Latest News
All turned around
The rumour mill has been busy this week, with speculation about the state of the NRM’s ‘King Arthur’ No. 30777 “Sir Lamiel”; someone saw a boilersmith working on our behalf at Swanage and reported that he was “Welding”. Which lead to various people speculating that Lamiel might not be available for Monday’s “Swanage Belle”; In fact it was some routine tube beading and caulking, no welding at all.
After last weekend’s trip “Sir Lamiel” was facing the wrong way at Swanage: Although Swanage has a turntable it’s too small to turn an Arthur in working order (and we weren’t about to split engine from tender just to turn her) so the only option available was to take the engine somewhere to turn her. Eastleigh is the most convenient turning point to Swanage, but it’s still about 50 miles away, or to put it another way, it’s a full day's job to go there, turn & come back. Hugh was volunteered for this - so he took a day off work and went down to the South West yesterday to prepare the engine for the move; it might only be a light engine trip, but she still needs all the lubrication and TLC that she’d get for a loaded trip, and besides, in the end it wasn’t all light engine mileage, because she brought a DMU back with her from Eastleigh to Swanage. The turning move took from around 10 am to 6.30pm today, but Lamiel is now back at Swanage ready for Monday, and the support crew will join her over the weekend.
Andrew Cameron kindly sent us this photo of Lamiel and DMU vehicle No. 54504 passing Redbridge. (see more at www.47soton.co.uk/2010/05/28th-march-2010-30777-sir-lamiel-on-dmu.html
By Info | Friday, May 28, 2010 | Tags : 30777