DAPS Day Out to Bolton & Bury

Photographs & Text © Dan Cross

A couple of months ago it was decided to arrange a break from the activities down at the ‘Danny’ and to coincide this break with the Tall Ships event when access to the boat would be limited.

Knowing that a lot of our working party volunteers take a great interest in all things steamy (of the mechanical type if you please), I did some research and arranged a “DAPS day out” for Wednesday 16th July.

I made contact with John Phillp, Hon Secretary of the Northern Mill Engine Society in Bolton with a view to arranging a visit. For those of you who don’t know or aren’t aware of them, the NMES have established what must be the one of the largest, certainly the most varied collection of static steam engines in the country. They are a society like DAPS and were formed in the late 1960’s with the aim of restoring and displaying mill engines of unusual or unique design once prolific in the UK’s mill community.

NMES originally set up shop in the former Atlas Mill in Bolton where they had a superb collection of static mill engines on display and continued to expand the collection. However in the early 90’s Morrison’s supermarket wanted the site for a new store but offered to refurbish another building on the edge of the site, their home of today. Of course “moving house” with several large mill engines is no simple task and the re-building of the collection with volunteer labour has taken around ten years and still other unique and rare engines are joining the collection.

After car sharing arrangements had been agreed, around thirteen DAPS members met at Bolton at 10 am and enjoyed a very interesting and enjoyable couple of hours being shown around initially by John Phillp then later talking to other NMES members and generally “comparing notes” on the pitfalls of putting back together old steam engines. Their society was rejected for HLF and local Council funding (goodness knows why) and NMES relies entirely on donations and members for finance and labour. When you look at the quality of the exhibits, the fit out of the museum including barriers, galleried viewing area and information boards, it is all the more impressive.

Some of the highlights included an inverted Musgrave Non-Dead Centre Engine with a triangular crank shaft. The original layout was patented by Fleming and Ferguson Ltd, marine engineers in Glasgow, for use on ships. John Musgrave Ltd of Bolton obtained a licence to build stationary engines to this design from about 1892 onwards and it is believed they made up to 50 in total, some as large as 1500IHP using quadruple expansion of the steam.

Also amongst the collection was a McNaught beam engine, the largest in the museum and dating from around 1870. .

The oldest engine in the collection is a Crossfield Mill beam engine dating from 1840. believed to date from about 1840.

The Crossfield Mill engine is a now rare example of a twin-cylinder layout with cranks set at 90 degrees to give a smoother drive to the crankshaft than could be achieved with a single cylinder and beam alone. The engine was rebuilt in about 1893 with a new high-pressure cylinder and worked until 1953, lying derelict until 1967 when the NMES acquired it from the Crossfield Mill at Wardle near Rochdale.

All of the exhibits can be run up on live steam but on the day of our visit were under the power of small electric motors which allowed them to turn for demonstration purposes.

The photograph (right) shows DAPS and NMES members posing for the camera next to the “Elsie”, not a lady in the true sense but  a 180 IHP tandem-compound engine built by J & W McNaught Ltd of Rochdale in 1902 for the Barchant Spinning Company.

The NMES collection is not generally open to the public but they convene working parties, much in the same manner as we do, on Wednesdays and Sundays where visit’s by prior arrangement can usually be accommodated. The NMES does however throw open it’s doors and fire up their gas boiler, providing actual “live steam” to the majority of their collection on a few pre-determined dates each year.

The remaining open weekends this year for the “Bolton Steam Museum” are: Sun/ Mon 24th/ 25th August, Sat/ Sun 13th/ 14th September and Sat/ Sun 3rd/ 4th Jan 2009.

For directions and further details check out their excellent website at: www.nmes.org .

Many thanks are due to John and the NMES members present for a very enjoyable morning at a remarkable, little known, steam museum.

Anyway, 12:30 was the starting gun for our next location, the East Lancashire Railway at Bury, around twenty minutes away. I am a member of the East Lancashire Railway Preservation Society and initially made contact with their newsletter’s (ELR News) editor and committee member, David Flood who last year kindly arranged to publish a small advert promoting DAPS as the custodians of “The North West Railway Steamer” thanks to some natty wording by John Luxton. Anyway When I approached David about a visit he again was extremely helpful and then liaised with John Tait, their Hon Sec who normally organises such things.

