Don't mention the war!

Well it seems that Wartime in the Cotswolds kicked off a little early.  All it takes is to make one innocent little mistake on this blog regarding the number of one of our locos and all hell breaks loose.  I managed to amalgamate the numbers of surviving 4F's 44027 and 44123 into 44023, which sadly was cut up around 50 years ago.  At least I now know that some of you out there are paying attention, though heaven only knows why.  Anyway, I digress.  The Wartime Weekend kicked off bright and early on Saturday morning for me.... and dozens of other members of the steam loco dept.  Cleaning the three locos that were rostered was done in short order and quite frankly, most people then seemed to mill about drinking tea & eating biscuits.

Ben wasn't to be moved

In fact, most of the volunteers present weren't moving

Sean, Cliff & Andy are now passed out at leaning on shovels

Kev gets into the wartime spirit with his tin hat

Somewhere, Ed has a picture of me taking a picture of him

and unusually, Cliff had brought along his camera to capture the proceedings for posterity

Eventually, after enough tea to float a decent sized battleship had been drunk, the locos started setting off for their front line duties.

2807 sets off for the front

2807 will shortly be off to Great Central Railway for a little while to help them through a loco shortage.  (Edit:  apparently not any more, she's stopping with us now)

The planet's favourite prairie had only arrived the day before and was already passed fit for active service.  I don't know who her rostered cleaner was, but he managed to overlook buffing up those rusty smokebox door locking arms in his quest to drink tea on Saturday morning.  You just can't get the staff!

5542 fighting fit and ready to take on the Nazis

Meanwhile, the 8F has been kitted out in war dept livery for a short while.  Wearing her WD 348 numbers and sporting an air compressor plus two compressed air tanks, she made a fine sight.

WD 348 AKA 8274/45166

The war dept livery will have to be replaced shortly with the LMS numbering in readiness for the Big Four Five Cotswold Steam Celebration Gala at the end of May, so if you want to see her running like this, you'll have to get your skates on.

Out in the car park at Toddington, all sorts of merriment was taking place, military vehicles and re-enactors of all shapes and sizes were to be found along with Morris dancers and what purported to be an unexploded bomb

IED in the car park

Cleaners were deemed to be expendable, so I was nominated to defuse it. I decided that if discretion was the better part of valour.... and indeed if cowardice was the better part of discretion, then I should leave the Luftwaffe's calling card for somebody else to deal with.  All of a sudden, the long list of duties waiting to be performed around the yard took on a whole new appeal.  Chief amongst those was to erect a new fence alongside the West boundary between the yard and the narrow gauge line.  We had made an attempt to do this last week, but had met with only limited success.... limited mostly to abject failure in fact.  Even employing the Matbro to press the fence posts into the ground had only resulted in around two or three of the posts being solidly installed, the remainder of the thirty or so posts had struck something solid before they had gone in far enough and were looking decidedly wonky.  So it was that we rolled up our sleeves for round two of this frankly unequal fight.

Tim & John tried the subtle 'hit it with a sledge hammer' technique

Ed & Tim look on as Mark puts the full weight of the Matbro into the job.

It's quite disconcerting to see the front end of the Matbro raise itself by 6 inches or so as the fence post strikes something solid and refuses to budge. In the end we managed to get all of them in far enough, though many had to be concreted in to keep them solid. 

You'll have noticed from the last blog entry that I had been around on Wednesday.  Whilst I was there, Mike Hoskin had collared me and asked me if I could do a spot of videoing of the 8F in it's WD livery for him.  He had been roped into helping out in the Flag & Whistle on Saturday and would be driving the 8F on the Sunday, so he couldn't do it himself.  That was all the excuse that I needed to come along on the Sunday and indulge in a little line side photography.  Mike loaned me his video camera which turned out to be remarkably easy to operate. I just perched it on a tripod and let it run, whilst I grabbed a few photos with my own camera.  In spite of the dreary weather forecast, the sun actually shone for a bit in the morning and in fact it turned out to be a distinct improvement on the Saturday when we had been on the receiving end of a fairly heavy shower of hailstones at one point.  Here is an edited selection of photos from the day.

5542 approaching Dixton cutting.  Note the fine display of primroses.

WD 348 in Dixton cutting.

Sadly the sound of the hill climb at Prescott will have spoiled the sound track of the video

The gala freight train assembled at Winchcombe, 14 vehicles plus 2 brake vans

2807 approaching Greet tunnel

5542 exiting Greet tunnel

5542 again

WD 348 about to enter Greet tunnel

At this point I headed back off to Toddington for a bit of a look around as all of the locos would be facing the wrong way for a while.  As I wasn't booked on to do any particular duty, I thought that I ought to pay my way in rather than wave my work permit at the people on the entrance.  I'd like to think that it was because of my youthful good looks that they only charged me the price of a child ticket however my illusions were shattered when they informed me that it was just because it was so late in the day.

Late in the day or not, the car park at Toddington was still a seething mass of activity.  The Morris Dancers caught my eye, several had appropriate WWII slogans painted onto their faces:

Shh!  Walls

Have.... ice cream?

OK, cue a very old joke....
Q.  Why did God invent train spotters?
A.  So that Morris Dancers would have someone to laugh at!

I even found time for a rather belated breakfast in the Flag & Whistle before setting off down to Chicken Curve for the final shot of the day.  This would of course be the spectacular shot of the setting sun glinting off the side of the 8F as she rounded the curve.  Unfortunately, although Mike did as he had been requested and gave the 8F plenty of chuff as he came round Chicken Curve, my instructions to the sun had fallen on deaf ears.

WD 348 rounds Chicken Curve

If the video turns out to be any good, I'll see if I can get it onto this blog along with ones that I have or have been promised of the double headed halls of a few weeks ago.

Finally on a sad note, one of the railway's better known supporters Brian Peacey passed away on the 12th of April.  He would always give a cheerful wave from his garden at the first train of the day as it passed his house in Bishops Cleeve.  Brian will be much missed by the members of the steam loco dept and several expressed an intention to attend his funeral which was held this afternoon.  Yesterday, Ben halted the first train of the day outside his house and presented a card and some flowers as a mark of respect before carrying on to Cheltenham.