There now followed, for your correspondent at least, the highlight of the day. After waiting a little while for 8.702 to move out of the way, No1 pulled us forward and coupled up to a rake of eight bogie internals stabled on Road 13, heavily loaded with sections bound for stocking at Redbourn. Showing the very significant capabilities of the Rolls-Royce twin engined design, the loco put its 440hp to good use and hauled the set out while propelling the brakevans (also well loaded with 56 members). We continued in this format, the loco absolutely flat out and sounding superb even from the far van, north up the inner perimeter. Then it was round 'The Angle', over Dawes Lane into Redbourn sidings where, after just under 1½ miles we came to a stand just short of Points 590. Here, 8.702, which had followed us at a safe distance, coupled up to the rear, our train dropped off the front and ran ahead towards 'C' Sidings; then the Di8 propelled the loaded train into dead end siding B1 for unloading.

This was a great example of the fantastic surprises that pop up our Scunthorpe tours. The move was entirely 'real' - using our Janus to head the train, avoided waiting for a second Di8 to become available to 'top & tail'. The AFRPS team could 'give something back' to British Steel. As well as being fascinating and educational, it was an extremely rare opportunity to witness and listen to a Rolls-Royce engined Janus approaching its 60th birthday, flat out and 'doing its stuff' on a big load, as it was designed to.

We made our way back out to ... Dawes Lane bridge and, after reversing, propelled around the north side of the demolished Plate Mill site, the northern part now been repurposed as a container terminal. Three former plate mill 57xx bogie wagons were still in the siding labelled 'Pig Caster Stay Road'.

We ran into Road 8 at the northeast end of the Heavy Repair Bay and found it occupied, as often the case, on this occasion by a set of four yard wagons. The nearest of these (2078) contained the cut up remains of a 55XX bogie internal reduced to furnace sized pieces, as parts of the steel industry put it so eloquently. With a bit of time still available, these were shunted out of the way to enable the line to be traversed almost to the door, producing a lot of smiles all round. With the yard wagons replaced, plate mill wagons blocking Road 7 and cold torpedo ladles blocking Roads 4 & 3 (there is always next time), we quickly visited Roads 5 & 6 before propelling back towards Frodingham platform through Barclay's [Bank] Loop, the main line containing more yard wagons and some former plate mill wagons.

However, this was not the end of our tour and, having passed Points 503, we stopped and reversed. With the loco leading, we headed round to the opposite southwest end of the Heavy Repair Bay which presented a sorry sight. The area was littered with non-operational locos. Di8 8.718 minus bogies and cab was sitting on a bogie internal and a bogie-less and part dismantled Hunslet No76 was perched on and between two former casting car translator bogies. Di8s 820 and 8.716, parked behind Janus No51, seemed to have been temporarily relieved of spare parts. Di8 8.703 and High Line loco No1 appeared to be spare on the Wash Road, with the heavily rebuilt Hunslet No30 also present here on its bogies. We visited as much of each of Roads 1 to 5 as possible, in most cases nearly reaching the bay doors.






The final diversion was an ascent of the heavily tree encroached single track up to the CEW (Central Engineering Workshops) Dock where, after reversal, we found two yard wagons stabled. It wasn't possible to shunt these out of the way to reach the actual end of line without taking them down to the bottom of the hill. It was good to see this very traditional internal obscure scrap loading point in use.






With that, it remained just to descend the incline, return to Frodingham platform and the tour was over. It had been an excellent day with lots of interest and weather that had been quite kind to us. Those who keep track of these things reported that the tour included 99 reversals (but no setbacks)! Although we hadn't encountered much rail traffic moving, as it is easy for working locos to keep out of sight on such a vast 100 mile system, we still saw three Di8s working Concast and Mills traffic (and two spare at the Mills) plus four different Hunslets on the torpedo ladles. Not bad for an industrial railway in 2022. Although we didn't encounter it, Janus 93 was reportedly regularly used on internal scrap traffic in yard wagons Mondays to Fridays.

All that remains is, as ever, to thank our Society and the AFRPS teams for continuing to organise and successfully deliver these fascinating railtours, and British Steel for accommodating them. To any member who still hasn't partaken, you should.