The East Lancashire Railway Preservation Society was formed in 1968 with a view to preserving a section of the former East Lancashire Railway, focusing on a section of line near Helmshore, but unfortunately this plan did not come to fruition. In 1972 with the cessation of passenger traffic on the Rawtenstall branch, the emphasis was transferred to trying to preserve the Bury to Rawtenstall line intact, and in order to do this, the headquarters of the Society was switched from Helmshore Station, to Bury where, in a former East Lancashire Railway goods shed, a small museum was set up.

On Saturday 25th July 1987 the East Lancashire Railway re-opened the section of line between Bury and Ramsbottom. By 1991 the line was fully re-opened and now includes a link to the main line at the terminus at Heywood.

The railway owns a few locomotives but many sub-groups such as the Class 40 Preservation Society, 71000 (Duke of Gloucester) Steam Locomotive Trust Limited, Standard 4 Group, Princess Elizabeth Locomotive Society and many more and private owner locomotives are based there.

Also based at their steam works is the vast workshops of Ian Riley Engineering well known for quality locomotive re-builds and servicing who own and operate successfully on the main line two engines themselves with a further “Black 5” under restoration at the moment.

We were met at the entrance gates to their steam shed and sidings at Baron Street and after a brief safety talk and signing of appropriate disclaimers were off on our “whistle stop” tour of the railway - yes the pun was intended!

Once inside the steam sheds we saw a few locomotives receiving remedial work or “running repairs” while taking a break from main line charter duty. These where 71000 “Duke of Gloucester”, famed as being a “one off” as an experimental Pacific but fitted with the now famous “Caprotti” valve gear and LMS liveried “Princess Elizabeth” in for wheel turning. I have to say you cannot fail to be impressed with these beasts as you stand at floor level looking up at them - they seem massive compared to when seen at a station or across a field half a mile away!

The oldest locomotive present was privately owned Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway “27” 0-6-0 No.1300 dating from 1893, making her a full TEN YEARS older than the ‘Danny’! In fact I have since heard that on July 6th she made her first movement under her own steam, just one month after the boiler was dropped back onto the frames.

After the sheds it was around the sidings where some interesting derelicts could be found including “Merchant Navy” class ‘Shaw Saville’ looking in need of lots of TLC and no doubt around £1 million would help.

Flitting up and down the sidings when we were there was “Jinty” 47324 which is owned by the railway and had just completed a major overhaul, the running in of the bearings and motion being done in a controlled manner up and down the sidings. She looked magnificent and was a credit to all involved.

Next it was Bury South signal box where we were split into two groups and took it in turns to visit the box and have the operation of the 52 levers and its Westinghouse switch gear explained - an operation not for the faint hearted!

After a walk up the track and up the “Ski Jump” as it is known, a steep gradient railway which takes the ELR to Heywood over the Metro tramway line we walked down the track (controlled and with hi-vis vests of course) to Bolton Street Station where several members disappeared to the excellent railway owned / run “Trackside Bar” which always has around eight real-ales on draught along with many continental lagers etc.

When we managed to recover all our party it was aboard the waiting train up to Rawtenstall and return, a journey of around twenty miles. We were being hauled by “9F” 2-8-0 No. 92214 (left) which was impressive to say the least and immaculate. She is owned by The 9F Locomotive Charitable Trust Ltd and was restored to working order on the Midland Railway at Butterley where the trust is based. She has operated on the ELR for some time now but is due to return to Butterley later in the year. The “9F” class where originally designed for freight and many members may remember them hauling the huge iron-ore trains from Bidston through to Shotton.

Both John Tait and David Flood provided an excellent guide and commentary to this interesting line and this made the trip all the more enjoyable. We returned back to Bury around five o’clock and made our way back to our cars after posing for a group picture along side 92114. After saying thank-you we were all home by around half six. I think everyone agreed we had had a “grand day out” and look forward to when we can do this again.

I would recommend the East Lancashire Railway to anyone, a stop off in the village of Ramsbottom offers café’s, shops and pubs. Especially interesting to young children, the railway operates various “Thomas” themed events through the year as well as steam & diesel gala’s along with the now famous ‘1940’s Wartime Weekend’.

For more information visit: http://east-lancs-rly.co.uk