Return to the Lakes - Excavator Heaven I

Ewan MacColl wrote in The Drivers Song

Come all you gallant drivers

Wherever you may be,

Whether you drive a Euclid…

Or a 54RB

Or even a 1909 Ruston and Proctor Steam Navvy!

The visit was to the Threlkeld Quarry and Mining Museum which is also home to the Vintage Excavator Trust who were having a running day. The majority of the machines there are Ruston-Bucyrus in a range of sizes from the smallest 10RB upwards. The original machines came in different versions including dragline, face cutting, cranes, etc. They were fairly ubiquitous in quarrying and civil engineering until hydraulic excavators took over when many were converted for use in demolition which apparently tended to wreck the machines themselves. 

The day started with a ride up to the top end of the quarry, another Hunslet product being the motive power, this time a diesel industrial:

The loco runs to the quarry at the top then drops back down to the workshops area where the bulk of the excavators are located and where they were operating, a bonus was Snacks on Tracks, the VET ladies providing sandwiches, cakes and hot drinks. I had a coffee and then a bit later a sausage sandwich for lunch before walking down to the museum itself. 

Although it’s a small building, and they are seeking funds for a new one, there are decent displays on local geology, quarrying and mining. 

They have a dark light area with a number of fluorescent rocks and minerals which glow in real life but really shine in a photograph:

It’s not all excavators and quarrying, on my final wander I found this relic from the canals:

From the museum I drove down to Ullswater and Glenridding, where I stayed in a statics caravan with university friends very nearly 40 years ago, before returning to the hotel via the tea shop at Aira Force (free National Trust parking, it would have cost anything up to £7 to park in Glenridding or Patterdale). 

One thing that people may be finding confusing is that the road past Patterdale over Kirkstone Pass is closed with, to quote the road sign, “No access to Troutbeck…” which seems odd as I’d just come from there - with typical British logic there is a Troutbeck at each end of the Pass.