50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

Postby teesships » Wed Sep 24, 2014 11:56 am

T.C.C.DREDGER No.10 (5347749), Tees Conservancy Commission, 508gt,
completed Simons, Renfrew, 4-1931
dumb vessel 1966 - deleted (converted to non-propelled barge)

River Tees - 24 September 1964:
tcc-dredger-no.10-240964.jpg
Ron
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Re: 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

Postby teesships » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:35 pm

And again on 29 September 1964:
tcc-dredger-no.10-290964.jpg
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Re: 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

Postby Hornbeam » Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:22 pm

My first relief job, carried two Engineers, her Chief was Bill F. a lovely chap always reminded me of one of the old school Actors in the St Trinian films, very tall with a slight stoop and his glasses on the end of his nose. No 10 was built as a self propelled Bucket Dredger her large Compound engine had two dog clutches either side of the main engine although her propeller was not in use and later removed. Anybody who has worked on a river environment will know that it certainly produced some characters and big Len T. was one of them on No10, a mountain of a man and a practical joker who gave me the scare of my life one day. I was running the main engine at the time when a double stop rang out, I stopped the ME opened the drains told the Fireman (coal fired job), big Len shouted me up topside, I thought we had picked up a bomb or some other munitions, have a look at this he said, it was a decomposed body in one of the buckets, I skipped lunch that day.
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Re: 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

Postby northeast » Wed Jul 22, 2020 6:27 am

Ron M. (have to write that now as Hornbeam is a Ron), what would that launch be in your lower photo? Was she a TCC craft?
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Re: 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

Postby teesships » Wed Jul 22, 2020 10:05 am

It looks to be the fireboat. See: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=884

As will be seen one of the photos on that page was sent to me by Ron Henderson (Rivoldini) so, with so many of us Rons, he will have to become Ron H!

I know we're going back over 50 years and memories do fade, but I'm trying in vain to remember an engineer Ron in the TCC River Section when I joined TCC in 1964.

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Re: 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

Postby northeast » Wed Jul 22, 2020 10:44 am

Thanks Ron ... we can always distinguish our multiple Ron's by their user names, anyway! There may even be some anonymous Ron's, they are the anonyrons. :)
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Re: 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

Postby Hornbeam » Wed Jul 22, 2020 11:17 am

Teesships, I had gone before 1964, the "Golden Eagle" in my time was a fairly tall thin lad with glasses who left the TCC and went to work at Visqueen, met him again in later years, can't remember his name now, I was not permanent Staff on the River but a Relief Engineer although the time I spent on the Craft it felt permanent.
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Re: 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

Postby Hornbeam » Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:39 am

As I indicated earlier the Chief on No10 was Bill F. A lovely chap and the Actor he reminds of was Alistair Sim only Bill was more powerfully built, a gentle giant. No10 was a coal fired Scotch Boilerx2 job and as the normal working week was only five days any maintenance problems which required a lot of time to fix were left to the weekend. As Ron M. has indicated on another Forum the T.C.C. was not a generous employer, they weren't a bad employer employees stayed with them for years until they retired. It became clear that the non return/ check valve was leaking on one of the Boilers Feed lines which was directly attached to the boiler front, this meant blowing the boiler down a Sat/ Sunday job and a bit of O/T before Christmas for the Black Gang ;)
The valve itself was of a Dewrance make and had a screw in Monel Metal seat. Normally if a valve is passing due to a mark on the seat it requires a bit of grinding paste on the Valve itself which is used to grind the mark in the seat out as well as bedding in the Valve itself, however Monel Metal valves are a different matter and take a bit of grinding out. It was decided that as the Valve seat was of the screw in type the Valve seat would be changed and the special removal jig was fitted to the Valve body, this basically consisted of a machined piece that fitted over the two lugs on the Valve seat and then a bar to pull/push to unscrew the seat. Now I was a fit young lad in his 20's and I couldn't budge it, the Fireman and Greaser were fit lads and they couldn't budge it and then Bill decided he would have a go bearing in mind he must have been in his late 50's. Now Bill was a nice chap, a Churchgoer and I never heard him swear, however he tried his hardest to move the V/v seat but it would not move, the Fireman suggested he should swear at it and Bill came out with a mouthful of expletives that would make a Royal Marine blush and much to everyone's amazement the thing moved leaving Bill with a grin on his face.
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Re: 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - T.C.C.DREDGER No.10

Postby taximan » Mon Aug 24, 2020 7:46 am

northeast wrote:Ron M. (have to write that now as Hornbeam is a Ron), what would that launch be in your lower photo? Was she a TCC craft?



The launch is the old fire launch which was based by the ferry landing. If you look carefully you can see the monitor on the foredeck.
Just one more trip
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