Cutting Thread Tap
10th January 2022
Our workshop at Churston is very fortunate in having a lot of old original railway tools acquired from Swindon Works and Newton Abbot Shed. Many tools were made by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and were specifically designed to enable fitters and engineers to carry out all sorts of maintenance and repair jobs on the locomotives. The majority of these tools are stamped GWR or latterly, after 1948, BR (W) which stood for British Railways (Western region).
However, we recently discovered a thread cutting tap in one of the drawers at the workshop and noticed that it was stamped B&ER. This stands for ‘Bristol and Exeter Railway’ which was built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel using his famous broad gauge track and which fully opened in 1844. The B&ER was eventually amalgamated within the GWR in 1876 - meaning that this tap is at least 146 years old!!!
Reviews
- Amazing - Best day out of our holiday. I would recommend this trip to anyone. It’s such great value for money and honestly such a special day out for all. We will definitely be back!
- Excellent trip out - On recommendation from our hotel in Torquay we booked this and we were not disappointed. Steam train then ferry over to Dartmouth + a lovely river cruise for an hour included. We will visit again.
- Charming - We did a round trip from Totnes to Dartmouth. The trip was wonderful with clean comfortable boat, nice staff and excellent commentary (and nice refreshments). On the return we were treated to an extra spin past the two castles at the mouth of the estuary. Marvelous.