Return of the King

No, the blog title has nothing to do with the final instalment of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, but of course the fact that 6023 King Edward II will be paying us a visit for the Cotswold Festival of Steam gala for a second time.  

6023, King Edward II in action a few years ago on the Great Central Railway

 OK, so perhaps not the best kept secret in the world, but I can at least confirm that it is official now, contracts signed etc.

Keep tuned in to this page, we anticipate being able to announce a second guest for the gala in the near future.

Yet again, the day job will keep me far from the GWSR this weekend, but I do have a few photos that have come my way from Wednesday, all photos hereafter courtesy of Peter Gutteridge which focus on the winter maintenance of Foremarke Hall.  The fireman's side injector was a bit of a pain to get to run clean last season, so I'm pleased to see that it is receiving some attention.  John was silver soldering a new seat in place.

John, silver soldering.

A new spring was fitted

Fred wire brushing one of the vacuum brake pipes.

As I'm sure that you're aware, practically everybody on the GWSR is a volunteer. We employ just a handful of people, the bare minimum, everybody else is a volunteer.  It should come as no surprise then that we're often in need of new faces around the place to fill the shoes of those who have retired.  Should you be interested in joining in, then please follow this link to find out more about the recruitment events on the 16th of February and 16th of March.  Go on, you know you want to!

And finally, I was both shocked abd saddened this morning to hear of the death of Steve Adkins in a road traffic accident on Wednesday.  Steve was a fireman on our railway when I first started as a cleaner, though he fairly soon afterwards transferred his volunteering to the Battlefield line which was much closer to home for him.  He was only 43 and leaves behind his wife Teresa and children, Archie, Poppy and Ruby.  Steve & his family will be remembered in the thoughts and prayers of many members of the steam loco dept