Farewell 5542

The 2013 operating season has now drawn to a close and all the railway's various departments are now feverishly getting on with their various winter maintenance schedules.  Saturday saw many members of the steam loco dept hard at work dismantling Foremarke Hall ready for her move to Tyseley as well as 2807 for her hopefully brief move to the same place for work on her horn guides.   

The Planet's Favourite Prairie (PFP) graced our rails with her presence for the final two days of the season and will shortly be heading off  as according to her own website, she is "hoping to undertake a 'mini tour' of some railways 'up country' during the 'Winter Gala' season of January, February and early March." Although the PFP hasn't yet departed, it is anticipated that she will be off in the near future and won't return in time for the start of the 2014 season. A replacement loco has been lined up to stand in for her, but unfortunately I'm not currently at liberty to divulge her identity.  I was privileged to spend the penultimate day (New Year's Eve) of the 2013 season on the PFP's footplate. 

Clearing out condensation from the steam heat pipes

 A consequence of the previous day's "Christmas Cracker" mixed traction gala was that the class 20 had been left parked on the unloading road, which is the one we need to use for coaling up bunker locos.  Needless to say her bunker was pretty much bereft of coal and needed filling before we could set off.  The prospect before us was either to get up steam earlier than we would otherwise have needed to and shunt the class 20 out of the way, or alternatively try the fairly precarious option of coaling up the PFP on the pit.  John turned up at this point and took the view that bringing the coal round to the loco on the pit was the best option and set off to fetch the coal with the digger.  Mercifully, Foremarke Hall had been pushed far enough back into the shed to permit just enough room to turn the digger round into the right direction.

Coaling up the PFP on the pit

 The process wasn't peril free.  We avoided the obvious ones such as driving the digger down into the pit or reversing into Foremarke Hall however the lamp on the back of the PFP's bunker wasn't quite so fortunate:

Lamp with digger modifications

 The damage to the lamp caused by being struck by the digger's bucket was mercifully purely cosmetic, it managed to stay alight throughout the day, even in the very strong winds and rain that were causing much trouble around the country.

As usual, we were all glad of the PFP's excellent all round weather protection

 Derek being an ex-BR fireman is proud of his original 1960's issue BR grease top hat. unfortunately it no longer fits quite as well as it should:

Clinging on to his hat whilst tying up his boot lace...

...but when both hands are required, the hat drops off

Derek let it be known that he was due up for his biannual haircut & beard trim and that it would fit ok after that. For the time being though, it perched precariously on his head and was likely to be swept away in even the slightest breeze.  Slight breezes were not what the weather was offering though, storms that could sweep away fences and blow over trees were what was in store for us.   That is of course the sort of weather that could flood roads:

The road under the bridge at Laverton

 A small lorry had tried to negotiate the flood under the bridge at Laverton and had very nearly succeeded:

Close, but no cigar

 On the next trip back, another lorry had turned up to tow this one away:

Preparing to tow away the stranded lorry.

 Neil, Paul and Martin were out on the PFP the following (New Year's) day and found one car in the water flooded up to the level of the seats on the first trip, next trip it was gone and the last trip, another car was stuck in the flood:

Yet another stranded car (photo courtesy of Paul Richardson)

The good news is that neither the PFP, showed any signs of faltering in the foul weather and nor was there any hint of flooding along the course of the track bed.  The hard work of the line side drainage management team is clearly paying dividends.

The only other motive power in use on New Year's Eve was the 117 class DMU:

The PFP and DMU crossing at Winchcombe

 Jamie and his dad, spend much of their free time working on the DMU's. Jamie had brought along his own son and spent the day sampling the delights of DMU traction.  They did take at least one trip along the line behind the PFP though and we gave his lad a trip on the footplate during the run round at Cheltenham.  Clearly we can't allow all three generations to be DMU fans and have to get at least one of them converted to steam.

Jamie didn't seem to distraught about his son being converted to a steam enthusiast

On the second trip back up from Cheltenham, Derek had a slight mishap:

Derek, happily firing the PFP

Then shortly afterwards, near three arches bridge:

DOH!.... Devoid of Headgear

Yes, Derek's hat had blown off his head and was somewhere between three arches bridge and the fixed (but not for too much longer) distant signal for Gotherington.  Just to keep him company, both Paul and Martin lost their hats the day after.

Derek was relieved for the third and final round trip by Clive.  Clive only put his hat on in the stations and hid it away in the furthest recesses of the cab at other times, a cunning plan to prevent losing it over board.

Clive, with his hat on, so we must still be in a station.

On the way back we spotted Derek cheerfully waving his hat at us from on top of three arches bridge.  Clearly he had successfully managed to locate his hat and retrieve it.  What we didn't find out until several days later was that his car had got stuck in the muddy verge by the bridge and he needed to engage the services of a local farmer and his tractor to recover it.  Derek wasn't having the best of days.  Aside from Derek's problems and a bit (ok a lot) of clinker on the grate later on, the day went just fine though:

Even the guard was out with his camera at Laverton... is this a sign that a guard's blog is about to start?

The weather even cheered up a bit and a strange yellow thing was seen in the sky.  I'm told that it's quite a common sight in exotic foreign countries, though very much a stranger to British skies.

Then it was time to water and coal the PFP and put her to bed for the night:

Ian on top of the PFP filling her water tanks at Toddington

Derek refers to the PFP as his 'sweet 16'.  If you add up the numbers, 5+5+4+2, you get 16.  As she won't be running on our line for a while, here is a small collection of photos of the PFP (or 'sweet 16' if you prefer) on a variety of heritage railways from my archives:

With an autocoach at Bishops Lydeard on the West Somerset Railway

Again at Bishops Lydeard with an autocaoch

The PFP with a demonstration goods train at Castle Hill on the WSR

Small prairie 5542 compared with large prairie, 4160 on the WSR

And here compared with not too distantly related Collett 0-6-2T, 5619 at Winchcombe

Approaching Hood Bridge on the South Devon Railway

Iron horse and real horse at Stanway

And finally, operated from the autocoach by Tony:

On Stanway viaduct