Spring Cleaning

The week started with another few photos from one of my regular spies.... as usual, the negatives were rolled up in the bottom of a tube of toothpaste... I'm sure that the KGB will rumble his disguise soon, the shiny white teeth will give him away.  The photos concerned show the Wednesday gang at work concreting in the apron between roads 9 and 10.  For those of you who may not be too familiar with how the road numbering goes, that is the space between the steam shed and the diesel shed.  It was raining

Pouring concrete in the rain (photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge)

 It's amusing to note that the inspector in the photo is wearing the wrong colour hi-viz.

The finished job (photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge)

I say "finished job", they ran out of concrete just before they got to the end, a last little bit will have to be added at some point in the future.

Another of my spies, who I ended up doing the old swapping of identical brief cases ruse with on a crowded Toddington platform sent through the following photos of painting the frames of 3850 last weekend:

Even the fittings need cleaning and painting where necessary (photo courtesy of Matthew Harris)

The outside of the frames are now largely in primer (photo courtesy of Matthew Harris)

 There was even a little last minute welding taking place on the drop grate of Dinmore Manor during the week.

Not sure who it is, but the photo came from Luke Hudman

Saturday arrived, and in a bid to avoid the crowds on the trains, in spite of the less than favourable weather, a hardy band of individuals turned up to get on with the myriad jobs that needed doing.  Now that 35006 has finished her winter maintenance programme and is in traffic once again, the jacks on road seven of the David Page shed are free once again.  This means that Dinmore Manor's old tender (T1761 of 1908, originally built for 4016 Knight of the Thistle) could be put on the jacks once more to have her recently refurbished axle boxes refitted, along with finishing off the painting on the underneath.  

The missing footplate on tender T1761

 The jacks were set far enough apart to lift 35006, unsurprisingly, this wasn't quite the right dimensions for a Churchward 3500 gallon tender, some moving needed to be done.

Well, a couple of the jacks were nearly in the right place

 To free up as much room in the shed as possible, a few extraneous items needed shifting elsewhere

3850's smoke box door and chimney were in the way for instance

 As it turns out, smoke box doors and chimneys are far from light weight items, you'd certainly notice if you dropped one on your foot. Discretion being the better part of valour, I decided to leave the heavy work to Eleanor

Eleanor providing the muscle power

 Soon enough, the smoke box door was safely squirrelled away in one of the containers, the chimney had been left outside. 

One smoke box door in the dry

 The reason for leaving the chimney in an accessible place was that 3850's new ejector ring needed final machining, and it's easier to offer it up to the chimney and mark out where the bolt holes are supposed to be than any other option.

Ejector ring outside the machine shop, awaiting attention

By then end, we had cleared enough space to manoeuvre the jacks and beams into position ready to raise the tender off of its wheels again.

Soon be working on the tender again

 John was so pleased with the progress made, that the rest of the day became a general tidy up of road 6 and 7

John doing his Britannia (not to be confused with 70000) impression

 Of course, it wasn't just spring cleaning the shed that was going on, Keith got stuck in on wire brushing and priming the insides of 3850's frames

Keith wielding a paint brush

 The outsides of 3850's frames have now largely moved on to undercoat

Works photographic grey?

 During a well earned tea break, I noticed that a really useful engine has taken up residence on top of one of the many notice boards

No doubt hiding from the Fat Controller.

 Alright, alright... but what about Broadway? I hear you say.  Well the fact is that I haven't been up there yet, my turn for that comes on Monday the 2nd.  If you've seen the same weather forecast that I have, I'd be better advised building an ark in the car park at Toddington than firing Foremarke Hall up and down the line. I'll be packing a snorkel and flippers in my footplate bag, and I'll be checking that we have enough lifeboats in the tender to at least accommodate the crew... women & children last!

Andy was on the prep turn on Friday and has kindly allowed me to use a few of his photos, all photos from here on, by kind permission of Andy Webber. The prep crew were supposed to appear at Toddington at 04:30 (ouch!) and get the first two locos off into steam, then as a reward crew Dinmore Manor for the first round trip.

Bringing Foremarke Hall and Dinmore Manor into steam, 2807 waits her turn

 All of the locos running are supposed to wear one of the new "Return to Broadway" headboards.

Andy fitting the headboard at  Cheltenham Race Course

 Observant readers of this blog will no doubt have spotted that Dinmore Manor's shed plate is no longer 83D (Laira), but 89A (Oswestry).  She was shedded at Oswestry from entering traffic in November 1950 until December 1953, apart from a couple of months in 1952 when she was at Aberyswyth, and it is during this time that she was in lined black, so his shed plate ties in nicely with her newly applied lined black livery.

The view from the footplate as Dinmore Manor arrives at Broadway for the first time

 And finally, there are now many videos of the return to Broadway doing the rounds, here is one from the volunteer special event last week filmed on 35006  by ITV.  If you happen to know where a longer version is that features an interview with Eleanor, then please let me know, I'd like to see it.