Yet Another Loco to Come to the GWSR

The final finishing touches to new arrival Dinmore Manor have been taking place during the last week.  She had a loaded test run on Wednesday down the full length of the line with the Chocolate and Cream rake.  She steams well and fits in all the platforms, everything is good.  Being a humble wage slave, I couldn't get along to record the event for posterity, so I asked Dan to grab a few photos for me.

Dinmore Manor and C&C rake, photo courtesy of Dan Wigg

 Keen to make sure that he did the job properly, Dan even sneaked on board for a footplate ride at Cheltenham:

 Mark at the regulator, photo courtesy Dan Wigg.

Dinmore Manor is rostered for the coming weekend (5th and 6th of April) if you want to come along and ride behind her. The usual caveats about locomotive substitutions at short notice apply. I believe that Dan will be fortunate enough to have a fireman training lesson on her on Saturday.

Come Saturday morning, I was down for a cleaning turn on 5542, this time it was Sean booked on for driver training, George as his instructor and Paul as fireman.  5542 is the smallest loco that we have, cleaning her doesn't take too long at all really, still it was nice of Ian to join in and help out with cleaning the wheels and motion.  Ian has recently taken over the running of the official GWSR Twitter account wherein you can find all sorts of news items and updates regarding what is happening on the railway.  Should you have a Twitter account, then Ian would be delighted if you signed up to follow the GWSR.  If you don't, you can always sign up for an account (they're free) or just point your web browser at the web page on a regular basis.

Ian taking a break from Tweeting to clean the grime off of the wheels.

There were still a few odd tasks that needed doing to Dinmore Manor before she could enter traffic:

Dinmore Manor first thing Saturday morning

It's hard to tell from this photo, but the steam pipe cladding is only half fitted, there is no power/route availability symbol above the number plate, a bit of the throat plate cladding is missing and she still has no shed code plate on the smoke box door.  The throat plate was painted black during the course of the day, so it looks right, even if a bit of plate is missing. I saw Mike wandering through the David Page shed with the 83D (Plymouth Laira) shed plate in his hand, presumably to fit it.  Mark informed me that his dad was scheduled to get the steam pipe cladding finished before some imminent photo charters on pain of death. It seemed a bit harsh, but it did the trick, and his dad appeared before the day was out to fit the steam pipe cladding:

Steam pipe cladding being fitted by Mark's dad.

That just left the Power/Route availability symbols to paint on.  Andy generously gave up a driving turn on Sunday to do the deed:

Route/Power indicator applied, photo courtesy of Andy Beale

The Blue circle indicates that she was allowed to run over 'blue routes' which specified a maximum axle loading of 17 tons, 12 CWT.  Power rating D, indicates a maximum tractive effort in the range 25,001 lbf to 33,000 lbf.  

I hope that the attendees of the booked photo charters appreciate all the hard work and sacrifice that has gone into getting Dinmore Manor both ready for traffic and looking the part, I certainly do.

The long strip down of Foremarke Hall is still going on, the fire bars and cab roof being the items removed on Saturday.

Steve (I think) is in there somewhere passing out the firebars

Mark gently lowers the cab roof

She's looking a bit sorry for herself now, even her tender is at the wrong end

Still, the sooner the boiler disappears off to Tyseley for rebuilding, the sooner she'll back back in steam on the GWSR again.

Jonathan got the task of giving her tender a deep clean with the pressure washer:

Tender Loving Care.

Congratulations are in order for Jonathan as he announced that he and his wife are  expecting the arrival of twins.  That pressure washer may be an ideal tool when it comes to bath time for the prospective new arrivals.

The concreting of the David Page shed floor has moved a little closer to happening now.  The track on the northern half of road 8 has been packed & leveled and just needed  filling in with gravel before concrete can be poured.  I found myself shifting gravel from the yard into the shed along with Jamie and Tim:

Jamie depositing a wheel barrow load of gravel into road 8.

It was fairly hot work, I took off my jumper and as is evidenced by the photo above, as it is perched in the doorway of the diesel shunter known as Mavis.  I presume that it is still there now, as I forgot to retrieve it when I went home.  Considering the poor state that it is in, somebody might just have taken pity on it and dispatched it off to the rag bin for use in cleaning locos.  

Later on, mechanical assistance arrived, so propelling wheel barrows full of gravel about was no longer necessary:

Jamie and Tim display their talent at leaning on shovels

5542 is a bit cramped with three people on the footplate, never mind four,so I was a bit surprised (pleasantly so) to be offered a chance to fire her on the middle trip.  I think Paul had decided that I am in desperate need of some practice.  Whilst waiting for 5542 to arrive in platform 2 at Toddington, I was treated to an advanced chemistry lesson in how the reverse osmosis plant manages to clean up the water that we use in our locomotives.  Not having studied chemistry since I was 16 (fully 5 years ago now), I'm sorry to say that most of it went whizzing straight over my head.

RO plant chemicals and my new found chemistry teacher

Finally the end of lesson bell rang, and I made my way with haste out of the al fresco classroom and onto 5542.

Saved by the bell prairie

Things worthy of note are that I finally managed to get a photo of the distant signal on the northern approach to Gotherington, which until a few weeks ago had been fixed in the on position, but was now fully operational:

Road ahead clear

The outer home signal on the northern approach to Gotherington is obscured by Three Arches Bridge until relatively late, so an operational distant signal positioned before the bridge is now capable of indicating that all signals through the section are off.  Previously it was a fixed distant signal, which was more decorative than functional, it merely let you know that you were approaching an outer home signal, but not whether it was on or off.

Arriving at Cheltenham we were asked if there was the possibility of letting a 'birthday boy' up on the footplate for a look around:

The birthday boy

 Somehow I suspect that I'm not the only one who lies about is economical with the truth when it comes to his age.  

