Submarine Gala

Friday was the last preparation day prior to the Back to Black gala kicking off.  It started with yet another birthday, this time it was Andy's, he bought doughnuts:

Andy demonstrates how to eat a doughnut, for anybody present who may have been unsure

I have to be very careful what I say on this blog.  On Wednesday, it was Roger's birthday and I included a picture of him with some chocolate biscuits.  John passed the message on to Roger that he should check the blog, and ten minutes later Roger was ringing back to report that he was now in the doghouse, apparently his better half had sent him with strict instructions to bring cake, not biscuits.  I'll probably get into trouble again now for mentioning that.

The plan for Friday was to steam test a few of the visiting locos, put warming fires in the rest, generally clean/fettle all of them and of course shunt all the locos where needed to their start positions.  Part of the process included shunting 2874 onto road 6 for display purposes, Mike affixed a wooden numberplate on the side that could be seen from the viewing area:

Mike, looking forward to the day that he can affix a brass cabside numberplate onto a fully restored 2874

 The 'GWR' stickers had only been applied to one side of 4270.  She was shunted into the shed for the other side to be done.

Steve measures up where to place the stickers

We had a couple of new starters yesterday, Rob & Steve joined us and cracked on with cleaning Dinmore Manor.  They were just a bit too keen, cleaning even when it was raining and the rest of us ran for cover.  In my case, cover was the cab of 3850 to put in a warming fire, followed by a lengthy cleaning session in the cab.  Never has an sight feed lubricator been so highly polished before, I only got to the end when entirely by coincidence the rain stopped.

Rob and Steve, keen as mustard

We had another new starter on Saturday as well called Andy, he managed to elude my camera on this occasion.

35006 was moved into the car park ready for inspection:

The "Atlantic Coast Express", but it really wasn't beach weather.

Gala preparation isn't all about the locomotives, there are more things to sort out than you could shake a stick at.  One of those things was to get the car park field ready for use.  The GWSR has acquired some coconut reed matting to lay out on the track ways through the car park to aid traction in poor weather, all it needed was pinning in place in the car park.  Sounds easy enough, but I can assure you that it wasn't, especially in the pouring rain.

James & Ben unrolling the matting.

It's a bit like wrapping paper, but on a grand scale.  Once you unroll it, you need something to weigh it down at each end or the wretched stuff will simply roll itself back up again.  I was the first to act as a human paper weight whilst the others pinned down the far end:

Yup, lying down on the job

Rolling them out in straight lines proved to be a nigh on impossible task too, the stuff seemed to have a mind of its own and meandered around the car park like a drunk on a Saturday night.  As time progressed, the news that James, Ben and myself could use a little help filtered through and more people came to our assistance. Phil helped out by jumping in the puddles, apparently that is an important part of the process:

Phil lands in a puddle

 He then progressed on to emulating me as a human paperweight, Chris & Andy adopting a more conventional approach:

Lying down on the job

 Finally he got fed up with the rain and pressed a bag into service as a makeshift hat. It didn't quite have the same panache as John's bowler would on Saturday.

If you want to get ahead, get a hat

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the car park was finished.  Several hours in a cold, windy field in the pouring rain isn't much fun.  I returned to the warming fire that I'd put in 3850 and tried in vain to dry myself off. 

After that, it was hot foot up to Broadway, where there was a fundraising barbecue taking place to benefit the rebuilding of the station.

Broadway

The Signal box and platforms at Broadway

Laverton, just 5 dodgy bridges away.

The inside of the recently started signal box

Sadly, the bracket signal that they had hoped to have erected on site by now wasn't quite finished in time, but the barbecue and good company more than made up for that. I even bumped into one of my old teachers (I wasn't sure whether to call him Mike, or Mr Speake) and sent a while reminiscing about past times. 

Impressive progress has been made since the last time I went to Broadway station, sometime last year, they're doing a great job up there.  Hopefully the gala timetable in not too many years time will have to be rewritten to include Broadway.

On to Saturday morning, bright and early for the start of the gala itself.  Getting into still soggy overalls is not a pleasant experience.  

Once again, John donned his bowler hat and took on the job of being RSF for the day:

John looking every inch the foreman

The usual suspects went about the business of cleaning, lighting up fires and oiling round locos:

Dan was John's second in command.  He ended up putting a fire in the Black 5

Paul was rostered onto 3850.  He was kept under close observation in case he burnt any more cab floors

Andy oiling up 3850

Sean thought he could hide from my camera.

