The Nene Valley Railway is home to a little blue engine named ‘Thomas’ by the Rev. W. Awdry author of the famous books about Thomas and Friends. On 26th June 2021 it will be 50 years since Rev. W. Awdry signed Thomas’ cab at The Nene Valley Railway & we at the railway want to celebrate this day with all of Thomas’ friends old & new.
The 0-6-0T engine No. 1800 was built by Hudswell Clarke in 1947 at about the time when Rev.W Awdry wrote his second book in which Thomas appeared. The little blue engine spent its entire working life at the British Sugar Corporation Peterborough factory pushing wagons of sugar beet up an incline until the day came when a diesel engine replaced the steam power of Thomas. The Peterborough Railway Society purchased this delightful little engine on 9th September 1973 and he was moved to the Nene Valley Railway, where he has since delighted his friends and children of all ages.
Thomas lives at Wansford and can been seen most of time in the yard when not in steam, on some occasions he is moved in the shed to let the engeineers work on him.
Here we are with services running again on the railway. Granted it may not be as many as we would like to run and we are running with reduced capacity. But we are running!
It’s nice to see visitors back at the railway enjoying themselves.
We have lots of events planned, the most notable being Thomas’ 50th birthday bash at the end of the month. Plus of course the The Steam EnGIN Express on the 24th July. I will be interested to see how the event goes. I feel that it will be popular and hopefully become a regular perhaps yearly event.
This coming Saturday the 12th of June sees the Wansford Miniature Railway Grand Opening. A lot of work has gone into the miniature railway’s construction and it will without doubt be popular.
Locomotives in Steam and on Display
Steam Locomotive Sweet Pea “Holly” Steam Locomotive War Department No 90776 Royal Anglian Regiment Steam Locomotive GWR King “King Edward II” Steam Locomotive GWR Parire No 4588 Steam Locomotive Sweet Pea “Joe” Battery Electric Class 14 No 9520 Battery Electric 08 No 08679 Under Overhaul LNER B1 Roedeer on Display Sweet Pea
For the Opening of the Miniature Railway Train Services are £1 per return trip, tickets purchased on the day from the Miniature Railway
Miniature Freight Train
Miniature Railway Shop with a selection of fund rasing items for sale
Miniature Traction Engines in Steam
Special Celebration First Day Postal Covers
Blue Circle in Steam
Social Distancing is to maintained at all times in line with Government guidelines
The NVR will be running main line Steam services on the day
Refreshments available at Wansford Station.
All attractions subject to availability and Covid restrictions
Please note to travel on the miniature railway you must be in possession of a Platform ticket or Main Travel ticket.
If you’re visiting the railway please give it your support.
So lets look forward to a summer of trains and visitors.
Tomorrow sees the recommencement of services on the NVR, hopefully with no more lockdowns ahead.
Services will still be far from what we are used to, we still have social distancing.
Looking at the official railway web site we have lots of special events coming up, please support them. This is still a critical time for the railway.
For those who do visit and travel, you are most welcome, thanks for your support it is appreciated.
The railway has played a very important part in Peterborough’s history and development and it’s fair to say the city would be very different if that first train had not steamed into the city in 1845.
Whilst we can’t fully recreate those days, travelling on the railway does give you the opportunity to travel on part of the first railway route into the city.
If you take some nice photographs during your visit and would like to share them please feel free to send them to me and I would love to include them on the blog. The email address can be found to the right of this posting.
My thanks to Paul for this article, I hope you all enjoy reading it and learn something about the black stuff that helps power our steam locomotives.
ByPaul Roe Locomotive Department Manager
Coal is very much in the news at the moment as the UK ceases to mine its own coal, some say we are facing a coal crisis and soon we won’t have any coal left and Heritage railways will soon struggle to operate. This is far from correct and coal is and will still be imported from other parts of the world, the ironic issue being the carbon footprint is much larger importing coal then actually mining it in the UK. Many years ago in the heyday of coal mining, people were scared that if mining continued the UK would float and float away
Coal is classified into four main types, or ranks: anthracite, bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite. The ranking depends on the types and amounts of carbon the coal contains and on the amount of heat energy the coal can produce. The United States holds the world’s biggest coal reserves. The nation’s proved coal reserves as of December 2018 stood at 250.2 billion tonnes (Bt) accounting for approximately 24% of the worlds proven coal reserves. Anthracite is found on the east coast in the US, South Africa, Australia, Western Canada, China and Russia. Two-thirds of Russia’s coal reserves are anthracite. Because of its efficiency and thus less carbon and sulphur usage per watt of power, anthracite is also the ‘cleanest’ coal in the world.
The NVR over the years have used coal from across the Globe, we have used Scottish, Welsh, Cumbrian, Russian, Polish, Bosnian. By far the cleanest is Welsh Steam coal, this coal provides high heat and less smoke, but is more expensive and takes a longer time to combust, so as a fireman you have to think about boiler management earlier than using a non-steam coal. At present a tonne of coal is averaging at £175 a tonne plus vat, coal consumption is different on each locomotive and several factors come in to play, size of boiler and firebox, how the driver operates the locomotive, the load that is being hauled, steam heat, is the coal of good source? So coal steams are terrible and the coal will just not burn hot. A locomotive the size of 92 Squadron would use up to about 1 tonne of coal per trip on the NVR, if the locomotive is running not stop less coal would be used and the locomotive would be working more efficiently. Currently the NVR is running on Scottish coal, this is a good coal but can be smoky coal, this can be controlled by the fireman, if you see dark thick black smoke, this would indicate that the fireman has over fired and not enough air is entering the firebox to burn the gasses away.
Composition of Air and Coal
Combustion takes place when coal burns in air, and correct combustion can only be obtained by bringing together the right amounts of coal and air at the same time. To examine this statement more fully it is necessary that we should know something of the chemical constituents of coal and air.
Coal varies in quality and composition, but the greater part of it consists of carbon, the remainder being composed of gases and ash (see Fig. 1).
Air consists of a mixture by weight of approximately 23% oxygen and 77% nitrogen, or when measured by volume, 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen.
Coal comes in all different sizes and the ideal size of coal for burning on a steam locomotive is “The size of a man’s fist”, anything any bigger will take longer to burn and can make cold spots in the fire bed, we are currently in stock with coal on the NVR we about 35 tonnes of Scottish coal on site, this will soon be added to with about 28 tonnes of Northumberland coal which is being provided by West Coast Rail and a very good price. The Miniature Railway at Wansford operates on anthracite coal and these are the size of beans, anthracite is used on all steam models and it is smokeless so this stops the smaller boiler tubes furring up and creates a high temperature for the smaller fireboxes
