but this is well covered on this blog and so I chose something more mundane for this photo – the overhaul and repaint of our hard working and long suffering replica B type bus.  This work is bread and butter and can now be carried out in-house (though we contract the painting to a specialist in this field, Phil Anderson, who has painted many of our vehicles and trams).  The fitting shop can tackle the mechanical side, the joinery shop looks after the body and the whole thing gelled together in the Erecting Shop – which in this view looks very clean and tidy! Work like this is becoming very much the norm for the RHEC team, which I think is a real credit to them.

Below: It seems appropriate that one of the first projects through the RHEC was the construction/reconstruction of a Londonderry chaldron waggon! It ties the RHEC in with the north east waggon-wrighting tradition, as well as showing how modern machinery and a new generation are equally up to the task as their forebears.  This waggon was produced for display on the A693approaching the Museum, where it stands today as part of he corporate image of the Museum, which uses the chaldron waggon as its icon.

Below: The latest project completes is this Showmans Living Van, restored from a derelict hulk in around six months and fitted out with electricity and a working stove to enable its use as a staff base at our Fairground.  The clerestory roof is supported on new framework, the whole re-canvassed and the doors and windows renewed or rebuilt.  The belly boxes contain drawers to contain fairground consumables and the whole is topped off with a Phil Anderson paint job.  As I say, the team are starting to make this sort of work look like an ordinary day!

Looking ahead to the next ten years…

If you have got this far – well done!  It occurs to me too that the blog is now well over six years old and now houses a wealth of material relating to the transport & industry collections, projects and operations at Beamish over that period.  I haven’t counted the numbers of posts of photos, but it must be a fair few now!  I also intend to expand the stocklist info available as well as trade catalogues, as and when time permits.

So, that’s ten years, what about the next ten?  We have some exciting plans for the next five years of development, the most relevant section of which to this post is the construction of a 1.5 trolleybus route complete with trolleybuses, a new bus depot and creation of a supporting cast of motor buses and accessible buses.  We can also look forward to the completion of Samson and Dunrobin, our Ruston Portable engine (for a sawmill) and the outshopping of Sheffield tram 264 – which has been absent for something like 12 years now.  The road mender’s depot and a gradual increase in transport activity around the site are in hand and the narrow gauge will expand to offer footplate rides and perhaps shunting challenges to corporate groups.  In the longer term I would love to see No.17, No.5 and Newcastle steam; the NER luggage composite return to traffic and a restoration programme for our NER rolling stock collection.  We have Gateshead tram No.52 to restore, and now Blackpool 284.  The Dodge VK bus and Daimler lorry are things that would add great appeal to the working road vehicle collection and the RHEC could always do with being bigger.  Extending the line at Rowley is certainly a possibility and there is often talk of creating branches for the tramway.  Perhaps these take us beyond ten years, but it is certainly a fact that we will never lack ideas and inspiration for developments of the visitor experience in this regard!

We also need to face up to the challenges of sustainability – ensuring we have staff with the skills needed to ensure we can keep running and restoring, that we anticipate the degradation of vehicles through our maintenance systems and can ensure we mitigate against the inevitability of age, wear and tear.  Some of the trams are over 100 years old now, Lewin and Coffee Pot combine to nearly 250 years of age, and that’s just those two!

Which all means that there is plenty to do and plenty to look forward to.  As ever, you can find the latest news on this blog, and I do urge you to come and see what we do in person – the Museum relies on admission and trading income, so the money you spend at the door or in the shop is what we use to pay for the work that you see being carried out here.  It is also worth remembering that this is just one department, albeit quite a large one (when operations are factored in), and that teams are similarly beavering away on collections management, rural life, social history, capital development, marketing and the administration of it all.  In 2004 the future was by no means secure and the Museum faced a difficult time ahead, but the pain meant, ultimately, strength and we are now well equipped to meet the challenges of the future, in what must surely be one of the best museums/heritage attractions in the UK.

And finally…  A couple of people observed that I seldom feature on the blog myself – that’s fine, I like the anonymity and really do enjoy reporting on the skills and passions (and consequent accomplishments) of the team I work with.  But here is a photo which I don’t mind, taken on film by Andy Martin and which, if very self indulgently, captures a moment when I really did feel that the hard work was beginning to pay off…!!!

Ten years – that’s quite a long time!

Paul Jarman

Assistant Director – Transport & Industry

November 2014