The pressure got slightly lower than I might have liked on the way back, but we made it without too much drama.  As was pointed out to me, I should have built up the fire a bit bigger at Cheltenham as well as fired a bit sooner than I did on the approach to Gotherington.

Sean looking with amusement at the pressure gauge, George is unconcerned (photo courtesy of Paul Richardson)

5542 at Laverton (photo courtesy of Paul Richardson)

My biggest faux pas was made at Toddington when we got back.  Having been amused at somebody else getting 'on' and 'off' confused when operating the water column last week, I managed to make a fool of myself by doing the exact same thing.

Paul laughing at the Niagara Falls impression put on by 5542

Well at least the platform is nice and clean now. 

Firing done and crew thanked for the excursion, it was back to preparing road 8 for concreting:

Cliff compacts the gravel

 When Cliff spotted me with the camera he had the brainwave of stopping me taking pictures of him by handing over the compacter to me.  That thing gives something of a white knuckle ride, but not in the same way as a roller coaster at an amusement park.

Tim and Jamie shoveling gravel out of the Fork Lift's bucket

When 5542 finally got back for disposal, I went across to the ash pit to help out.  Damping down the ash in the ash pan is usually a case of connecting a hose up to an adapter that is then plugged into a connector on the ash pan and water is then automagically piped to where it needs to go.  The adapter was in its usual place in one of 5542's toolboxes, but the jubilee clip and screwdriver to attach it with had both gone AWOL.  Eventually the jubilee clip turned up, but not the screwdriver, in a triumph of optimism over experience, I even searched the tool store.  Lord Lucan and Shergar were lurking at the back of it, but there was no sign of anything as useful as a flat bladed screwdriver.  It was a case of me having to go under 5542 and use the hose pipe to damp down the ash by spraying water though the damper doors.  I have now taken the precaution of adding a flat bladed screwdriver to the already considerable list of items that I keep in my footplate bag.  I'll probably obtain a jubilee clip sometime soon as well.

5542 on the ash pit  (photo courtesy of Ed Brooks)

Me under 5542 (photo courtesy of Ed Brooks)

It was quite hot in there (photo courtesy Ed Brooks)

Sean and George discussing just how bad my firing had been (photo courtesy of Ed Brooks)

It seems that me disappearing under a loco with a hose pipe is such a newsworthy occurence that Paul deemed it worthy of photographing too:

Me under 5542 again (photo courtesy of Paul Richardson)

 It was beginning to feel a bit crowded in the pit.

 And finally, you can't possibly have failed to notice that for the last 18 months or so, the two A4's that had been exiled abroad at the end of their working lives have been temporarily repatriated by the National Railway Museum.   GWSR director Andrew Goodman's heavy haulage company, Moveright International managed to extricate Dominion of Canada from the Canadian Railway Museum in Montreal and Dwight D Eisenhower from the National Railroad Museum in Wisconsin and fetch them back to the UK late in 2012.  The NRM have staged events gathering all six surviving A4's together in both York and Shildon attracting record attendances in the process.  Even I made the long trek up to Shildon when they first arrived and again for the final day of all six being gathered together.  

Dwight D Eisenhower and Dominion of Canada along with Union of South Africa at Shildon in October 2012

The process of moving the locos has fostered amicable ties between the museums and the GWSR.  As a result of which, when Andrew Goodman returns the A4's whence they came, he won't be coming back empty handed.  The National Railroad Museum in Wisconsin have amongst their collection one of the eight surviving 'Big Boys'  (be careful how you Google for that).  I can exclusively reveal that we have entered into an arrangement to bring theirs (number 4017) back to Toddington where it will be restored to steam.  We will have an agreement to operate it for five years and return it to Wisconsin for the final five years of its boiler ticket.  She is already in an extremely good mechanical state, so all that should be necessary will be to get the boiler checked over and re-tubed along with a little cosmetic work.  Don T Bellevit, a spokesman for the National Railroad Museum said "The loan of our A4 class locomotive, Dwight D Eisenhower to our English cousins at the National Railway Museum has been a huge success and has created immense interest here on this side of the Atlantic of our shared railroad heritage. We are looking forward to getting Dwight D Eisenhower back where our visitors can see it once again and also to the mutually beneficial loan of our 'Big Boy' to England"  I couldn't easily track down a free to use photo of 4017, so here is a photo of one of her sister locomotives:

Big Boy 4014 (Creative Commons)

Never mind the problems of transporting such a big loco to Toddington, she will present a fair few logistical issues when she arrives.  At 567 tonnes she is too heavy to take over Laverton Viaduct and she is too tall to pass under some of the bridges between Toddington and Winchcombe.  With a little realignment of the tracks in the platforms though, she will be able to work in the section from Winchcombe to Cheltenham Racecourse.  Mercifully the track through Greet tunnel is aligned fairly centrally under the highest point of the tunnel, otherwise she wouldn't fit.  With her tender attached, she is too long to fit in the David Page shed, so we will need to put the loco on one road and the tender on another to squeeze her all in.  Once in running order she will need to be moved by road to Winchcombe to enter traffic.  This will also present a problem as all of our maintenance facilities have been moved back from Winchcombe to Toddington since the Chicken Curve landslip has been repaired, so some elements of that will need to be moved back to WInchcombe again. 

The bad news for me is that she has an automatic stoker (apparently real flesh and blood firemen can't keep up) so I'll never get to fire her.  A cleaning turn on the Big Boy is not something that I expect you'd forget in a hurry either, you'd need to start several days in advance to make a proper job of it.  I suspect that we'll end up having a small team of 2 or 3 cleaners assigned every time she is rostered to run.  I imagine that drivers will need to make a fairly early start on the oiling up process too, there will doubtless be a lot of lubrication points to attend to.