Wardrobe Malfunction

 The Cotswold Festival of Steam is only about 6 weeks away now, the publicity is starting to ramp up a bit, adverts in the railway press and banners appearing around the railway etc.  The best vantage point to see the gala is from the footplate and as usual we are making available 6 footplate rides on home fleet locos for each day of the event.  For the first time, the footplate rides will cover the whole length of the line including Broadway.  Tickets for the footplate rides are available from the main GWSR website by clicking on this link.

May 25th - 27th, don't miss it!

For my sins, I was back again at Toddington last Tuesday, this time for a purple timetable.  The new 40' container had arrived in its temporary location that we had cleared the weekend before.

This one has a side entry

 I know that a few of the containers are about to be shuffled around a bit, but I was still taken aback to discover that the oil store has a compass on the bench for preparing the lamps... its not going to be moving far enough to warrant that.

Perhaps it is thinking its off trekking in the Himalayas or something

 On a purple timetable, we have 2 steam locos running, the first crew turn up fairly early and dispose both locos, then prep their own.  Crew 2 turns up at a slightly more civilised time and prep the other one... I was on crew 2.

Train 1 goes out as the "Cotswold Express", which stops at neither Hayles nor Gotherington.

Crew 1 fireman, Martin attaching the Cotswold Express headboard

 My driver for the day was Chris, who decided that as we were going to be stopping at Hayles (if requested) and Gotherington (even if not requested), that we should sport the "Cotswold Rambler" headboard on Dinmore Manor, our loco for the day.

Chris, rambling in the Cotswolds

Foremarke Hall, ready to set off for Cheltenham

 The cleaner was Matthew, he's shaved off his beard... I didn't recognise him when I arrived in the morning.

Chris (L), Matthew & breakfast

 Of note, was that a member of the steam loco dept is now moonlighting, Stuart was undergoing his first day as a trainee signalman at Cheltenham Race Course signal box.  Never fear, he will remain in the steam loco dept as well.

Stuart delivers the token at Cheltenham Race Course station

 The weather was not our friend, we had to hurriedly put the storm sheet up for a while in a futile attempt to counter the worst of the British weather.

Down comes the rain, up goes the storm sheet

Matthew made a fairly reasonable job at providing steam for a while

 Moving on to Saturday:

Dinmore Manor and 2807 getting ready to depart (photo courtesy of Martin Ginger)

Saturday saw some activity with 3850's cylinder block, as you recollect, the front end of the loco had been separated from the main frames in its entirety.  The cylinder block is beyond salvage, the extension frames are bent, but we need to get one off to use as a pattern for new ones.  Only the buffer beam is salvageable.  The task for Saturday was to separate the buffer beam from the frame extensions and the frame extensions from the cylinder block.  It sounds simple, but it definitely comes under the heading of a non-trivial exercise.  To start with, the rivets that had been drilled through the previous week had to be given some therapy with the oxy-acetylene torch to lose the majority of the rivet, the remainder being punched through with a hammer and punch.

Most of the relevant rivets gone

Dealing with one of the last few rivets

We jacked up the buffer beam and removed the sleeper stack holding it up.  A trolley was then inserted underneath to catch it when it fell.  I'm sure that it won't surprise anybody to learn that it didn't fall... Rust 1:0 Gravity.

Using jacks to rotate the buffer beam seemed to help (photo courtesy of Martin Ginger)

 The buffer beam finally removed, the team assembled for a victory photo:

L-R, Martin, Neal, Keith & Sam

 The weight of the buffer beam on the trolley revealed that perhaps we needed to adjust the tyre pressures to accommodate the load

They were all like this

 Low tyre pressures or not, Martin leaped into action with a grinder to start cleaning off the paint.  There is at least one small crack in a BR era repair to it that will need some welding.

Martin makes a start on removing paint.

 Once the buffer beam had been removed, the letters GWR and date 1940 were revealed... several years before 3850 entered traffic.  I presume they were built as a batch and kept on the shelf until they were needed to put on a loco.

GWR 1940

 We were on a roll now, so we pressed on with removing a frame extension, we only need to remove one to use as a pattern.  All of the rivets/bolts holding it in place came away with surprising ease... all bar one that is

This one, at the thickest part of the frame took longer than the rest put together

 We were not to be beaten, and after some considerable complaining, the last rivet was cleared.  A small amount of encouraging later, and bingo, it was free.

Mark beams with delight now that one of the extension frames is free

Other tasks taking place on Saturday included the changing of a broken spring on 4270:

Spring cleaners changers at work

 One of the lamps for erection in the yard is now in top coat and looking rather good

Soon to be stood up in the yard

 The 2874 Trust is about to commence the build of a new cab for their loco.  The ironwork has been salvaged from the original cab, but the plate work is past the point of being usable.  The cab is a relatively easy component to transport around to galas etc for publicity purposes.  To this end, a frame is being made to locate the cab on, until it is ready to be fitted to the locomotive.  Angela, Tim & Roger were working on fabricating the frame on Saturday

L-R, Angela, Tim & Roger

 The 35006 group were still embroiled in cutting the thread for the thermic syphon washout plugs on their loco.  Last week I mentioned that they had rigged up a socket arrangement with a 5:1 multiplier to drive the tap that cuts the thread.  Their current view is that 5:1 still isn't enough, and 25:1 would make the job easier.  I didn't suggest having a third shredded wheat for breakfast (other breakfast cereals do exist).

The partially tapped hole for a thermic syphon washout plug

After a bit of shuffling of turns to fill in a vacancy for a firing turn, yours truly was back on the shovel on Sunday too.  Like the previous Sunday, I was back on 2807, now fixed since its hot bearing issue when we had to fail it before completing a first full round trip.

Crossing Foremarke Hall at Gotherington

Mark (cleaner) filling the tender

 My driver for the day was Chris.  Chris had tried to leave a comment on last week's blog saying that he and Tom, far from being idle bystanders as 2807 was assessed for damage to one of its coupling rod bearings last week had played an active role in the disassembly.   He showed me photos of the dried out felt pad that was supposed to lubricate the bearing, it had dried out because the restrictor above it had been blocked by some foreign matter.  All is now fixed of course and the bearing concerned was frequently checked throughout the day and found to be running cool.

Chris (L) & Mark relaxing at Cheltenham Race Course station

 Mark had a go at firing and made an extremely good go at it, needing almost no input from me regarding what to do and when.

Mark earning his keep

Mark collects the token from James at Gotherington

Donna, my erstwhile partner in crime in writing this blog appeared for a round trip on the train.  I invited her onto the footplate, but she explained that she was wearing the wrong shoes for the footplate

Donna, attempting to avoid the camera in the wrong shoes

At the end of the shift, we arrived back at Toddington, and I went under to unhook 2807 from the stock.  When I disconnected the vacuum pipes, I turned back to undo the coupling.  At this point, the clip from the carriage's vacuum pipe managed to entangle itself with one of the belt hoops on the back of my trousers. Try as I might, I couldn't get the wretched thing free.  Eventually I had to resort to calling out to Chris to disentangle me.  He was more than a little amused and asked should he take a picture for the blog first.  The lack of photo here is a clue as to what I might have said.

And finally, I have some excellent news to convey, Mike has passed out as a driver.  Mike is one of the directors of Dinmore Manor Locomotive LTD, so it was most appropriate that he was driving Dinmore Manor on the day of his assessment.  His task was made a little bit more challenging, as not only did he have to satisfy Inspector Lacey that he was competent as a driver, but also trainee Inspector Burnett.

L-R, Trainee Inspector Burnett, Mike & Inspector Lacey

Congratulations on a fine achievement Mike.