Bristol Harbour Festival 2013

Posted on August 5, 2013 by corwinb

Harbour Festival is always busy down at Bristol Docks. I was volunteering on the Sunday (Saturday had seen torrential downpours, we were lucky on Sunday).

A couple of views from 8am before the crowds arrived.

The ever faithful ‘Henbury’ was on duty today.

As steam was raised outside the shed, I was tasked with polishing up some of the brasswork, including climbing up on the saddle tank to do the whistles, safety valve cover and chimney cap.

Then Driver Bob eases her over the pit for oiling.

The harbour area was packed full of interesting vessels and activities, and the museum’s own fleet was out in force.

The main challenge of the day was traversing the extremely busy area on the wharf. Trains proceeded along this section at a snail’s pace. Museum volunteers in high-vis made sure members of the public didn’t stray on to the running line.

Services were between M Shed and the SS Great Britain halt. The rain did eventually come, thankfully only toward the end of the day.
‘Henbury’s fire was dropped and she backed into the shed after another day’s work.

Birthday Special

Posted on June 30, 2013 by corwinb

On Saturday 29th June the BHR team celebrated one of our volunteers’ 18th Birthday. ‘Henbury’ was renamed ‘Emily Anne’ for the day and wore a ‘Birthday Special’ headboard.

Here’s a few photos from the day.

Henbury is dragged out of the shed by the front loader.
henbury-leaves-shed-2

Morning checks, and the fire is lit.

Some shunting was necessary as the Weltrol wagon used for ‘Gromit Unleashed’ on Friday needed to be shunted back into the long siding, and the passenger train reassembled.

The birthday girl

The belly of the beast

The last service of the day was a special train for volunteers, running down to the Create Centre and back

At the end of the day, the fire is dropped and Henbury/Emily Anne uses the last of her steam to return to the shed.

Unfortunately, ‘Portbury’s return to service has been delayed a bit. Hopefully she’ll be back in steam before the end of the year and ready to take over from her stablemate, as ‘Henbury’ will be withdrawn for her ten-year overhaul in July 2014.

Gromit Unleashed!

Posted on June 28, 2013 by corwinb

Cycled down to the quayside in my lunch break as a launch party for Visit Bristol’s ‘Gromit Unleashed’ project was underway.
Several decorated Gromits were on a flat wagon pulled by ‘Henbury’.
Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park was there being filmed by a tv crew

Follow the link to the official post on the M-Shed website
http://mshed.org/about-us/news/gromits-make-a-grand-entrance-on-the-henbury/

Visit England made this short news piece on the launch:

First Day

Posted on July 8, 2009 by corwinb

Well, yesterday was my first day of work on the BHR. The main task was to prep the Peckett ‘Henbury’ for the weekends work, among others!

Bristol harbour has a military visitor

I arrived to find Henburys fire lit having been dragged out of the shed.

The wagons covering the pit had to be shunted out of the way before oiling could be completed, once the loco had steam up and I ineffectually tried to clean some grease off the wheels!

Rob dropped the clinker out

All oiled up and ready to go, Rob collected the coal wagon from the middle siding and brought it back to the crossing where coal was loaded into the excavator bucket

Then brought the train forward to the crossover to load the coal into the bunker

Then a short jaunt down to the end of the line (By Ashton Swing Bridge) to collect the flat wagon of sleepers Rob and David had sorted previously in the week.