Matt Ditch Photography Blog

My previous visit to Beamish was in less-than-ideal conditions (rain!). So, when I found out visiting Andrew Barclay No.1219 would be running during the week I decided to make another visit. thankfully the weather was much nicer! And, I was able to record a video of it shunting. Which I'll release this weekend on my Youtube channel (Matt Ditch Photography) The attached image shows 1219 passing by the colliery engine shed with a rake of Chaldron wagons. The full gallery can be found here

  The Malton Colliery Wagonway was a narrow gauge railway that linked the drift mines around Malton Colliery with the main colliery. It was located near the town of Lanchester in Co. Durham. Please click the link below to watch the video

Andrew Barclay Grey/Glyder  Andrew Barclay 0-4-0WT (well tank) Grey/Glyder was built in 1931 for the Burnhope Reservoir railway near Wearhead. "Grey" was one of 5 well tanks built for use on the line by Andrew Barclay. The railway linked with the Weardale Railway from Darlington at the terminus of the line at Wearhead station. Here items used in the construction of the r eservoir  would have been transferred from the standard gauge trains to the narrow gauge ones. When the railway closed in 1937 many of the locomotives including Grey were sold on to Penrhyn Quarry railway in North Wales. Here the engine was renamed "Glyder". When the PQR closed, the engine and several others were sold onto private collections in the USA. Grey/Glyder returned to the UK in 2012 along with Avonside 0-4-0T "Durham/Ogwen". All the engines that were exported have now returned to the UK. In recent years  Grey/Glyder has returned to steam at Beamish and still carries a lot of its ...

A trip to Lakeside I recently had a trip down to the bottom of lake Windermere to the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway. I was fortunate that on the day of my visit, Bagnall "Victor" was in steam. This was a nice change for me as every time I visit it seems to be "Repulse" or "Princess" out.  "Victor" was built in 1951 for Steel Company of Wales and was used at their  Abbey, Margam and Port Talbot works. 3 locos were built, "Victor" (2996), "Vulcan" (2994) and "Valiant" (2995). The 3 were replaced by diesels in 1957 and "Victor" & "Vulcan" were sold to the Austin Motor Company in Birmingham. "Valiant" ended up with the NCB in South Wales, but was sadly scraped in 1967. Both  "Victor" & "Vulcan" worked at Longbridge till 1973 when they were again replaced by diesels. Both engines were preserved and moved to the West Somerset Railway. "Vulcan" was so...

Peckett 1370 Beamish museum aren't running trains at their Rowley station site this year so Peckett 1370 "May", which normally operates these trains, has been moved across to the colliery railway. It was built in 1915 and is an R2 class 0-4-0ST. It worked at  Yates Duxbury & Sons papermill at Heap Bridge in Bury, Lancashire along with 2 other locomotives. Peckett "Annie" now preserved at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre and an Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST also named "Annie".  1370 had been relegated to spare loco by the 1970s and was eventually sold into preservation first moving to Wigan with  Bryn Engineering. It later moved to the East Lancashire Railway with its current owners the  Jubilee Locomotive Company who Beamish hire her off. The above shot shows 1370 doing what it usually does at the museum, hauling passenger trains from the rebuilt Rowley station along the short passenger line they have. The below video captures the  Yates Duxbury & S...

  Austerity No.49 returns to steam at the Tanfield Railway Austerity 0-6-0ST No.49 returned to steam for the first time in 14 months at the Tanfield Railway during the late May bank holiday. Here are some shots of the loco at work along the line and a brief history of it. 49 was built in 1943 by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn in Newcastle for the MOD. It's unclear as to where 49 went immediately after leaving the works. In the winter of 1943 she was put into store at the Melbourne Military Railway in Derbyshire. From here it was moved into WD storage in Essex before returning to the MMR in the Autumn of 1944. The loco was loaned to the Ministry of Fuel and Power's Swannington opencast disposal point in Leicestershire from May 1946 to Bennerley disposal point in Nottinghamshire in February 1947. It had a relatively short stay there and by April of that year it had moved North to Backworth in Northumberland, which would become the locos home. And, where she eventually bec...

