There's no such thing as a free lunch... or is there?

On Saturday, I was rostered as the cleaner for the Elegant Excursions dining train.  The loco being used was 5542, which was also the down for hauling one of the two steam service trains during the day.  My first thought had been to pitch up at 05:30 and help out with whoever was down to clean it in readiness for the first service train however once I had checked the timetable and realised that it wasn't scheduled to be back at Toddington until 11pm, I swiftly changed my mind.  So it was that I arrived at Toddington at the distinctly more civilised time of 10:15, anticipating spending a fair chunk of the day cracking on with the top coat of paint on the mess coach.  As I arrived, the second service loco was just leaving shed, being driven by Ian Butler.  As the current head of department, Ian is always keen to make sure that department members are fully conversant with the rule book and tested me with one of the hand signals as he went by.  I checked later and couldn't find the one concerned in the rule book anywhere.  Perhaps I misunderstood and he was just indicating that he wanted two sugars in his tea, or there again, perhaps he was just predicting the score that he would give my blog article this week, though two out of ten would be rather disappointing compared to last week's eight out of ten.

Ian had just disappeared back inside the cab of WD348 by the time I had my camera out

Anyway, before I could join Chris Bristow in applying the final cream top coat to the mess coach, Ed Brooks & myself were collared by Mark Young who was looking for assistance in tidying up the area by the ash pit.  A small team of people had been in on Friday, and now the extended coal dock and the new ash dock had been concreted and would both be ready for use in a few days once the concrete had fully hardened.

The completed ash dock

The extension to the coal dock

A bit more area concreted over behind the loco sheds.

The team that turned up on Friday to do the concreting comprised of Mark Young, John Cruxon, John Longhurst, Chris Blake, Time Bazeley & Neil Cooper.

The plan now, was to dismantle the old ash dock.  Being built of wooden sleepers, the idea was to separate out those that could be re-used as sleepers from those that were no good. The no good pile would then be further sub-divided into ones that might be OK for use by gardeners who apparently like to have old wooden sleepers in their gardens and those that were too far gone for even that and would need to be disposed of.  Sleepers as it turns out are deceptive, ones that looked perfectly serviceable to my untutored eye were soon rejected by Nigel Black of the Permanent Way gang and few passed the test.

Good pile of sleepers on the right, rejects on the left

The last sleeper that we moved from the old ash dock turned out to the the residence of a large brown mouse, who after a brief hesitation darted off like a scalded cat.... or perhaps more like a scalded cat was chasing it.  No chance to grab any photos I'm afraid. So anyway, we now have three piles of sleepers in different places at Toddington, some of them were a little large and presented something of a challenge to shift.  Mark apparently likes a challenge:-

Mark being challenged by a rather large sleeper

You will notice that the fence posts that were erected last week now have wire fencing attached to them, I think done by the same team of people that did the concreting on Friday.  The fence now extends some way South of the wood store too. 

Fencing to the South of the wood store

Note what I believe to be the remains of a garden shed awaiting being broken up, if so it is probably the one provided by Michael Speake who contacted me last week through this blog.  It will shortly be used to assist some of our locos into steam.  Ed and Cheyenne broke this lot up a bit later and placed it in the wood store.

Eventually all the sleepers by the ash dock along with others scattered elsewhere around the yard were graded and moved to the correct locations.  Now back to plan A which was crack on with painting the mess coach.  Chris had already finished off the right hand side of it, but had to disappear elsewhere, so I picked up and carried on.  I've noted all sorts of odd behaviour amongst the other volunteers since I started this blog.  Some avoid me (even  more than the public at large avoids me), some make comments to the contrary, but quite transparently want to appear in here and one (no names or pack drill) even wanted to check the photos that I'd taken to make sure that his bald patch wasn't visible.  If I had a five quid for every time that somebody had said words to the effect of 'you'd better not quote that on the blog', then I'd be able to afford to buy Flying Scotsman and finish off her overhaul myself.  Never before though had I had any approach quite as transparent as that of the crew of WD348 who having noticed me painting the mess coach as they arrived, sent word that I should bring my camera up to platform 1 where they were currently waiting to head off back down the line again to Cheltenham.  Apparently Ian had written the word 'Fireman' in the soot on the cab roof of the 8F with an arrow pointing to where the fireman should stand in the cab.  I have no idea why this might be considered newsworthy, but I obligingly grabbed a few photos anyway.

