Over the weekend I finally got to arrange one of the Christmas presents my wife purchased last year, a diesel driving experience at the Apedale Valley Light Railway near Stoke-on-Trent. Saturday was a dry and sunny afternoon and I had four hours driving locomotives around the Apedale's field railway under the excellent tuition of Selwyn.

I arrived early and took the opportunity to travel up and down the mainline on a service train behind a rather wonderful steam locomotive, Orenstein & Koppel built 5662.

I particularly liked the tender modification to allow it to safely carry a few passengers. On this occasion a young family had a real treat obviously enjoying almost riding on the footplate.

Trundling down the mainline you get a good view of the several engine sheds, each of which seemed full to overflowing with narrow gauge goodness. Most of these building have been re-purposed from the original drift mine buildings on the site.

Hidden just behind the Simplex on the right was a Wingrove and Rogers (the little white battery-electric locomotive) which I would get a chance to drive later.

The second shed had several steam locomotives including the Avonside “Ogwen” and also the Kerr, Stuart steam loco “Stanhope”.

Having had my run 'on the cushions' (or actually planks) I was given the obligatory H&S briefing and introduced to No. 29 ”Vanguard” Ruston & Hornsby 195846 of 1939. I'd driven a Ruston LBT a few years ago at the North Ings Farm museum so I vaguely remembered the controls. The Ruston was very easy to drive and I can see why they were so popular with operators.  Out on the field railway we collected a couple of empty skips to give us something to pull.

We stopped for a visit to the section of trench constructed for 'Tracks to the Trenches'. Even on a beautiful, dry, autumn day you could get some feeling of how awful it must have been. It also gave me a chance to appreciate the opportunity I'd had to operate 'Up the line' a few years back. The Field Railway is just what it says on the tin, a railway around a field, with some 'interesting' track and several siding filled with rolling stock in various states of disrepair. Much of the track is Jubilee style metal sleepers, though some parts are on timber sleepers, in some places you can even see them! The gradients are somewhat undulating and some of the curves appear to be more a series of straight lines joined by angles!

We had a quick tour around the third engine shed, again packed with an enormous variety of makes and models. Quite a few were prototypes I've already built models of for Fen End Pit so I felt I knew them quite well. I think if I modeled a Simplex bonnet as battered as this people would say I'd over-done it.

After taking the Ruston back to the shed it was time for my first drive of a Simplex. This took a bit more getting used to, I seemed to keep forgetting which way round the brake handle wound for on and off. We trundled around the field with our skips and got the obligatory photo.

Finally I got to drive the Wingrove and Rogers and I found this was very unexpected. You'd have thought that a battery locomotive with a simple throttle control and a brake lever would be straightforward but it actually felt like the hardest of the three locomotives to drive. Whereas the two diesels had just plodded along, almost regulating their own speed, the little battery locomotive really needed to be driven. The differences in gradient and the friction of the curves had an impact which was just not noticeable on the diesels. The field railway, not being replete with gradient markers, was quite challenging and so I found myself speeding or grinding to a halt on several occasions. While using the Wingrove and Rogers to shunt the Simplex back into the shed, a movement over one of the more questionable pieces of trackwork, Selwyn, who was perched on the battery box informed me 'I don't think anyone has taken it that fast before'. He was very patient and probably a bag of nerves by the end of the afternoon.

All in all it was a most enjoyable day out, if you have never been to the Apedale put it on your 'to-do' list and, if you fancy one of their driver experiences I can thoroughly recommend it.

David