Ego Trashed

Saturday morning, and your humble scribe was down for a prep turn on a red timetable.  The plan is that crew 1 turn up at 05:30, prep two locos (2807 & 7820 on this occasion), hand over one loco to a second crew, then take the other one for a round trip of the line before handing it over to a 3rd crew.  This expedient keeps all three crews comfortably within a 12 hour working day.  Bringing two locos into steam on a morning is a bit of a tall order, especially when you don't have a cleaner to help (the rostered cleaner had gone down with some sort of stomach bug).  I was therefore more than a little pleased to see an email ithe night before suggesting that the crew 2 cleaner should turn up at 05:30 as well. I was even more pleased to discover that not only Mark put in an appearance at 05:30, but Mike did too. Mark took on the task of lighting up 7820 under Mike's supervision, all I had to do was crack on with 2807.  Many thanks Mark & Mike for all your assistance.

Mark, about to empty 7820's smoke box

 As noted recently, the first train to run is now designated as the "Cotswold Express", stopping at neither Hayles Abbey Halt, nor Gotherington. Being on the first train, one of the tasks that I needed to accomplish was to locate the headboard and put it on 2807.  Unfortunately it hadn't been returned to the headboard repository, I had to head off and hunt for it. I wondered if the last crew to use it had simply forgotten about it and left it attached to their loco... a quick check in the shed revealed that I had been right and it was still attached to 35006's tender.

The missing headboard...

...finally, put where it was supposed to be.

 There was another minor issue, 2807 had only had a first test run since her winter maintenance finished on Friday, the front cladding for the steam chests was missing on both sides, along with the curved inspection hatches on the running plates. 

Not quite all there.

 A team of early arrivals was soon on the case, tracking down and fitting the missing items.

Eleanor & Steve wrestle with one of the steam chest covers...

...John applies some foot power to get the cover's screw holes to line up, so that Steve can do up the screws

 Eventually, 2807 was restored to her former glory and ready for traffic.  Bruce & Gilbert of the 2807 group turned up to do the job just as soon as everybody else had finished, perfect timing really.

There was a casualty of the morning,a piece of glass in one of the lamps had been cracked for a while, yesterday it finally gave up the ghost.

It's now off to be repaired by Mike

Richard (L) and Steve emptying the pit

Ready to depart

 Dinmore Manor joined us in Toddington station, but after we had gone and she had finished her brake test, she would head round to the other end of the train and depart for Broadway.

I noticed that the recent gales had taken their toll...

...I'm sure that the lineside clearance team will shift it soon

 Paul, driver for the day was obviously in a musical mood and spent a fair bit of time singing and doing the actions to this.

Unfortunately he always stopped just as soon as I got my camera out

The paparazzi were out in force on Saturday, I was requested to fire left handed whilst in the platform at Cheltenham Race Course for the benefit of various photographers.  Not something that comes particularly naturally to me, but it seemed to work OK.  Perhaps I'll try that again next time I'm on 35006.

Almost as soon as we had started, it seemed that it was time to hand over 2807 to the afternoon crew and head off for lunch.

2807, off without us

  There were relatively few people around on Saturday, but one of the main tasks going on was the removal of some angle brackets from 3850's cylinder block.  They will be re-used. 

Cutting the head off of a rivet...

...Mike, encouraging the remains of one of the rivets to budge.

Much brute force and ignorance later!

It was a fairly difficult job, I can't imagine how much harder it would have been if the cylinder block hadn't been turned upside down.  Apparently that's how they used to do it at Swindon back in the day, and if it was good enough for the GWR, then it's good enough for us.

Now that the brackets have been removed, the next task is to remove the frame extensions, which will be needed as a pattern for new ones.

Another project on the go is the addition of a light in the yard.  This will provide illumination for many of the points further away from the lights of the David Page shed and will be of assistance to crews returning to shed after dark whilst trying to negotiate their way onto the correct road.  Currently the light is being stripped back and about to be painted.

Soon to appear in the yard

 3850's tender is back on the agenda after 7820's winter maintenance is over.  Fresh paint being applied to some of those hard to reach places.

Kenneth painting under 3850's tender

 I missed whatever happened to 35006, but I understand that it had been receiving some attention to its handbrake.

35006's handbrake.

Frustratingly, I don't seem to be able to reply directly to comments on my own blog, something to do with my recently enhanced security settings I imagine. Anyway, it seems after last week, that I had misjudged the number of GWR 8 wheeled tenders by a factor of two. Never mind, maths was never my strong suit.  To the person that asked after 76077, I spoke to the group's treasurer yesterday, they are waiting for a vacancy in the works of Locomotive Maintenance Services LTD before work on the rolling chassis can commence.

And finally, the day started badly for me yesterday, a conversation with an elderly lady just before we set off with the first train in the morning did nothing for my ego.  She was obviously well enough versed with our line to know that all but a handful of people who work on the GWSR are volunteers, so she asked "Did you start volunteering here when you retired?".  It will be a very long time yet before I can retire... and the goal posts seem to keep moving further away every year.