8F 1-0 Hose pipe

As I've mentioned before, readers of this blog could be forgiven for thinking that the steam loco dept only works at weekends.  The reality is that plenty happens midweek too, especially on Wednesdays, it's just that I am usually gainfully employed elsewhere midweek and am not in a position to report on it.  Chris Blake has once again managed to send me a few photos showing what goes on.  To start off with, the NW corner of the David Page shed has been leveled ready to accept the track back.  Road 8 was reinstated last weekend, leaving road 9 to be done this weekend.

Leveling the floor

 Chris also sent this view of Des (the diesel shunter) being started up.  It generates a fair old bit of clag when being turned over. Unlike when the pope is elected, the smoke doesn't turn white though.

I think she's running

 It's not generally known what Santa does on the other 364 days of the year, well in the journalistic scoop of the decade, I can exclusively reveal that he volunteers on the GWSR.  Copper capped chimneys making a welcome change from red nosed reindeer.

Santa, AKA Derek

 Unfortunately Derek has me down on the 'naughty' list, no prezzies for me this year.

Reinstating road 8 in the David Page shed

John would like to pass on his thanks to the Wednesday gang for all the hard work that they put in, cleaning grates, smoke boxes and ash pans, and chopping wood along with the countless infrastructure jobs relating to the fencing, trenching, track, & water supply never mind various loco repairs.  To show his appreciation, John brought along a cake baked by his wife Margaret last Wednesday.

No news as to whether it was baked in a smoke box, or a conventional oven though

Saturday morning when it came round, was fairly damp as well as dark.  As I've mentioned before on these pages, cleaning a loco that is already wet in intermittent rain is a fairly thankless task.  I was more than a little pleased to find that I wasn't the only cleaner on hand, Jon and a bit later on Matt appeared as well.

Locos warming up, Steve delivers a tray full of tea

Once the 8F had emptied her ash pan int the ash pit, it was discovered that due to the recent protracted rains that the pit contained a fair amount of water and that the water pump was in need of  threats of extreme violence a bit of 'coaxing' before it would eject the water from the pit:

In at the deep end

I also discovered that my old boots are no longer quite as water proof as they once were. As I'll be back at Toddington tomorrow (Christmas Eve) and as today has seen the sort of weather that makes headlines on the news, I'm very much hoping that the pump will behave itself.

I'd been responsible for cleaning small prairie 5542.  Note the adjective 'small'.  Less of it means that there is less to clean, always a bonus at any time, never mind on a cold wet morning.

Coaling up before setting off

A sizable collection of volunteers spent the day reinstating road 9 in the northern section of the David Page shed.  Laying track is not as easy as Aardman Animations would have you believe.

Firstly the sleepers had to be placed correctly spaced apart and accurately lined up:

Lining up the sleepers

The next step was to get the rail in place. 60' lengths of rail are not exactly light weight items.  Ian pushed them with the fork lift, the team at this end levered them up far enough to stop them pushing the sleepers as they went.

The rails arrive

Levering the rails into the chairs isn't a job for the faint hearted either, we had no mechanical help for that, it was a case of lots of people trying to roll them into place.

There were a couple of 8' sections of rail required as well

 Mark sprung into action making sure that everything was the correct height using what Ade described as 'something out of Dr Who'.  Foremarke Hall appears to be unperturbed by the alien invader.

Foremarke Hall & the alien.  Ade wishes he'd remembered his sonic screw driver.

Inserting the last couple of 8' lengths

Ian drives the fork lift, Matt seeks assistance on his mobile phone

By the time we had finished, all bar the last few track keys were in place and it wasn't looking at all bad.  There's still a long way to go before we are ready to lay the concrete though.

Meanwhile, out by the wood store, Chris and Tim were finishing off the fence enclosing the wood stack:

Chris and Ian admiring their handiwork

The dynamic duo

 There was time for a cup of tea and a bit of a chin wag before the first of the day's locos returned from Santa duties.

8274 on the pit

 Eagle eyed readers will have spotted the hose pipe connected up to the ash pan sprinkler in the bottom half of the picture.  Unfortunately the person who attached it hadn't been quite eagle eyed enough to spot that part of the hose pipe was dangling over the side of the pit as the 8F trundled into place.     8F  1-0  Hose pipe.

John empties out the smoke box

A little while later, 5542 came back for disposal.

The shot below shows Clive damping down the ash pan from underneath.  The newly truncated hose pipe would no longer reach the back half of the ash pan where I was trying to scrape out the ash.  Clive tried squirting water from the front end all the way back to where I was.  It didn't do much to dampen down the ash, but I certainly got wet.

Clive is a blur of activity under 5542

Note the trail of light where a hot cinder has dropped out of the ash pan.  Not the sort of thing you'd like to have land on your head and get caught up in your hair.  Best to wear some sort of head gear when under locos, especially when they're still warm.

Ash pan done, time to empty the smoke box

Sean hides from the rain whilst Andy loads up the bunker.

And finally... a cracking bit of good news.  Ben passed out today as a driver with First Great Western. 

An elated Ben, now passed as a FGW driver as well as a GWSR driver

 Congratulations Ben.  We have high hopes that the trains between Bristol and London will run on time now!