Ade knows his place

Ian trying to look serious

George having a relaxed lunch

Mark managed to look cool even on a hot footplate

Cheyenne took a trip out on a later run

Once I had returned to my labours after this brief interruption, I finally got on with what I had intended to be doing. Carrying on from where Chris & Ed had left off earlier, I continued with putting the top coat of cream on the mess coach.  Just the chocolate to do now and the lining then she'll be ready to go.  She is starting to look like a proper coach again at last.

The mess coach is starting to look respectable at last

Rumours that the mess coach will be named 'Tina' in honour of our Facilities Manager remain just that, a rumour, however if she buys the right people (well ok, me) enough beer, then it could conceivably happen.

In a round up of news elsewhere around the department, Foremarke Hall is having a boiler washout and the turn out to the old ash pit is also beginning to take shape thanks to the sterling efforts of the permanent way gang:

Foremarke Hall during her boiler washout

Excellent progress on the ash pit turn out!

One of the PW gang members rather cheekily suggested that the mess coach would look better in blue & grey.... I may just have offered a view on the matter!

5542 appeared back on shed for a quick emptying of her ash pan and then it was off down the line with Paul (driver) and Mike (fireman) for an evening of elegant excursioning. So it was light engine down to Winchcombe where we picked up the stock.

Light engine to Winchcombe

5542 wears the Elegant Excursions headboard, Paul & Mike greet the customers

Then we were off to Cheltenham and back a couple of times at a leisurely pace whilst the diners enjoyed the fine food delivered to their table and the fine views of the Cotswolds and Malvern Hills which glided past their windows.

Me and my shadow.... and Cleeve Hill

Mike looking back for the 'Right Away' from the guard

Paul taking a moment to admire the setting sun over the Malvern Hills

It was I have to say something of a magical evening, with a glorious sunset over the Malvern Hills followed by a clear starlit sky.  Mike was kind enough to allow me to fire the second round trip, which seemed to go off ok, although I had rather more fire than was strictly necessary by the time that we got back to Toddington. It struck me whilst firing, that coal, being black, is rather hard to see at night, you stick your shovel into the bunker door and hope that you come up with something.  There is a clear opportunity here for some entrepreneurial type to invent a form of hi-viz glow-in-the-dark coal for use at night on heritage railways.

Paul, Mike & I were provided with our evening meal sat on one of the platform benches at Cheltenham on the second trip, and jolly good it was too.  I abandoned all my journalistic instincts and just tucked straight in without bothering to take a photo first.  Paul did manage to hold off for long enough to grab a shot to taunt his wife with and after only a small amount of cursing about the fact that our phones being of two different brands were refusing to talk to each other, he eventually managed to send this shot of his dinner to me.

Paul's elegantly excursioned dinner

By the time that we had the diners back to Winchcombe, the washing up had been done, the stock shunted and 5542 taken back to Toddington and safely tucked up in bed, it was about 00:45 and high time that I got myself off home, showered and safely tucked up in bed too.  I was quite glad that I had opted for a later start in the morning.

And finally,  I know many who read this will have seen this already, but just in case, last year Rory Bremner filmed a series on 'Great British Views'.  One of his views was from the footplate of Foremarke Hall as she ran up and down the line from Winchcombe to Cheltenham and back. It was broadcast last week and you can find the film on the ITV website where it will be available until somewhere around the end of May. The crew are Chris Irving (driver) and Paul Richardson (fireman) who both did an excellent job of representing the railway.  The bits of interest can be found from 02:57 until 13:50, so we got close on 11 minutes of coverage.