The Eimco 24 is a larger version of our Eimco 12B rocker shovel which has been restored to working order at Lea Bailey Light Railway. This particular example has been stored outside for several years and is in need of restoration. Other than the operator’s platform and guard rail, the machine is complete. The air hoses and steel cables will need to be replaced with new ones and the bucket drive chain will require some work to free it off. Until our volunteers have had a chance to look closely at the condition of all the mechanical parts this Eimco 24 will remain as a static exhibit.
After loading at Ashbrittle
Preparing for lift-off
Making contact with the rails
Parked up at its new home
One interesting fact about our particular machine (which bears the number 45299) is that it has been converted to right-hand drive; most Eimco rocker shovels being built as left-hand drive models. We believe this was so that it could work with another machine in a wide tunnel to allow the two operators to work side-by-side.
Some time ago, the Lea Bailey Light Railway arranged a wagon exchange. One of the Hudson u-skip wagons stored at Clearwell Caves was swapped with Brian Faulkner (owner of a private 2-foot gauge railway nearby) for a v-skip to be used at Lea Bailey. The tipper had seen better days, and in early 2016 a replacement skip was sourced from Alan Keef Ltd. and fitted as part of our Winter Works programme. The old skip was stored with the hope that it could be repaired and re-used in the future, along with the spare pedestals that came with the new skip.
Nick with Hudson chassis and Boris the dog
Richard Dixon is another of our members who has his own 2-foot gauge railway, and had a Hudson skip chassis that he had purchased as part of a job lot and was surplus to his requirements. This was purchased by the society and stored awaiting repairs. Recently, it was decided to assemble the kit of parts into an operational wagon. Some new bolts were obtained and Nick fitted the pedestals to the wagon chassis and after a liberal application of oil to the wheel bearings it was propelled around the track to the mine entrance where the spare skip was in storage.
Hudson chassis is propelled by hand
Skip body is rolled onto Hudson chassis
James cleaning out manrider wagon
With the help of some old sleepers, the tipper body was rolled onto the chassis, and we now have another useful wagon in the fleet. We are planning to clean it up with a wire wheel and apply some black bitumen paint in order to protect it from further deterioration, and eventually the rusted parts of the chassis and skip will have some welding done. Another wagon being prepared for painting is the converted coal tub manrider, which was swept out by our new young volunteer James. We are also planning to clean up and paint some of the structures on site such as the shed, container and tank, so new members and volunteers are always welcome.
Rob Needham has created two YouTube videos from our recent Open Weekend on 16th & 17th September 2017. Our new arrival, a wagon-mounted compressor, supplied air for the Eimco 401 locomotive and 12B rocker shovel, as well as a rock drill which was demonstrated to visitors. Our resident Simplex 21282 was also in action with four battery-electric locomotives on display in varying states of restoration.
Our Open Weekends are an important source of revenue for the Railway’s projects. If you would like to help us then please consider becoming a member of the Lea Bailey Light Railway Society.
Planning is under way for the next Open Day on 16th & 17th September 2017. We will be welcoming a visiting locomotive in the form of Simplex № 8540 which was № 38 at Arnold’s in Leighton Buzzard before it was preserved.Update: Due to other commitments, the owner of 8540 will be unable to attend with the locomotive. We will have our new compressor wagon on site. Our resident Eimco 12B rocker shovel will once again be put to work on the open air demonstration line to show how these machines would have worked underground.
Rocker Shovel in the cutting 1
Rocker Shovel in the cutting
Rocker Shovel in the cutting 3
Resident locomotives Simplex № 21282 and Eimco 401-216 will be operating throughout the weekend, and four battery-electric locomotives will be on display along with a number of different types of wagons. Visitors can also try their hand at panning for gold. Refreshments including home-made cakes will be available.
Several other events and attractions can be found around the Forest of Dean, all within a half-hour drive of our site at Lea Bailey. A number of links can be found below.
Following the clearance of the mine tip area, a large quantity of partially-dressed stone has been stockpiled at the other end of the running line. Part of the planned work to utilise the flat area on top of the tip includes re-laying the track which leads to the container. Most of the sleepers will need replacement and some of the soil needs digging away to allow better drainage so the new sleepers won’t rot away like the old ones. To this end, our volunteers have started to construct a retaining wall to alow this embankment to be remodelled.
