A Tale of Three Hats

After looking at yesterday's forecast which had quite clearly said that today would be wall to wall sunshine, I was more than a little disappointed to wake up to the sound of the pitter patter of rain drops against the bedroom window of the B&B that I've been staying in.  Curiously the landlady had declined to have a full English breakfast ready for me at 04:30, so once again I set off with more than a few pangs of hunger.  

It was Ben's turn to be both RSF and Gala Coordinator.  He's a glutton for punishment.  RSF traditionally wears a bowler hat, well at least John has done for the last couple of galas.  Ben tried the bowler hat for size:

Mr Ben

He decided that he looked rather silly in the bowler hat, and tried out his Santa hat instead:

But it's not Christmas

Finally he settled on a nice sober item of headgear that Phil had brought with him:

Not silly at all

Nick and Tonia have signed up to be cleaning locos at 05:00 each day, come rain or shine.  So far of course it has been the rain that has come rather than shine.  Tonia announced that she'd have to leave briefly at about 07:30, as her daughter Emily was currently dozing in the car and Tonia had to give her a lift to work (Emily doesn't drive).  Many thanks, that was definitely far above and beyond the call of duty.

Nick and Tonia

After an hour or so, the rain eased off and the cloud slowly drifted away which made the task of cleaning and prepping the locos much easier.

Mike oiling round his beloved 8F

There was of course plenty of tea, but no biscuits.  I don't think that I've eaten or drunk anything other than tea and biscuits since Wednesday.  My overalls haven't been dry since Wednesday either.

I think Chris made the tea

Cleaning done, it was time to grab a photo of the double headed 3850 and Dinmore Manor leaving on the first train of the day.

3850 and 7820 kicked off today's proceedings in style

 Soon afterwards, the 8F and Black 5 departed from the shed and coupled up for the next double header:

48274 and 45379

After that, I finally had a quick breakfast in the Flag and Whistle, followed by a look around the attractions in the yard at Toddington.  The bouncy castle chap had rung up on Saturday saying that there was no point in him coming given the dreadful weather.  He made it today though:

No I didn't.... but I was very tempted

 We also had a few classic vehicles in the car park

Classic vehicles of varying sizes

The marquee contained a good selection of sales stands.  There were a few model railway stands, with many desirable items as well as a number of loco owning group stands:

Dinmore Manor Locomotive Limited (DMLL) had an attractive stand

 I can highly recommend the DMLL limited edition mugs and coasters.  The fact that they used my photos on them has nothing to do with it of course.  I even bought a set of each myself.

The 44901 stand was interesting, because as well as the usual collection of loco items and tools etc, they also had a collection of old pitch forks

44901 stand

 Genuine locomotive nameplates and cabside numbers etc are an expensive luxury, wooden replicas are a far more affordable option:

Wooden replicas

 2807 is with us in spirit if not in the flesh metal, the Cotswold Steam Locomotive group had a stand too:

Trying out a 2807 wooden replica for size

The Talyllin Railway had a stand too

 The 35006 group had a stand in the marquee as well of course as having their loco on display in the car park.

35006 stand

 The 6880 Betton Grange group had a stand too.  I'm quite smitten by the limited edition print that they have for sale of 6880 bursting out of Twerton tunnel

6880 stand

 The 45149 group had a stand too.  Maybe they're hoping that people will think it's a Black 5, not a Peak.

45149 stand

The stand that may yet tempt some hard earned out of my wallet is that of the artist Jonathan Clay. There are a couple of his works that have really caught my eye. 

Jonathan Clay's stand

 There are several smaller stands out in the car park, which time didn't permit me to get any photos of, the Patriot Project being one of those.

The rest of my day was taken up with looking after the brake van rides.  Short of being on the footplate, spending a day riding up and down the line in the brake vans of a freight train is about as good a day as you can hope to have on the railway in my opinion.  They are excellent value at £5, single and £10 return between Toddington and Cheltenham. 

Dave, Jonathan & Ade in the non-public section to Laverton

 It's hard to pull off longish exposure shots whilst Sean and Jonathan are busy digging you in the ribs in an attempt to put you off.  I did my best though:

45379 in the Laverton section

 Like last year, there was some sort of event going on at Cheltenham Race Course which involved the flying of large kites.

7820 and the kites

 From our vantage point in the brake van, we noticed that there was a small leak past the bottom of the smoke box door.  When we stopped in the loop at Gotherington, the opportunity was taken to alert the crew, clean the smoke box door ring and tighten it up a again:

Ben and Pete improving the smoke box door seal.

 Longish exposures when done right can provide the illusion of speed, when in fact progress was at a fairly sedate pace.

Dinmore Manor apparently at warp factor ten

After having traveled all day in the brake vans, I thought that it would be nice to grab a photo as Dinmore Manor was taking the empty freight train back to the siding it lives in at Winchcombe.  The light was too low at Hailes, with the bushes on the side casting long shadows over the track bed, so I opted for the shot at the Winchcombe end of Chicken Curve instead:

Should it have an ECS headlamp code under the circumstances?

The forecast for Monday is for a sunny start, with a mixture of sun and showers later in the day.  Still pretty good conditions for paying us a visit and finishing off the bank holiday weekend on a high.

Finally, once again, a big thank you to Steve, Aaron and Ed who took on the graveyard shift and hung around to help with disposal of the locos.  Much appreciated by me and all the returning crews:

Aaron takes a running start at the ash pile, while Steve shovels ash into Ed's wheel barrow