 Askham Hall - The forgotten Avonside. Askham Hall in Whitehaven in 1976.  © George Woods   Anyone who has visited Threlkeld Quarry in recent years may have spotted the unrestored and sad looking 0-4-0 saddle tank sitting in the lower storage area. This is Avonside No.1772 of 1917 “Askham Hall”. Built by Avonside locomotives works, Bristol. The engine was originally named “Sella Park" a name it carried until Hawthorn Leslie rebuilt it during 1935. The engine spent its working life on the Cumbrian coast, spending time working at industrial sites in Workington & Whitehaven. In the early 1970’s it ran over BR metals under its own power moving from Solway colliery Workington where it saw little use, to Whitehaven where it worked coal trains along Whitehaven harbour, transporting coal from Howgill incline to ships that would then take the coal to Ireland and the Isle of Man. Askham Hall finally became surplus and was donated to Copeland Borough Council who transferred the ...

Event recap: Beamish Museum - "Coffee Pot 150"  01/05/21 Beamish museum held their first event since 2019 on the 1st of May 2021. The event was to celebrate the 150th birthday of the museums resident "Coffee Pot" No.1. Which, was built in 1871 by  Head Wrightson & Co Ltd in Teesside for  Dorking Greystone Lime Company for use at Betchworth Quarry. It is believed that the engine was in use up till 1949, although some reports suggest that it was dismantled for inspection in 1950 and returned to steam, steaming till 1952 when it was withdrawn. In 1960, it was repurchased by its makers and along with 2 other "Coffee Pots" both from Seaham. These were No's.21 and 33, which is also a Beamish resident. No.21 is now on static display at Preston Park near Thornaby. No.1 was offered to Beamish Museum in 1962 but did not arrive at the museum till 1970. Between 1962 and 1970 it was stored at British steels Consett Ironworks. At Beamish it was restored to opera...

5 little known Industrial railway sites along the River Wear A few days ago I was exploring my local area using Rail Maps Online . I noticed that since my last visit to the site a few railways had appeared in my area, I thought it rude not to go for an explore! I didn’t expect to find much at any of these sites as many of them fell out of use many years ago and have been reclaimed by nature, but I was pleasantly surprised…. Site 1. An unidentified shipyard on the North side of the River Wear I haven’t been able to find too much out about this site. It appears to have been abandoned around the 1930s. The buildings were on the left where the thick undergrowth now stands. On the right was a wharf, the remains can still be seen. On closer inspection of some old OS maps it would appear that the tracks ran along the wharf. I believe the railway system here was narrow gauge, but I was unable to find anything due to the boggy nature of the area. Site 2. Incline to a Quarry & another shipy...

  Andrew Barclay 0-6-0ST "Horden"  On Sunday I was fortunate enough to see my first steam loco of the year. It was also my first opportunity to see newly restored Andrew Barclay "Horden" in steam. The engine has been painstakingly restored over the past several years by the volunteers at the Tanfield railway, where the loco will be based.  "Horden" was built by Andrew Barclay Sons & Co in 1904 with the works number 1015. It was built for the Horden Colliers LTD in County Durham. During Horden's working life it was based at the companies collieries at Horden, Shotton and Blackhall. She was also the only Durham area locomotive to be sent to the Ashington Central workshop for repair. To avoid paying the North Eastern Railways' movement charges the loco was once moved by road using four track panels.  Horden became a National Coal Board engine in 1947 while it was based at Shotton Colliery. It was at Shotton where Horden took on a  Q6 0-8-0 and won...

The Lambton Waggonway  Lambton Works which was the headquarters of the railway. In the background is the remaining headgear of the former Dorothea Pit, but this time-serving only as an emergency shaft.  © Copyright Alan Murray-Rust and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence The Lambton Waggonway or Newbottle Waggonway as it also appears to have been known was a waggonway that linked the coal fields of Durham with the River Wear at Lambton Staithes. It can trace its roots back to the early 1700s when a horse-drawn waggonway was constructed to link the mines around Fatfield with the River Wear at Cox Green. Sometime in the early 1800s a line was built between Burnmoor and Philadelphia. The latter became the engineering base of the Lambton system. Some of the orignal structures still stand to this day.  A recreated wooden waggonway at Beamish museum. By 1819 the Newbottle waggonway had been acquired and integrated with the Philadelphia and Burnmoor section. A...