Category Archives: Current Locomotives

We’re Going Back up the Branch! (II)

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Thankfully we have been lucky with the weather recently and have done more work on repairing and rebuilding the branch to A Bond.

EVEN MORE concrete sleepers have arrived and were stashed on wagons. These deliveries have almost finished now with enough in stock to relay the majority of the running line. Bob caught these photos of Crane 32 doing the honours with Henbury ready to tow them away.

A thankless task has been moving the stacks of concrete sleepers which were left on the trackbed in the new station area. The contractors employed to fix the wall of the New Cut and the Chocolate Path were meant to have installed these in ‘the gap’ but for some reason this was not done before the work site was cleared. We need to re-grade this area due to the height difference in the old running line and the new yard area, so the laborious work of moving all the sleepers had to be done by Larry and a few volunteers. Frustrating, but necessary to allow work to continue.
Chris cleared the last few earlier last week leaving the platform road clear.

At the weekend we were then able to drag another 30-foot rail into position at the railhead and begin to hammer keys into every other rail chair to give the track some rigidity. Then, using a turfer ratchet chain thingy we slewed the 60-foot panel to begin making a gently curve towards the station.
The view at the end of the day shows the new curve as well as the height discrepancy between the new track and the old. The old railhead will need jacking up and re-packing underneath once it’s been connected to the new panel.

Have-A-Go Week, 29’s Overhaul, A New Pontoon and a Spot of Gardening

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HAVE-A-GO!
Last week (13-17th October) was ‘Have-a-Go’, where people can book a session of 20 minutes 1-on-1 tuition on driving the steam locomotive on the quayside as well as 20 minutes of driving the electric crane. We don’t know of anywhere else in the UK that does this combination so it’s a fun experience. Happy to report that this week was a sell-out success!
Thanks to Bob Edwardes and Paul Stanford (who got the experience as a wedding anniversary gift, lucky!) for these photos. Paul is a lifelong railway worker who has written extensively about the railways of Bristol and the South-West. His latest book, From Chocolate to Cider charts over 180 years of family railway history.

A NEW PONTOON AND A SPOT OF GARDENING
Two large concrete pontoons have been a regular feature of the harbourside for decades. One of them formerly had a boathouse atop it. More recently, The Matthew has been using a pontoon for safe loading and mooring of their ship, whilst the other was repurposed as a community garden. The latter has fallen out of use (especially since Covid) and is now to begin a new life at M Shed. The ability to load boat trips at deck-height, coupled with no longer needing to raise and lower the gangplank steps for every sailing, will be a great help.
Bob Edwardes and James Stanley captured the Harbour Master’s boats bringing the pontoon to its new home on 8th October. Note that the derricks were cut off to enable it to pass under Bristol Bridge and Redcliffe Bridge.

There is A LOT of soil on this pontoon, which is no longer needed. Some of this will be re-used in a project at SS Great Britain platform. Since the points leading to the defunct double-track section were taken out some years ago, a lot of people have been using the trackbed as a shortcut or dog-walking area. This isn’t ideal when there are trains departing the station (trip hazards etc.) so a raised bed is being constructed from surplus sleepers and timbers.
The first steps were made here during an operating weekend, with the crane and Larry bringing supplies over for the volunteers to work on.

29’S OVERHAUL

Crane 29 has been a long-term restoration project, having been something of a parts donor to get the others running again in the early 2000s. Bruce and the crane gang have been working hard to get it back into use.
Recently this involved some close-up work on the bearings and jib, for which the man-cage was a great help, Crane 30 doing the honours. As you can imagine this job requires a calm day with very little wind, quite unlike what we experienced over Docks Heritage Weekend!

Docks Heritage Weekend 2025

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On 4th and 5th October, M Shed hosted Docks Heritage Weekend (one of my favourite events of the year) with the support of Bristol Port Company and the Show of Strength Theatre Company.
This is the time when we bring the quayside back to life and give a flavour of what a working port looked like in the 1950s.
Featuring cranes lifting appropriate loads, the capstan in operation, boat trips, and this year we re-jigged things a little so that the steam engine was part of the quayside demonstrations as it shunted wagons around.
The Bristol lorry suffered a leaking radiator hose on Sunday morning which will need repairing, so Henbury did a bit more shunting on the second day. The freshly-painted MOGO van took pride of place.
The storyline of Mr. and Mrs. Purnell this year revolved around their tin wedding anniversary and involved a mop bucket and a tin of beans!
Thanks to Bob Edwardes and Adam White for taking some of these photos.