Base layer of retaining wall
Base layer of retaining wall
End of the wall near the container
Nice and straight. More stone on the wagon.
The ground has a well-compacted layer of road planings on top of the original mine waste which has hardened well after 100 years in-situ. Digging the top layer away allowed us to place some of the largest and flattest stones into a trench before adding mortar to hold them in place. On Sunday 25th June, the first course was laid with the aid of a string line to keep everything straight. In typical Forest of Dean fashion, blocks of different sizes will be used to build the wall. Once it reaches almost the desired height — just below rail level to allow ballast to be retained — a number of smaller stones will be used to make the top as level as possible. We are then planning to finish the top with a course of bricks (known as “rowlocks”) with a few “shiners” added as a feature. This means that some of the named bricks we have found at Lea Bailey will be incorporated into the wall with their writing on show.
A group of members from Lea Bailey Light Railway Society travelled up to the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways event Quirks & Curiosities II on the weekend of 28th April – 1st May. Our resident Eimco 401 “Whistling Pig” and “Issing Sid” from Statfold Barn Railway were in operation in Minffordd yard throughout the event. Following the Eimco’s return to Lea Bailey it was joined by Sid for our Spring Open Weekend on 13th-14th May.
Planning is under way for the next Open Day which will take place on 13th & 14th May 2017. We will be welcoming “Issing Sid” from Statfold Barn Railway for a return visit after our popular Running on Air event in 2015.
Wingrove & Rogers WR8 outside the mine
Nick posing in the driver’s seat on Eimco 401 at Lea Bailey
Testing the rocker shovel on the curve
Rocker shovel demonstration line.
Amongst the residents that we hope to have running will be the Eimco 401 compressed-air locomotive, Wingrove & Rogers WR8 battery-electric locomotive, and the Eimco 401 rocker shovel which will be operating on its own special display line with a public viewing area. For a taste of what is to come, see Rob Dickinson’s YouTube video from our 2015 event.
Several other events and attractions can be found around the Forest of Dean, all within a half-hour drive of our site at Lea Bailey. A number of links can be found below.
Following the Grand Tidy Up in February, we decided to take the opportunity to do some groundworks around the site. We are certainly not short of shovels, nor of enthusiasm, but the nature of the work to be done would have taken several months of Sundays, so we enlisted the help of a mini-digger with a skilled operator for the day. Your generous donations at our Open Weekends and annual Membership Subscriptions make projects like this possible.
Mini digger creating an inspection pit
Levelling the top of the mine tip
A demonstration area for the rocker shovel
One important job was to level the top of the mine tip area following the removal of a large quantity of stone and the re-positioning of the two halves of the ex-Sharlston pit wheel. This will allow better access for HGVs and more space for our volunteers to park their cars on a Sunday. A hole was also dug in the centre of the steel ramps giving us the start of an inspection pit, although we will still need to do some work later to line the sides and bottom, as well as putting in some basic drainage. A future project will see a second track running down from the points outside the mine to the top of the tip which will pass across the pit.
As well as some general tidying up and levelling of the ground, the digger was also put to use in widening the gulley at the Southern end of the line. This area was previously used to hide a stockpile of rail (now recovered) and we intend to lay some rails into here in order to demonstrate our Eimco 12B rocker shovel on open days. The bank leading to the top of this area has been graded to allow visitors safe access to watch the Eimco in action.
Editor’s Note: This post was first written as a draft, but only published in December 2017. It has been backdated to the beginning of March, when the events described took place.
⚖ There are some things that are just too heavy to be moved with a Tirfor winch, and the Lea Bailey Light Railway has a large collection of these things. Despite the term “light railway” being part of our name, a lot of the old mining equipment in our collection is of a heavy-duty nature and therefore requires a little more than man-power for mechanical handling. The first items to be moved were two sets of 3-car articulated manriders, which would have originally been used to transport miners underground from the bottom of the shaft to the working face. Using this method instead of requiring them to walk saved time to allow more productive time per shift, and also allowed each miner to put more effort into mining rather than walking. The long-term aim is to restore one set using the other as a source of spare parts, with leftover steelwork being made available for other projects.
