Riding the Gravy Train.

It's probably no secret that the cushiest cleaning turn to get is the evening dining train.  The deal is that you pitch up towards the end of the normal day's timetable, help dispose of train 1 (empty the smokebox and ashpan) and then get to ride out on it for a couple of trips between Winchcombe and Cheltenham, sedately hauling the dining train into the sunset. Not only that, but you get a free meal too. There's supposed to be no such thing as a 'free lunch', but I'm struggling to spot the catch here.  Before that though, I had a little time to wander around and record the activities of the steam loco dept at Toddington:

I rather liked the symbolism of the ex-GWR prairie reflected in the tender of the Stanier designed 8F.  Stanier of course served for many years on the GWR, finally becoming the works manager at Swindon before being poached by the LMS.

Neil got in on the act too

At 50p per shovel full.....

Progress has been made on 4270, I noticed that some of the boiler cladding now has a top coat of paint applied:

4270's boiler cladding

Work was taking place on 35006 as well:

Re-fitting the driver's side motion

A good day's work

I had been informed in advance that Ian had been revisiting some of the painting.  I presume that this is his handiwork on 35006's trailing truck:

Finished to a high gloss

Meanwhile, Mike got on with the task of inspecting all the department's ladders.  Even heritage railways don't escape from the requirements of the HSE:

Mike taking steps

One of our eagle-eyed drivers had noticed that there was a small crack in the frames of 2807.  It was tiny and well concealed under the running plate, I'm amazed that he spotted it.  The fix was to remove the running plate, grind out the crack and rebuild it with weld:

Matthew assists in removing the section of running plate

 One of the rivets holding down the running plate that needed removing was half buried under the boiler cladding.  Apparently the removal of enough cladding to provide adequate access to unbolt the rivet from below and extract the head was a major undertaking.  Plan B was to just remove the rivet head with an angle grinder.

David using 'angle grinder diplomacy' to extract the half hidden rivet

The offending crack revealed

David grinds out the crack

 David seems to be quite keen on using that angle grinder.  I wonder if he is related to the motorist's superhero, Angle Grinder Man?

Part way through grinding out the crack

 I missed the welding part (yes I know, you just can't get the staff), but here is the application of the finishing touches of paint on the replaced rivet heads.

Job's a good 'un

Back to the plot, the 8F would soon be returning from her turn as  train 1, in readiness to be prepared for the evening dining train.  There was a slight issue in that the railway's fire service department was making use of the hose by the ash pit to refill one of the fire trucks:

Re-filling the fire truck

We borrowed the hose back in time to damp down the ash in the ash pan and get her ready for service in time:

Jeff replenishes the tender with coal

Arrival at Winchcombe revealed the rather tastefully finished Monster wagon mentioned in last week's blog.  I grabbed a photo whilst we sat waiting to extract the dining train from its siding:

Our Monster

The crew for the evening was Tina on the shovel and the increasingly inaccurately named Mark Young on the regulator.  Mark has just celebrated one of those landmark birthdays that involves a zero... preceded by a largish number.  It only took a little mild ribbing about this to provoke him into highlighting the fact that he was the youngest person on the footplate by a considerable margin.   

Also joining us on the footplate was traveling signal man Bill Tyndall who took great delight in letting me know that in a recent blog post I had erroneously identified Cheltenham signal box as the one at Toddington in a photo that Ben had provided.  Yet another sign of slip shod editorial standards. If I get any worse I'll be relegated to editing one of the tabloid newspapers.  At least I know how to use a spelling checker, so I won't end up on the Guardian.  No spilling misteaks hear!

Being on the footplate after dark is a rather strange experience.  I have to say it is one I rather enjoy even though it presents its own difficulties. Hurtling into the dark (as much as one can hurtle at 25 MPH) is slightly disconcerting at first, but after a while of not actually hitting anything becomes less daunting. It's a bit like doing the whole journey inside Greet tunnel. Peering into the firebox temporarily destroys your night vision.  I experimented with the old trick of looking into the firebox using one eye and looking out for signals with the other, it wasn't perfect, but it was an improvement on not doing so.  Knowing where I was on the line was at times a challenge and I found myself paying attention to the curves in the track to identify when we had got to certain points along the line.

Tina catches the last of the evening sun on the footplate

I'll catch some grief for uploading this photo as one or two of Tina's hairs have blown out of place, but the warm evening light and the smile more than compensate. A cricket box now forms an indispensable part of my footplate attire.
 
Our evening meal was delivered to the footplate by none other than Andrew Goodman, the owner of the dining train.  Andrew was responsible for the repatriation of the two LNER A4 locomotives last year for the great gathering of all six surviving A4's at the NRM at York.  The repatriation process was shown on the Monster Moves programme on channel 5 last week.

The two A4's (plus Union of South Africa) at Shildon last year

Mark tucks into his dinner

There was just enough light to see when the tender was full, no wet boots today

All done, time to put the 8F to bed