Steam Loco/Electric Crane Driving Experiences in October

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Back by popular demand are the HAVE-A-GO experiences at M Shed.

YOU can have a go at driving steam locomotive ‘Henbury’ as well as one of the electric cranes.
For just £80 you receive 20 minutes one-on-one tuition on each machine as well as a certificate of achievement (you might even get a free cup of tea!).

Have-a-go is running from Monday 13th to Friday 17th October 2025

Click here for more information.
or
Click here to book your driving experience.

MOGO in for Overhaul

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The GWR-designed G34 MOGO van No. 65814 is the next vehicle to be getting the L Shed treatment, following on from the overhaul of the Sulphuric Acid Tanker and ex-GWR O18 open wagon.

The MOGO (MOtor GOods) van was designed to carry motor cars and as such is fitted with end doors and a tailgate arrangement allowing cars to be driven in and through the van. The earlier G31 had planked sides but in the last years of the GWR before nationalisation, the design changed to plywood on the G34.

W65814 had a spruce-up in 2014 and 2015 but the years outside (and the efforts of some lil’ rascals) have taken their toll. As it’s regularly used for Docks Heritage Weekend and photo charters, it’s time to give it some love.

Last Sunday, Henbury positioned the van next to Crane 29 outside L Shed at the end of the working day. Then in the week, the quayside and running lines outside the shed were once again closed, wooden blocks dropped into the flangeways, and the Coles Crane was able to de-rail and then pivot the van around 90 degrees to be rolled into the shed.

The volunteers have wasted no time in emptying the van and stripping off the trashed plywood for renewal. Thanks to Chris and Bob for these images!

Gromit Unleashed Returns!

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Last week Henbury once again took centre stage in kicking off Gromit Unleashed and delivered several brand-new sculptures from SS Great Britain Halt (opposite Aardman’s offices) to M Shed where they were unloaded by the dockside cranes. Aardman founder Nick Park once again took to the footplate!
The first Gromit Unleashed was wayy back in 2013.
Thanks to the M Shed volunteers who participated for sending in these photos.

Gromit Unleashed 3 is running across Bristol from 30th June – 31st August as part of the Grand Appeal.

Read more about the launch event here.

Henbury Pulling Passengers in the Port

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Youtube channel brunelheritage was on hand to record Henbury’s first day back in service. The sun shone for most of the weekend and passenger numbers were strong on both the train and ‘Pyronaut’, the museum’s fire-fighting boat giving tours around the harbour

Henbury, back at work already

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Henbury was steamed up this week and put to work straight away, shunting the well wagon and flat loaded with sleepers up the branch. The Coles Crane unloaded all these ‘new to us’ concrete sleepers on to Cumberland Siding.
Just visible in one of the photos is the new lid for the coal wagon. These are to prevent unwanted access, protect the contents of the wagon and are designed to resemble wagon sheets whilst also being sturdy enough to resist the elements in the long term.
Thanks to Chris for these photos.

Volunteers and staff are working hard to get this done on top of regular maintenance. At the same time, the other well wagon was unloaded of redundant and life-expired wooden sleepers. Jobs like this go to show how much the wagon fleet is still needed by the railway to continue operating, so they are not just museum pieces, they are also working items of rolling stock.
This has freed up the two well wagons to receive another two lorry loads of concrete sleepers and chairs in the next few weeks.

March comings and goings

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There have been arrivals and departures at the BHR recently.
We said goodbye to pannier 1369 after three very successful events (two photo charters organised by 30742 Charters and one brake van running day). 1369 was a popular engine with visitors and it was nice to crew something different for a change. It’s back to its home at the South Devon Railway, from where ‘Henbury’ also returned. It had been hoped for the Peckett to star at the SDR’s winter gala but sadly this was not to be due to mechanical issues.
The rigours of continuous running over a long period are quite different to shunting up and down the quayside.
Thanks to Bob Edwardes for the photos of the two green locomotives swapping places, Larry and the Coles Crane doing the honours of shunting on the quayside.

In the same week, two wagons were readied to receive a load of concrete sleepers, recently purchased for the upcoming task of track renewal, especially on the New Cut Branch (currently blocked half way due to repair work at Vauxhall Bridge).
Thanks to Bruce for the photos of the loading process taken from the drivers cabin of the crane!

Hoping to share some of the wonderful photos and videos that people took over the course of No. 1369’s stay soon!