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Under the Wizard's spell

An old photo of a couple of fascinated young lads in front of an engine at a steam rally in the early 1970s is nothing out of the ordinary but for one of these two boys, young Alfie Cheyne, that fascination continued into adult life and in 2002 he became the owner of the very engine featured in that picture.

Alfie Cheyne left school at 16 and served an apprenticeship in Marine Engineering and Hydraulics and by 1987 had become self employed and started his own small engineering firm at North Castle Street in Banff. This was the boom time for the offshore oil industry and to meet a growing demand Alfie became a down hole safety valve specialist and travelled all over Europe and Asia working on remote offshore operations. In 1993 he established an engineering repair workshop at Montbletton near Banff, carrying out service and repairs for the Scottish fishing fleet. The business grew quickly and after 18 months he was employing 18 people.

As well as service and repairs, the firm, now called Alfred Cheyne Engineering, began to manufacture deck machinery and in 1994 was awarded its first contract to build its first set of large split winches complete with a computerised Autotrawl system. The company expanded quickly with a new factory and office complex being built at the Montbletton site in the years that followed. Today ACE Winches is one of the leading companies in its field with Alfie, now Chief Executive Officer, being recognised as Entrepreneur of the Year 2009.

Despite the heavy demands of running the company he retains his love of steam engines and steam engineering, the seeds of this interest surely having been sown at those early steam rallies. With the facilities available at the Montbletton factory Alfie has been able to enjoy that passion for steam and over the past few years has bought and restored some very fine steam engines of his own.

The latest restoration to be completed is a stunning Aveling & Porter general purpose traction engine which made an appearance at the Bedfordshire Steam & Country Fayre in September 2009. This engine had also made a visit to the previous year’s event and this had been my first brief encounter with Wizard but although it was in steam the restoration work had not been completely finished and the Aveling was running during 2008 without a canopy. However the lack of a canopy did little to detract from a superbly presented engine which had been restored to the highest
possible standard.

During the winter of 2008/2009 the opportunity was taken to attend to the remaining work to finish the Aveling which of course included the construction of the new canopy. Once this had been finished and fitted, the last details of the painting and lettering could be completed and the engine is now resplendent in the livery of its first owners – Elgin County Council. With the Aveling cleaned, polished and in steam it did seem a shame to waste a particularly fine sunny morning by leaving this rather fine looking engine simmering away quietly in the shade of a large tree. Fortunately Alfie was not averse to taking the engine for a ‘bit of a trundle’ and having finished his breakfast he kindly agreed to pose Wizard for some photographs and so with rally organiser Mark Worbey’s blessing the Aveling was steamed away from the main arena and up the grassy hill at the edge of the Shuttleworth Park. The engine handled the fairly steep rise with no trouble whatsoever despite the grassy slopes being a little on the slippery side and an enjoyable hour was spent watching the Aveling being manoeuvred around the field for the photographs.

Aveling & Porter KT type 14-ton traction engine No 11137 was built in November 1924 and delivered new to Elgin County Council in March 1925. The 7nhp compound piston valve 2-speed engine was fitted with a cable winch on the nearside and also had springs fitted to both axles. Upon delivery it was allocated to the Highways Department and the engine became Moray County Highways Fleet No 9. The Aveling was given the name Wizard and from then on was used mainly on various road making and repair duties around Elgin. In common with many local councils the engine was allocated a single driver who would then be responsible for its daily working. Wizard’s driver at that time was James McKerron, who worked with the engine until 1934 which was the year when Elgin County Council withdrew all its steam haulage engines from road duties.

Upon withdrawal the Aveling was then moved to Wester New Forres Quarry where it remained in use for many more years but at this time it was practically a stationary engine – being used to drive a stone crushing plant and here it was fired by Jimmy Murray and maintained by James Fraser. The engine remained working at the quarry until 1947 when it was finally laid up at the council’s Thornhill Road Depot in Elgin and it remained here until 1959. Even though it had been stored here for nearly 13 years the engine had not only escaped the attention of vandals but more importantly it had not been cannibalised for parts. The engine was still in a complete condition when in 1959 the council decided to finally dispose of her and she was subsequently sold to William McConnachie of Tarland in Aberdeenshire.

William, a very keen steam enthusiast, was one of the founder members of the North East Scotland steam preservation movement and he kept the engine in good order – rallying the Aveling all through the 1960s and the 1970s. The McConnachie family eventually sold the engine in 1986 to Fred Coupland of Carrington, Lincolnshire, and it joined his extensive collection. The traction engine was subsequently bought by Alfie in October 2002 when the Coupland Collection was sold at auction and the Aveling would be on the move northwards once again. It returned to Scotland where it had spent its working days and Archie moved the engine to his workshops at Montbletton where work on a complete ground up restoration began. Although the engine was still in one piece when he bought it there were some major problems with the boiler and firebox which had to be attended to.

During the course of a five and a half year rebuild the engine was completely stripped down, the original parts were refurbished and reused wherever possible as the aim was to preserve as much of the original engine. The ultimate aim was to return the engine to its Moray County Highways condition although with a large pile of parts and the dismantled engine spread all over the workshop any return to steam did seem to be a very long way away.

Following the completion of this lengthy rebuild Wizard made its return to the rally scene in June 2008 with its first outing at the Castle Fraser Rally – where it performed admirably and, according to Alfie, 'didn’t put a foot wrong'. It was rallied for the rest of that year without the canopy but this was fitted in time for the 2009 season and provided a suitable finishing touch for a magnificent engine restoration.

My thanks to Alfie for providing the details of the history and restoration of this superb engine and for allowing the use of photographs from his collection and also to rally organisers Paul and Mark Worbey for once again allowing me to ‘borrow’ one of their exhibits.