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Tag: Locomotives

Locomotives and self-propelled railway vehicles.

Lea Bailey Signs
📅 Spring Open Weekend — May 2018 ?>

📅 Spring Open Weekend — May 2018

Hopefully you have been keeping up-to-date with what is happening at Lea Bailey Light Railway by reading the regular updates on this website and on our Facebook Page — but now is your chance to come and see for yourself. With a compressor wagon now on site, our resident Eimco 12B rocker shovel will once again be put to work alongside a rock drill on the open air demonstration line to show how these machines would have worked underground.

The Eimco compressed-air locomotive 401-216 and Motor Rail 21282 will be in operation, with four different types of Wingrove & Rogers battery-electric locomotives on display — all at different stages of restoration. We are also hoping to demonstrate the large Eimco 24 rocker shovel each day at around 3:30pm. Don’t forget to visit our sales stand where refreshments will be available including home-made cakes. ?

Flyer for 1028 Spring Open Weekend
Flyer for 2018 Spring Open Weekend
The two Bens with Issing Sid
📅 Save the Date — 13th & 14th May ?>

📅 Save the Date — 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.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzGS4j1YQPs

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.

Web Links

Eimco 401 at Lea Bailey
🚚 Arrival of the Eimco 401 ?>

🚚 Arrival of the Eimco 401

Eimco air locomotives were manufactured in Salt Lake City by the same company that produced the well-known compressed air mucking machine aka rocker shovel. Following the restoration to working order of the Eimco 12B rocker shovel, the Lea Bailey Light Railway was offered an Eimco locomotive on a 2-year loan from its home at the Lavender Line based at Isfield station in Sussex. There had previously been a proposal to build a narrow gauge railway on the site, but this seems unlikely to go ahead, and the locomotive’s owner was not in a position to carry out the restoration.

The first job will be to get the wheels off and re-gauge the locomotive from 18″ to 2′ so it can be put onto the rails. The locomotive is designed to be convertible between the two gauges by removing the wheels from each axle and moving a pair of spacers. How easy this task proves to be depends on how much dirt has made its way inside over the years and of course the condition of the grease which can harden over time.