Cotswold Steam Celebration Winter Gala

As forecast, the weather for the first day of the gala was wintry.  let's just say that the trains were running all day with steam heating on.  For some of the firemen, being able to dump excess steam into the coaches was something of a blessing.  A certain chairman of the department had something of a schooling today.

Mr Butler at school

It wasn't me, honest guv!

Items of interest were that for the third day on the trot, we had a birthday.  This time it was the turn of Ed who was celebrating with a full monty birthday breakfast baguette:

Ed blowing out 27 candles on his breakfast baguette

In anticipation of the deluge ahead, Tony had come fully prepared with stout waterproofs.  In the rather exposed cab of 2807, I have no doubt that he came to be thankful for his choice of garments:

Tony, fully prepared for typical bank holiday weather

When it comes to high fashion, there was nothing to match the sartorial elegance of John who was acting as RSF for the day.  He may have been taking a break from the catwalk to be with us, but he had lost none of his panache:

Hats off to John

I'm rostered as RSF on Monday.  Don't expect anything like that from me.  When asked for hints and tips on what to do to make sure that all the locos were fully prepped and off on time, John said that you've just got to be a complete bar steward... or something rather like that.  I really must refresh the batteries in my hearing aid.

This morning started off for me several hours before I went to bed and as the locos were already pretty clean, I had arranged with Steve to light up the 8F for him, leaving him free to concentrate on Foremarke Hall.  I checked the time that she was due out.... 10:00 and figured that gave me over 5 hours to bring her up to pressure, so best not be too quick about it.  I hadn't factored in that she needed to be moved onto the pit for oiling up at about 08:30 and would need enough steam up to move herself by then. At least I had the grate largely covered and burning by the time I handed her back over to Steve even if the pressure was a little on the light side.

It didn't escape my attention that the yard, full of seven locos, albeit from different regions without a diesel in sight looked absolutely magical.  I couldn't resist the urge to sneak up the yard and grab a photo:

Seven in steam

Foremarke Hall opened up the proceedings as the first loco off shed and set off down the line double headed with 80072.

Opening the show

From 10:00, my task was to staff the cordoned off area in the David Page shed and entertain any visitors with either my encyclopaedic knowledge of the locos to be found there, or alternatively by pointing to the display boards set up by the 4F and the LMS diesel shunter, 7069.  As it turned out, this was the plum job of the day.  I was out of the wind, out of the rain and spent the day chin wagging with a wide variety of people.  The only slight downside was that nearly everybody wanted to see 4270, which had been advertised as being out in the car park, but which was in reality blocked out if sight in the shed by the 8F which had failed because of a steam leak near her right hand cylinder.  As a consequence I spent much of the day leading people past the cordoned off area to a spot where they could at least see her and take a few photos.  With luck 4270 will be pulled out of the shed tomorrow.

Dan and Karl fixing the 8F, Andy supervises.

A happy customer now he has found the elusive 4270

The 8F was fixed at around lunch time and was able to participate in the rest of the day's proceedings without any further trouble.

At around lunch time, Roger Lockyer arrived back on shed,  Today was his last turn before retiring from the footplate.  John presented him with a card signed by the member of the steam loco dept along with a gift:

John and Roger

 At about 14:30, Ed fresh from crossing monitor duty at Gotherington relieved me, leaving me free to wander around the stalls in the car park at Toddington.  Amonsgt the many and varied stalls was one for the railway itself.  Steve Sperring who until then I hadn't met, first tried to pesuade me to become a member of the railway and then after I ad informed him that I was already a working volunteer was undaunted and tried to sell me a break van ride.  Full marks for trying, but I'm rostered down to chaperone the customers on the brake van rides on Saturday and Sunday, so I thought that I'd give it a miss today.

A general wander around Toddington, not only turned up a cup of tea in the mess coach, but also Steve and Derek ready to set off in 5542 to Cheltenham:

Derek and Steve waiting to depart

Many member of the dept and others had been drafted in to monitor the crossings at each station.  Chris hinted that it had been a bit inclement when I caught up with him:

Chris.... singing in the rain.

George on the other hand found a nice warm radiator to stand next to and also made a new friend in Ed's Patterdale Terrier, Spice:

George and Spice

I was also nicely placed to grab a photo of 80072 heading off with the freight train.  Tim and Roger who had been out on the brake vans all day recommended many layers of clothing, starting off with thermals.  Warm it was not.

The freezing freight

And finally, I had noticed from the Broadway Station blog that there were buses running from Toddington to Broadway station and that there would be a barbecue this evening.  Not being one to turn down the opportunity for some decent nosh and never having paid Broadway station a visit before, I killed two birds with one stone.  An added attraction is that the Severn Valley Railway has extremely generously sent ex-GWR pannier tank, 5764 free of charge on the back of a low-loader to sit near platform 1.  We can but dream of when steam trains will run into Broadway once again.  

5764

Looking towards Honeybourne

Looking towards Toddington

Ting ting, hold very tight please.

Not only was the barbecue excellent, but the people on hand were extremely warm and welcoming.  I thoroughly enjoyed the lamentably short period of time that I spent there.  It was particularly nice to meet Bill, who maintains the Steaming to Broadway blog, which I can thoroughly recommend as an excellent read if you want to keep informed with the progress in reconstructing Broadway station.