Nearly there Tilley AL8

It's a Tilley XN tank from an R1 heater and a XN control cock valve, all Tilley but not the stand.


I hope this helps.

 

That would have been most helpful information when you asked your last question. So yes, of course it is Tilley.

 

Well you know I like to keep things interesting, I can't make it easy, also I forgot to change the cock control knob, buck after polishing it, so that didn't help either

 

Jean,

I found a site that mentioned some of he drivers from years past working out of "Old Enfield" I sent it to my brother and this was his reply. You may find it interesting to hear a bit more of a bygone era.

One of the engine drivers that my brother mentions, Maurie Brown, was one of the drivers that would use the train horn to let us know he was passing by. I remember Maurie coming around to our place one morning and described an accident he had had in his engine. The train somehow derailed and Maurie had to leap from the locomotive because he feared it would roll down a bank that was a bit further ahead. He assured us, it was as scary as all get out.

Anyway, here is my brothers reply.


Thanks Matt, yes I knew nearly all of them. Quite a few didn’t get mentioned, like Les Dean, Mick Brook, Maurie Brown. When I first went there in the late sixties “old Enfield” was still open.

There were three roundhouses and all were still full of steam engines but more and more began line up and rusting on the derelict road. The coal stage was still in operation and I was the fireman on that pushing coal wagons to the top and getting them emptied.

Someone mentioned Kellogg’s. We shunted a few places like that. I got quite a few boxes of cereal and used to bring them home. Also meat from a small goods like sausages, rolls of Devon and salami. Got biscuits from Arnott’s and chorale milk from the milk factory at Pippita. We used to dip our billies in the milk pots but it ended up being nearly all cream.

I remember a wine tanker came into Enfield Yard. It was from McWilliams where we used to shunt on the trip trains. Anyway it was leaking whether by accident or purpose and the shutters were collecting Billy’s full of it and got blind drunk.

One bloke mentioned the spray pit at Delec. I did that occasionally and you got labourers wages and it was dirty but that was nothing compared to the spray pit at old Enfield. We did the steam engines there and it was absolutely horrific. I got covered in thick old grease and soaking wet. I remember it was winter and I sat next to a coal heater in a small hut just big enough for two people, I remember being so miserable.