Too Many Steves

I need to start this week with an apology, Peter sent these two photos of Dinmore Manor being loaded for transportation to the West Somerset Railway several weeks ago, whilst I was on holiday and I managed to overlook them in the last blog.

Photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge

Photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge

You will note that the skies are a lovely shade of blue, that all seems like such a long time ago now.   Dinmore Manor will return to us at the end of September and hopefully bring the blue skies back with her.

Since the opening to Broadway and the splitting of shifts, turns on the footplate have become more frequent, and often shorter.  On Friday, your humble blogger was down as crew 1 on a blue timetable, which according to the relatively recently issued "Crew Simplifier" meant that I lit up a loco (Foremarke Hall on this occasion) and then fired it for a full round trip of the line, before a relief crew took it over for the rest of the day.  No cleaner had volunteered for the turn, which meant that I had no help with fetching wood, oily rags, emptying the smoke box, nor emptying the ash pan again.  On the plus side, there was plenty of room on the footplate.
 
We started the day with a bit of a shunt, 4270 was on the pit on road 9 and wanted to go inside the shed on road 8, then 2807 (which was rostered to run on Saturday) needed pulling out of the shed and onto the pit on road 9.

Shunting 4270 with Foremarke Hall

Foremarke Hall, entering the shed to collect 2807

 Fortunately, the light up and shunt were all accomplished in the dry, but by the time that we were hooked onto the maroon rake in platform 2, the heavens had opened. Foremarke Hall's storm sheet had seen remarkably little use recently, and looked a bit surprised as we dragged it out of the tool container.

Andy (driver) staying nice and dry before departure

 The old trick of wedging a broom under the storm sheet to permit rearwards visibility was swung into action.

Amazingly it managed to stay in place without falling out

 The results were a bit mixed though, as an enthusiastically filled tender meant that the coal obscured visibility a bit, and there was no option but to stick your head out through the cab window and get wet if you wanted to see where you were going when running tender first.

On the plus side, we weren't going to run out of coal

 Unexpectedly, we had the maroon rake, which unlike the chocolate & cream rake doesn't have a griddle in the buffet car. This is important stuff, a crew can't set off without a good breakfast inside them.  The buffet car attendant rang through to WInchcombe and ordered bacon rolls for us to be delivered to the footplate as we passed through.  Just what the doctor ordered!

Breakfast keeping warm until we were on the move again.

 As already mentioned, it was persistently raining, I noted that one farmer near Gotherington had paid heed to the old adage, "Make hay while the sun shines"...

Hay bales awaiting collection

 Whereas another farmer near Broadway had only got half way through the job

Too late!

 The combine harvester was still in exactly the same place on Saturday, perhaps the farmer had given up and decided that sampling some of the refreshments on offer during our Real Ale Weekend was a better idea.

The lure of real ale wasn't sufficient inducement, nor the rain a sufficient deterrent to deflect the various line side groups hard at work over the weekend, P Way, Line side Drainage and Line side Clearance all being spotted at various locations

P Way at work near three arch bridge

Running round at Broadway

 Then, all too soon, it was time to hand over Foremarke Hall to Jamie and Mike for the afternoon shift

Mike... not quite quick enough to evade my camera & Jamie (with the headboard)

It seems odd handing over to another crew in the middle of the day

It's been a while since the yard flooded.

Moving on to Saturday, it was now the other way round, I was supposed to sign on at 09:00 and discover my loco (2807 this time) already prepared and ready for me to take over.  As anticipated, Steve F had already done all the pre-flight checks and lit the fire.  Steve B meanwhile had oiled up 2807, so my driver, Steve O was able to sign on at 09:00 and just pick up the loco and go.  I felt rather out of place not being called Steve.

There was a cleaner rostered on Saturday, Angela, who did her best to clean both Foremarke Hall and 2807 for the day's duties. 

Angela about to use the hose-brush on one of the locos

 Steve B is in the throes of becoming an inspector and joined us for the morning on 2807 as a practise session.  Aside from watching Steve O like a hawk, Steve B chose to ask him lots of awkward questions on the whys and wherefores of various different braking systems.  

Steve O (l) looking for the right away, Steve B dreams up cunning questions

 Steve B spent most of his time perched on the tool box inspector's seat and until I pointed the camera at him, usually in a recumbent position.  He complained that there were neither cushions, nor steam heat available for the inspector and that any half decent fireman would have rigged up steam heated cushions for him.

Steve B... spotted my camera and swiftly sat upright and looked alert

 An inspector is supposed to observe the crew in action and assess whether or not they are competent in their roles.  They are not really meant to participate in crewing the loco, however Steve B very kindly shovelled coal forward on several occasions.

Steve B bringing coal forward

Crossing Foremarke Hall at Toddington

 Although the rain over the weekend has dampened things down a bit, line side fires are still a major concern.  Spotting smoke in the distance as we left Toddington, we feared the worst, but were relieved to discover that it was only a bonfire in somebody's garden at Didbrook.

An intentional conflagration

Speaking of smoke, we still have odd lumps of the Scottish coal appearing in the tenders, you never really know what you're going to get... a glance at the chimney soon gives the game away though.

A Scottish lump, surrounded by Welsh

That shovel full was Scottish alright, hope the signalman has the windows closed

No photos I'm afraid, but 2807 now has a set of ash pan guards fitted behind each damper door.  Hopefully this will prevent the egress of ash whilst running and mitigate against line side fires.  Many thanks to Jeremy for hanging around after Foremarke Hall had finished ashing out to assist with ashing out 2807.

More news from Peter, the oil store has taken delivery of 4 drums of motion oil and one of steam oil, the Wednesday gang got them shifted to where they want to go.

Oil in motion, l-r, Ian, Richard & Martin. Photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge

Peter also mentioned that the Building Services dept generously helped out in their lunch break to collect a truck load of pallets for the wood store. 

And finally, inter-departmental help is not the only kind we have, in a spirit of inter-loco owning group cooperation, the 2807 team, flushed with the success of installing an excellent set of ash pan guards on their own loco have gone ahead and done the same for 4270.

One of four ash pan guards on 4270, photo courtesy of Roger Molesworth

I know that it's turned to rain for a while, but the longer term forecast suggests that we will be needing these in the near future.