Do Not Eat

It's always welcome when I get emails during the week reporting what the Wednesday gang have been up to.  If somebody would provide me with a decent sized pension, I'd be joining them to find out first hand what it is that they get up to.  Alas, the retirement age seems to keep getting moved further and further away, so I will have to remain dependent on others for news of what happens on Wednesdays for some considerable time to come.  Peter Gutteridge provided me with these three photos taken last Wednesday in the David Page shed, which will hopefully soon be getting its first section of concrete floor installed:

Chris & Neil checking the alignment of the drainage system

Tim Checking the shuttering for the first concrete pour

Tim needle gunning Foremarke Hall's wheels

As for the Back to Black gala, the appeal for cleaning rags is going well, I noticed that there was a fair collection of rags in the collection point when I arrived at Toddington on Saturday morning, and even more there again when I checked as I was leaving.  Thank you very much to all concerned, please keep them coming, we need plenty more.

Cleaning rag collection point at Toddington, by the yard entrance.

It is now less than a fortnight until the gala kicks off, candles are being burnt at both ends and in the middle by a number of people who are involved in making it happen.  The timetable has now been published and is available on the main GWSR website.  Things to note are that there will be some interesting double header combinations during the mornings, the freight train runs out to Laverton this year, albeit without passengers north of Toddington and the last train won't finish until 22:00 on the Saturday and the Sunday. 

For me, Saturday was a fireman training turn on the 8F.  As ever, on such occasions, my primary focus was on moving coal and water from one place to another in the right amounts and at the right time.  Taking photos to jog my memory of what had happened was a rather lower priority.

There was no cleaner booked for my loco, so what cleaning was done, I ended up doing myself whilst I was getting the fire going.  The combination of strong winds and a damp lighting up rag caused me to experience some difficulties in getting the fire started, much to the amusement of everybody else present.  Before you can light up, there are a number of checks that need to be performed, including in the smoke box.  The blast pipe and blower assembly always look a bit odd when the 8F is still warm from the day before:

All it needs is 3 witches and we could stage the opening scene of Macbeth in here

Nicely cleaned smoke box, the fire was going at this point, though not much evidence of it in this photo

It was a big day for 5542 on Saturday, she was the other loco out and was to be involved in a 5542 supporters fish & chip special on Saturday evening.

5542 sets off with the 10:00 departure, the 8F is shortly to leave the ash pit and join her stock.

The day went off pretty much without incident.  The station master at Cheltenham had taken heed of the weather forecast and was carrying around a rolled up umbrella in case of a sudden downpour.  Unfortunately he had chosen to bring a green umbrella and from a train's length away, he looked for all the world like he was the guard carrying a green flag.  I found myself watching him and waiting for him to wave his 'green flag' for a while before realising my mistake and focusing my attention on the real guard.  Also at Cheltenham for one of the trips, we had been given the token and the 'right away' from the guard, but the signals hadn't been pulled off, so we couldn't leave.  

Ade (far right) takes the token back to the signal box to find out what was wrong

I'm not sure now what the hold up was, but the signals were soon pulled off and we were on our way.

Most of the water stops were taken at Toddington, but we took water once at Cheltenham.  The leak from the hose was perfectly positioned to be picked up by the strong winds and blown straight back into my face.

The perils of operating steam locos are many and varied

Dinmore Manor had experienced a minor boiler defect earlier on in the week and had been repaired under warranty.  Saturday she was brought into steam for testing, and whilst in steam started shunting stock around the yard at Toddington in preparation for the gala.  

Dinmore Manor on the ash pit after finishing shunting duties

Anybody in the viewing area to the west side of the yard will have had a ringside seat to the activities.  The view from the footplate of the 8F was rather more restricted.

For one trip, we were joined for part of the way by Chris, one of our inspectors.  It is a well known fact that there are only two ways to get passed out as a fireman or driver, well ok, three if you're going to be pedantic and include actually knowing what you're doing, but in my case, we can safely exclude that.  Option number one is to surreptitiously pass a plain brown envelope stuffed full of notes of the realm to the inspector who will then miraculously overlook your indiscretions on the footplate.  The second option is to get yourself a pair of highly polished boots.  The thinking behind having highly polished boots is analogous to the theorem advanced by the late Douglas Adams regarding possessing a towel in his excellent radio show/book/tv series/film 'The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy'.

"More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have 'lost.' What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

By the same token the inspector will be so impressed that you've managed to keep your boots shiny after emptying out pits/ashpans/smokeboxes, pulled forward coal and generally loitered about on the railway, that they will assume that even though you've let the water level get so low that the fusible plugs have melted or that you've just mown down a dozen girl guides on the crossing at Bishop's Cleeve, that you are clearly a fireman/driver to be reckoned with and will pass you out anyway.  Not being able to afford a brown envelope, much less having anything to put inside it, I have decided that when the time comes for me to be examined, I shall have to take the 'shiny boots' option.  Recently, after a few clicks of the mouse and a small amount of pain to my credit card, a nice and particularly shiny pair of size 10 steel toe-capped boots capable of withstanding extremes of temperature as well as not just water, but oil and acid too, were dispatched to my residence.

You can imagine my surprise when I opened the package from the supplier and as well as the boots, I found this:

"Do Not Eat"

Silica gel is used to control humidity and protect sensitive items such as cameras from degradation by preferentially absorbing water in the atmosphere. These boots are supposed to be capable of protecting your feet if you're stomping about in pools of hot oil or acid, never mind a bit of moisture in the air, so why on earth does it need silica gel in the first place? Are they trying to tell me that these boots are not quite as robust as the manufacturers claim?  Let me remind you too that they are size 10 boots, not exactly the sort of size that is likely to be bought by a two year old for playing in the sand pit at the local kindergarten.  If you're old enough to be able to read the warning not to eat the stuff, then you're probably old enough to have acquired enough common sense to know that you shouldn't eat silica gel packets when you come across them. I detect the work of too many lawyers attempting to justify their salaries.

Paul & Ade had to look away to prevent themselves from being blinded by the glare from my new boots

Work commitments keep Brian from attending the railway as often as he'd like, but he put in appearance at Winchcombe on Saturday to help out with the 2807 group's Siphon G.  He popped along to the end of the platform to say hello as we were heading south for the last time.  He suggested that I title this photo "The lesser spotted Brian Gamlin", so who am I to argue:

The lesser spotted Brian Gamlin

 The good news is that Brian will be able to join us for a while during the gala 

 Several members of the steam loco dept were traveling on the train for our final run.  Paul popped his head out of the carriage window when we got held up at signals outside Toddington to find out what was going on.  I think he thought that we'd run out of steam and were having to stop for a 'blow up'.

Paul... disappointed to learn that it was only the signals that had stopped us

After we'd put the 8F to bed, 5542 disappeared off on her supporters fish and chip special:

5542 waits in the north headshunt with her stock as we run round in order to go back to the yard

5542 sets off for the evening with her supporters special

Reports from several who were on board suggest that a very good time was had by all.

And finally, the owner of the rather nice BR (S) shovel that got left behind last week which I took away for safe keeping failed to show up on Saturday to collect it.  The ransom storage fee has now been raised to two cakes.  I'm going to have trouble squeezing into my footplate gear if this carries on much longer!