Neil oiling up Dinmore Manor

 I wasn't the only person taking pictures of course, George proudly showed off his camera case, an old sock.  He was at pains to point out that it was in fact a clean sock and even sniffed it to prove his point.  The colour drained from the faces of all present.

George and his unorthodox camera case

 George is more usually associated with biscuits, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that his middle names are 'Cookie' and 'Monster'.  He was extremely pleased with the chocolate biscuit selection that Clive brought along:

Other biscuit brands do exist

 Brian is a fully paid up, card carrying member of the 2807 group.  Here he is caught buffing up Dinmore Manor's cabside number plate and wondering if anybody would notice if he swapped the numbers round to be 2807.

Brian plotting

The jumbo sized gala tea pot made its annual appearance too:

45699 is both a kettle and a tea pot

George quipped during one particularly heavy burst of rain that we'd be better off holding a submarine gala.  The puddles were so deep that I'm sure that I saw a periscope break the surface of one of them.

At about half past seven, I had switch from cleaning locos to being the 'Gala Coordinator'.  That is just a grand sounding title for somebody who is first in the firing line when something (outside of the loco operating aspect of the gala) goes wrong.  Getting walkie talkies to interested parties such as the first aid people was on the list of things to do as well as make sure that Howard and Stuart who were riding on the freight train were up to speed on the process involved and collecting ticket money from some of the passengers (excellent value at £5 one way, £10 return). Making sure that the footplate chaperones knew where to be and when to accompany the footplate passengers (sorry all available slots sold out).  I hadn't realised that Dan and Mike had done a swap and was briefly horrified to find that Dan was still in Toddington at the time when I thought that he was supposed to be in Cheltenham.  Thanks too to Tina for covering one of the turns at very short notice.  The job itself wasn't too painful, remarkably little seemed to go wrong, but it did involve a lot of wandering about Toddington in the pouring rain.

I sneaked off occasionally for an odd photo or two:

First train of the day, 7820 and 3850 set off double headed, 4270 waits her turn in siding 1

4270 waits at the head of her first revenue earning train...

...and sets off down the line in style

Meanwhile, poor old 2874 was left Cinderella-like all alone outside the shed, waiting patiently for her turn to go to the ball:

One day her prince will come!

 The car park at Toddington featured all the usual attractions, a marquee full of trade stands (yes with a leaking roof, the gala coordinator couldn't do much about that) and rather optimistically an ice cream van.  

Well you can't fault him for trying

I the afternoon,I didn't so much as change hats again, as just add another one.  I did a round trip of the line as a footplate chaperone for a couple of our footplate passengers.  As it was still pouring with rain, I was enormously grateful that I was on the 8F and not one of our rather more exposed locos. I had only just managed to get dry for what seemed like the first time in two days, I was keen to keep it that way. The trip down to Cheltenham was on the front of the freight train which made a nice change.  Chris and Clive were the crew in both directions, and the first passenger was also called Chris:

8F and freight train

Stuart assists Clive with unhooking at Cheltenham

 One of the tasks of the gala coordinator is to check up on photographers on the lineside and make sure that they have current lineside passes and correct hi-viz.  As I could see a group of four a little way up the line at Cheltenham and as I had a fair layover before my return, I set off to inspect them all.  I am pleased to report that all four had current passes

Four happy and legal lineside photographers

 The fact that wandering up the lineside gave me an opportunity to take a photo of the Black 5 returning to Toddington with the freight train had absolutely nothing to do with my decision to check their passes of course.  Perish the thought.

The Black 5 looking rather tasty at the head of the freight train

Back on the platform at Cheltenham, I bumped into John, he had been the only person that I had ended up being the footplate chaperone of last year.  The experience can't have been too bad, as he was back for a second time.  

John, ready for departure on board the 8F

 Hopefully I'll see John again same time next year.

Crossing 1501 at Gotherington

I haven't added much to the collection of photos of crew members by firelight in Greet tunnel lately, but I was quite pleased with this study of Clive.

Clive in Greet tunnel

I left in the early evening to scribble this blog post out, but many of our crews were still hard at work as I went.  One of my tasks on the gala committee was organise a cleaning roster for the gala.  I would like to say thank you very much to all of the cleaners who turned up during the day, many of whom were on site at, or soon after 05:00 as well as Steve, Aaron and possibly others who turned up late enough to able to cover the evening disposal of the locos without going over their permitted working hours. I have no doubt that the returning crews will have been extremely grateful for your help as well.  

And finally, the weather forecast for both Sunday and Monday is far better than it was today.  Why not come along and enjoy the gala first hand rather than just read about it on here.