Peter are you sure about the Nentsberry loco?
As understood it all haulage there used horses, and indeed in the Beamish picture archive there is a photo of a horse pulling a waggon out of the entrance.
If one was abandoned underground then when I went through the workings in the. Mid 60's there was no sign of any, and we went a long way past Wellhope shaft.
In my opinion after the 'wind down' of the Nenthead operations, around 1922 these locos went as well, where to?
If this was not the case, in the re-working of the Jane Foot flats, they would not have used the winding system to pull the waggons, from the flats to Broomsberry level.
To quote the late Eric Richardson, the Wellgill level, having being stoped, underneath, sounded hollow, and the horses refused to go over it, and :happybday:they(the horses, know you know!)

Peter are you sure about the Nentsberry loco?
As understood it all haulage there used horses, and indeed in the Beamish picture archive there is a photo of a horse pulling a waggon out of the entrance.
If one was abandoned underground then when I went through the workings in the. Mid 60's there was no sign of any, and we went a long way past Wellhope shaft.
In my opinion after the 'wind down' of the Nenthead operations, around 1922 these locos went as well, where to?
If this was not the case, in the re-working of the Jane Foot flats, they would not have used the winding system to pull the waggons, from the flats to Broomsberry level.
To quote the late Eric Richardson, the Wellgill level, having being stoped, underneath, sounded hollow, and the horses refused to go over it, and :happybday:they(the horses, know you know!)

John

Haggs - I agree - all available photos show horse haulage. The story about the loco in Haggs came from Lance Liverick. He said that it was not a success. He was quite specific about where the loco was abandoned underground - not far from Wellhope shaft bottom.

I am confident that the report of two locos in the loco shed at Rampgill in 1950 is reliable. My guess is that they were the two Ruhrthaler locos.

Eric and Lance always said that the locos did not go underground in Brownley Hill because the level was too narrow. I guess that the VMZ considered that it was not worth relaying the track with flat bottom rails, as they did in Rampgill.

I heard the same story about Wellgill Cross vein and the horse - the haulage system was put in in 1936 for the short-lived Scraithole operation. Current digging operations are trying to get under this part of the mine.

I think that we should keep the Haggs loco story as "maybe". New material on the VMZ keeps appearing and you never know......

Pete

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Having been in the levels at the bottom of Wellhope shaft and seen the shaft bottom area, we saw nothing that looked even remotely like a loco.
The whole shaft bottom was a bit of a disappointment to be honest after all the years and attempts to get there!

Haggs mine was reopened around 1964 as a mining prospect. In reality, it was a scrapping exercise....the brass was removed from the air lines and all the waggons were dragged out and scrapped.

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I guess that explains why it seemed so bare around the shaft bottom and generally. At the time of our visit, the shaft bottom itself was full of winding ropes and guide cables so not much visible there but elsewhere did have a rather cleaned out look.

To quote the late Eric Richardson, the Wellgill level, having being stoped, underneath, sounded hollow, and the horses refused to go over it, and they(the horses, know you know!)

I wonder if this was true, it seems believable until you think that horses are perfectly capable of walking over boomy structures and must have been used over backfilled stopes in other areas. It seems a lot of work and expense to put in a haulage system to accommodate a bolshie horse.
Maybe it was a logistical thing with the area around Engine shaft being used as a marshalling yard with the horse toing the long leg of the haulage along Broomsberry level and the wire doing the Wellgill level section.
Spooked horses seems more fun mind. 🙂

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I have heard other mining stories about horses anticipating roof falls in coal mines.

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Peter, I have had another thought about the abandoned locos in the Rampgill Mill in the 1950's.
As we all know, Kingsley, suggested as part of the war effort, the re-working of the Nenthead/Barneycraig dumps.
Could these locos, been bought in for this job? that is pulling ore waggons to the new flotation plant ? We can summise a lot of rails would be around including the track to Brownley Hill, where ultimately, the waste would be dumped.
Having bought the Krupps mill for virtually a song,(see Dunham m/s), I cannot see the Ministry of Supply, skimping on the purchase of a couple of locos, They could of course be fuelled with coal and hence save precious diesel/petrol.
Labour was not a problem, lots of Italian POWs!

John, the loco shed was in the Rampgill workshops yard - the narrow building facing you through the north gate. The write up in TIMM re WW2 does not mention loco and rail haulage - seems to indicate excavators and road haulage. The concrete ramp at the south end of the mill was built during that time for road vehicles to deliver.

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I've had a play about and got a copy of the 1913 'Petrol locomotive for Rampgill-Mine' article. Same photo as before.

http://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Rampgill-Lead-Mine/Petrol-locomotive-for-Rampgill-Mine.pdf 

(for some reason this file appears blank when opened in Firefox, try saving to your machine)

Here that other article about New Century locos (not at Rampgill)

http://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Personal-Album-859/New-Century.pdf 

(for some reason this file appears blank when opened in Firefox, try saving to your machine)

Interestingly there's a photo of one with the covers off.

🔗99442[linkphoto]99442[/linkphoto][/link]

Chris

That's great! Thanks for getting the copies.

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