Fireman Sam

Your humble scribe took the weekend off, Mrs blogger & myself thought that we should celebrate our wedding anniversary by going away.  I am grateful therefore to Peter who took a number of photos on Wednesday of the various activities taking place.

The first job was to recalibrate the cylinder pressure relief valves on Foremarke Hall.  Should the water level be allowed to get too high in the boiler, there is a danger that water rather than steam could be allowed into the cylinders.  This is an extremely bad thing as water is incompressible.  All the kinetic energy of the train in motion is then used to press the water against the cylinder end cover, the result wouldn't be pretty and would either involve the piston head disintegrating , piston rod bending or the cylinder cover being forced off.  Whichever went first, a "Please Explain" letter would soon be winging it's way from the loco owners to the crew.  The cylinder relief valves are the last line of defence between water being carried over and disaster.  The idea is that they permit the water to be expelled when the cylinder pressure significantly exceeds the boiler pressure 

All photos unless otherwise stated courtesy of Peter Gutteridge

One of the relief valves being tested...

...then fitted back in place

2807 was also in for a little TLC, or to be more precise, its tender was.  One of the tender springs had a broken off mounting point lug

The broken one

How it is supposed to be, complete mounting point lugs

Not all split pins come out as easily as they should

Bruce fitting the replacement spring.

And finally, the GWSR now has it's very own Fireman Sam.  Not the cartoon kind of fireman that drives around in big red engines with blue flashing lights and puts out fires, far from it.  Our fireman Sam drives around in big black or green engines and creates the fires that keeps them in steam.

Sam (L) and Inspector Irving (Photo courtesy of Neil Carr)

Fittingly, Sam passed out on Dinmore Manor, which is appropriate as he is the youngest director on the board of Dinmore Manor Locomotive LTD.  Congratulations Sam!