Sundew.

I won't be at the Rocks by Rail Museum tomorrow but there is an operational day so visitors will be treated to the sight and smell of locomotives and rolling stock in action as well as being able to enjoy the various exhibits around the site. They may also enjoy some refreshments in the Sundew cafe and think that it is a strange name to give it but there is logic in its naming.

In my wanderings around the site, now usually with the mower keeping the grass down, I have, as already explained in a previous post, had the opportunity to get close to the exhibits. One of the more unusual exhibits, that visitors tomorrow can see, is one of the driving cabs of the walking excavator Sundew. In its time, Sundew was the largest walking drag line excavator in the World. It even 'walked' the 13 miles to Corby when mining operations in its home quarry Exton Park in Rutland ended. Unfortunately in 1987 following the ending of iron ore mining at Corby, Sundew was cut up for scrap. There are more details about Sundew on the Rocks by Rail website which you can see by clicking here. 

Despite being scrapped one of the cabs survived and was donated to the Museum in its then guise as the Rutland Railway Museum. The cab is big but when you look at the size of Sundew in photographs it pales into insignificance! During its time at the Museum it has been restored and now lives on as the only part of Sundew that remains apart from peoples memories of this monster and the name of the cafe!

The interpretive board giving details of the 13 mile walk to Corby.

The cab is big - I am betting there are apartments in London with less space!

Could do with a wash but still not too bad for being over 70 years old! That grass looks nice and trimmed too!

The cab fittingly now overlooks the Museum's quarry face.