This Narrow Gauge railway at the Golden Valley Light Railway has it all, you start off driving through the busy Swanwick Junction, a standard gauge heritage line. Here you see all sorts of vehicles in various states of repair. After that you head into the woods for a picturesque trip along a peaceful line, ending at an old canal basin.
The 2ft gauge, 1 mile long line takes you along the ever changing landscape of Derbyshire and can never be accused of being boring. The yard alone at Swanwick would keep any train enthusiast happy.
This journey is probably one of the best value narrow gauge trips I have been on, at just £2.50 for adults and £1.50 for children (correct October 2022) it is well worth the price, and it gives a unique perspective on the landscape around Swanwick Junction.
The Golden Valley Light Railway has everything you could ask for in a day out.
The loco in question on this journey is (a very noisy) Simplex 40SD 529. Simplex 40SD 529 of 1984 was the last loco to be built at Simplex's Elstow Works at Bedford, as later locos were built under license by Alan Keef before he finally bought the company.
It spent the whole of its working life at Severn Trent Water"s Stoke Bardolph Water Reclamation Works, Sewage Works in plain speak, where it was used to move skips full of "solids" from the filter beds, to the tipping site. As far as can be ascertained it last worked in September 1994.
It is powered by a 3 cylinder Deutz air cooled engine, which means that the characteristic radiator is missing, the "bonnet" of the loco extending forwards to the front buffer beam.
Compared to earlier Simplexes, this loco is considerably shorter. It has a car like "pull on" handbrake instead of the more normal wheel type. This makes the loco short enough to be packed across a standard ISO container.
This also means that the cab is considerably more cramped. The cab was removed at the sewage works, because it was considered by the staff to have insufficient emergency exit to cater for the locomotive rolling over and trapping the driver inside. A new wider cab has been installed on the loco, followed by airbraking to passenger hauling standards. The loco is now used on short formation trains on quieter days of passenger carrying.
www.gvlr.org.uk/
www.thetouristline.co.uk