Manrider body about to be lifted from the stack
Placed on the track for closer inspection
The first stack is taking shape
Another manrider base ready to join the pile
👷 Another ex-mining rail vehicle consists of two 4-wheeled bogies which were originally connected in the centre and used for carrying heavy materials. It is envisaged that the running gear such as wheels and bearings can be re-used to make a couple of useful works wagons for the railway. We also have a different kind of manrider, which would have used a 4-wheeled chassis or short bogie vehicle, but currently consists of just the top section. It is hoped to mount this on one of the old wagon bases from Euroclydon Tunnel once the frame has been restored.
4-wheel bogie is lifted into position
Close-up of stamped plate
Small manrider lifted off the tip
Demonstrating a hand signal
⭕️ By far the largest and heaviest objects are the two halves of the old winding wheel from Sharlston Colliery in Yorkshire. This was actually the “spare” which was kept on site in case of any damage or mishap to the original, which was used to haul coal and transport miners up and down the shaft. After the colliery closed in 1993 one half of the original was mounted on a brick and concrete plinth as a memorial to all the miners who had worked there.
First half of the wheel is lifted onto the HIAB
Unloading at the new location
Second half of the wheel is unloaded
The Miners’ Memorial in Sharlston village
📅 The eventual aim (subject to planning) is to mount the two halves of the wheel — one on each side of the entrance — in a similar fashion to the one at Sharlston. In the short term, however, the site looks a lot neater, and we can now start work on the next phase of clearing the top of the old mine tip. This in turn will allow a small workshop and more siding space to be installed, and bring about further restoration of our railway and mining heritage.
Most of the Heritage Railways in the UK have a period during the winter when they carry out maintenance, and ours is no exception, although we don’t have any scheduled passenger services to suspend during this time. During our last public Open Weekend in September 2016 one of our wagons developed a fault with the wheels siezing up, and had been upturned at the lineside awaiting investigation. Two volunteers, Nick and Richard, waved their magic spanners over the axles and fitted some new grease-nipples to the sealed axle and bearings, before adding some fresh grease and turning the wheels by hand until they rotated freely. Once rolled over right-way-up and re-railed with the help of Nick’s hi-lift jack, the wagon was given a run up and down the line with the Simplex and can now be pushed along easily by one person.
Greasing the bearings
The wagon is re-railed
Giving it a trial run
During the restoration to working order of the Eimco 401 compressed-air locomotive, one minor fault that needed ironing out was the ride height of the front wheelset. Each axlebox has two coil springs which give a small amount of up and down movement over uneven track. However, after its original working life and several years of sitting out of use the springs have lost some of their resilience. Ideally we would replace them with a brand new set but we don’t appear to have an Eimco dealership down in Cinderford, and working to a budget a brand new set would use up valuable funds. Add to this the time taken to manufacture a custom set of springs, and the necessity to have the locomotive stored in its stripped-down state, the most elegant solution was to fit spring spacers — a tried and tested modification used by many 4×4 off road vehicle owners to increase ride height.
Cutting a spring spacer
Eimco is jacked up
Percussive maintenance to line up bolt holes
Four pieces were cut from the end of a length of round bar and de-burred using a file before being inserted into the spring pockets. Nick’s hi-lift jack once again proving useful in getting the chassis of the locomotive to a suitable height for the job. The new batch of wooden chocks can be spotted in several of the photographs, with their custom paint job provided by a garden colour shade called Pick ‘n’ Mix which makes them easy to spot in the green of the Forest or the grey of the stone ballast.
Pink wooden chocks
January working party
Passing loop embankment extension
Work on excavating the old mine tip continues, with several more loads of large rocks being moved to the end of the line using the WR8 battery-electric locomotive “Murphy” and 4-wheeled flat wagon. The remainder consisting of smaller stones and dust is being moved using a Hudson v-skip wagon and tipped next to the passing loop to extend the embankment which will allow an additional set of points to be installed. This in turn will allow a permanent track to be laid onto the top of the mine tip once the temporary track is no longer in use.
