One In, One Out

4270 has finally returned to us after a considerable period of time having a broken wheel balance weight repaired.  After a fitness to run exam during the week, and a steam test & test run on Saturday, she was declared fit for traffic and worked on Sunday

4270 having its teeth flossed shortly after arrival (photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge)

After a successful steam test on Saturday, she was sent out for a double headed test run with 2807 to make sure that all was well

Double headed at Broadway on Saturday (photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge)

Ready to rock and roll on Sunday

 Meanwhile, Dinmore Manor has been prepared for transport to the West Somerset Railway where she will be running from Monday until late September.

Not being remotely interested in the football, I went along on Sunday only to find that pretty much everybody else was.  I ploughed a lonely furrow wire brushing old paint off of 3850's frames.  I even started on a cab side, but didn't get too far as there are a surprisingly large number of rivets/hand rails etc to negotiate your way around, never mind the fact that with the cab roof missing, it flexes about a fair bit.

3850's cab side hand rail wire brushing obstacle course!

 35006 was the other loco out running along with 4270 on Sunday, however it was failed after just one visit to Broadway as trainee driver Andy spotted a broken bogie spring which required 35006 to be failed and a diesel substituted.  The good news is that apparently Mr Bulleid designed the bogies such that changing springs is a fairly simple affair.  The bad news is that we don't have a spare spring in stock, so 35006 will be out of action until we managed to source one from somewhere.

Boing... red card said Zebedee!

35006 cooling off after a very short day

 Another challenge for our firemen is that our regular supplier of coal from Wales is experiencing some production difficulties at the moment, and we have had to get in a supply of coal from Scotland.  Never fear, we don't get tartan smoke from the chimney, however Scottish coal behaves rather differently to the Welsh, it burns off the grate a lot more quickly and requires rather more secondary air to prevent it creating too much smoke.  You have to burn a lot more of it to get the same amount of heat generated as well, so you end up shovelling more of it.  On the plus side, it is a lot less dusty and catches alight very quickly. 

And finally, the Wednesday would like to make it known that they have been putting in sterling work.  Apparently they shifted 4 JCB bucket loads of Welsh coal dust out of 2807's tender and replaced it with 6 bucket loads of the new Scottish coal, evicted a wasp's nest from the wood store (sooner them than me), tidied up the yard and investigated an issue with one of Foremarke Hall's injectors.

After all that, I'm not surprised that they needed a cup of tea. (photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge)