Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway Steam Loco Dept Blog: On Holiday in Norfolk

Last week, I left you with the surprising news that I have passed out as a fireman. That means that I am now qualified to do several things that I wasn't before. The obvious one is to fire steam locomotives on the GWSR, but that isn't all. Although I passed a written "Shunting and yard Safety" exam sometime last year, that didn't authorise me to take part in shunting operations until I passed out as a fireman. Added to that, I can now legitimately act as a second man on the DMUs or diesels. Not that I'd have much idea of what to do as a "second man". I once have a cab ride in 40 074 from Edinburgh to Carstairs and for a while L had my hand on the handle, but frankly 1977 is a fair while ago and after all this time, I really wouldn't have a clue what to do any more.

Those delights will have to wait of course, the cleaning sessions that I'm rostered for until the end of September still need to be fulfilled, so on Sunday, it was a case of rolling up at Toddington to clean the 8F for a day's work. I thought it a good idea to document exactly what is involved in a cleaning turn. Well it starts in very much the same way as the late Robin Williams movie Good Morning Vietnam, "It's 06:00, what does the 0 stand for? 0h my God it's early!".

Even cleaners need to sign on, check the notices and confirm which loco they are cleaning, it would be a bit embarrassing to clean the wrong one. Not quite as embarrassing as putting a fire in the wrong one, but bad enough. A cleaner will go far if he (or indeed she) puts the kettle on as soon as they arrive at the mess coach, so that it has nicely boiled by the time that they have put on their overalls and safety boots etc. After providing the crew with tea, the next step is typically to get the things that the fireman is going to need. Whilst the fireman does his (or her) pre-flight checks of the firebox and smoke box etc, the good cleaner will be fetching a supply of wood from the wood store and a bucket full of oily rags to get the fire going with:

Wood stacked by the cab and a bucket of oily rags

Once the fireman has been provided with all that is needed to get the fire going, the cleaner can then turn their attention to cleaning the loco. Familiarisation with the oil store and where to find the necessary cleaning materials is a good start:

Buckets for hot soapy water and scissors/knife for cutting up cleaning rags

A variety of cleaning materials

Curiously, the Brasso lives on the locomotives, each one having its own supply. The fireman is in the process of putting a fire into an already warm loco, most cleaners learn fairly quickly that cleaning the things that are going to get hot first is a good idea. Personally, I prefer to kick off with the smoke box as that will get to be the hottest. If you leave it too late and the fireman has already started his fire, you'll end up cleaning it in a haze of acrid smoke. It's best to get cracking with it as soon as you can A swift wipe over with a dry cloth to dislodge the worst of the soot followed by a coating of a 50:50 mix of motion oil and diesel or lamp oil does the trick. It's easiest to apply with an old paint brush from a recycled baked bean tin.

Smoke box being attended to

Next on the list of things that are going to get hot is the boiler. The boiler is cased in a cladding with insulating material between the two, so it doesn't get quite as hot as the smoke box, but it certainly gets hot enough to be uncomfortable. Warm soapy water applied with a rag and then cleaned off with a dry rag before the water evaporates and causes streaks is the way to go.

Washing the boiler

It's not usual for the fireman to ask a cleaner to pull coal forward in the tender, but on this occasion Martin has gone into the tender to do it himself. Another advantage to cleaning the boiler early on is that if the fireman builds too big a fire, the loco may blow off. I really wouldn't want to be up there with those safety valves blowing. Best to get it sorted before there is too much pressure on the clock. It is tempting to wash over the running plate as soon as you've finished the boiler, but it's important to leave it until the driver has been round and oiled everything up. There's no point cleaning it only to find that a load of oily footprints appear soon after you've finished. I tend to leave the running plate to the last 10 minutes before the loco disappears off shed.

Great Western locos come with brass safety valve bonnets and some even have copper chimney caps. Should your loco be one of these, then a bit more time aloft in the hot places is usually in order. I say usually, because on Sunday, 2807 had been pressed into service in a hurry for reasons which will be explained shortly. Her safety valve bonnet wasn't in place, so Graham and Ed could polish it up at ground level without it being too hot to touch:

2807, no safety valve bonnet

Graham and Ed buffing up 2807's safety valve bonnet

Other things that can be cleaned with Brasso are cabside number plates and name plates if the loco has any of these. 2807 has brass cabside number plates that have been coated with varnish, so getting at them with the brasso is futile. If you're really lucky, somebody will point that out to you before you spend too long trying to get them to look even better.If not, you'll end up expending a considerable amount of elbow grease and wondering whyevery body else is trying to stifle a laugh.

Once the hot bits have been done, the cleaner can their turn their attention to the things that won't be hot. The motion, wheels and frames are next. Just get a bucket of diesel, apply it with a brush and clean off with a rag. Care must be taken to avoid removing oil/grease from any bearing surfaces.

Motion, wheels & frames

I've always found it beneficial to clean from the outside in towards the middle, that way you're not reaching past and brushing up against things that are still filthy. To be honest, it's a steam loco, you could easily spend forever trying to get this little lot clean, just do your best. Eventually it will have to disappear off shed and you can then turn your attention to important things like a cooked breakfast in the Flag and Whistle.

On Sunday, 2807 had been pressed into service at the last minute as 4270 had suffered a broken spring on Saturday. We haven't suffered from many spring failures lately, but usually when they've gone, it has only been when the loco was inspected at the end of the day that the failure has been noticed. On this occasion, there was big enough bang passing through Bishops Cleeve to alert the crew that something was amiss. They stopped the train and located what remained of three of the leaves of a spring in the 4' and proceeded to Cheltenham at walking pace. The train was rescued by one of our diesels, 47376 leaving 4270 to return much later in the day under her own steam at walking pace. Apparently that takes a very long time. On Sunday of course, we needed to get the spring changed, which as it turned out was not as easy a process as I had hoped.

The broken spring before removal, note the lower three leaves on the left are AWOL.

The missing sections of the lower three leaves

Needless to say, the broken spring was located right by the ash pan, where there was the least access to get at it. The spring is held in place by a pin running through the buckle in the centre, which is in turn held in place by a split pin running through it. At either end is a threaded bar dangling from another pin (secured by two split pins, one on either side) passing through a bracket. On one side the bracket is riveted in place, on the other it is only bolted and can be removed. Undoing the nuts that secure the threaded bar (I don't doubt that the "threaded bar" has a proper name, but to the amusement of the many in the steam loco dept who read this blog with the sole intent of scouring every sentence in search of mistakes and errors to gleefully point out to me later, "threaded bar it will have to remain as Google has been uncooperative in disclosing its real name) to the brackets (they probably have a name too) is straight forward enough, even if it required a very large spanner. Getting the split pins out was a different matter altogether.

New spring ready for fitting plus a pair of jacks.

Ed fetches a bit of an old sleeper...

....and uses it as a base to jack up the front end

George having a spot of bother with the split pins

Eventually the broken spring was persuaded to part company with the rest of the loco and after a late breakfast, we had a stab at installing the replacement. That it took five grown men until lunch time to get it in place should provide something of an idea of the difficulty of the operation. Not only is the spring extremely heavy (you really don't want to drop one on your foot), but the access past the ash pan to get the relevant bits back in place was tight to say the least. Ergonomics, is just one of many words that didn't feature in Churchward's dictionary.

Some slight remodeling was required before the replacement spring would fit

The trick was to get the new spring connected at the end nearest the front of the loco by levering it up into place and inserting the threaded bar and pin, then simply lever it up in the centre to get the central pin in place and finally replace the bracket at the other end and install the threaded bar and pin, then tension it up. Sounds easy doesn't it. You'd be be being deceived.

Ed and Aaron wondering how to get the first of the threaded bars and pins in place

None of the pins went back in without a fight, but the centre one caused some amusement. Ian was tapping it with a hammer as several people shifted the spring around so that the holes that the pin would locate in lined up. All of a sudden, we managed to get the holes lined up, and one tap from Ian's hammer sent the ping flying straight through a launching itself out the other side. Take 2 saw us repeating the exercise with Ian pushing the pin into place by hand, once more after a period of frustration the holes lined up and the wretched pin shot straight through and out the other side. The third time we got lucky and it stopped in place.

Finally, George re-tensions the spring

Here's hoping that we don't end up having to change too many more springs.

After a lunch, a quick check in the shed revealed that more progress had been made towards the concreting of the floor. Road nine had been largely reinstated and now needed leveling off. Road 8 had yet to be started on.

More progress in the David Page shed

The afternoon was spent working on 2874. The task in hand was to remove any items that need to be removed prior to lifting the boiler (don't ask about timescales, it'll happen when it happens). Steve R shifted some of the plates that secure the boiler to the frame, Steve J, Aaron and I worked on the cab fittings:

2874

Steve R: Bolts removed, but still won't shift

As far as the cab fittings are concerned, there is precious little left, even most of the floor has rusted away. Everything that was still there however had survived the last 51 years at least since withdrawal without being removed, so it wasn't going to give up without a fight. What was still there? Well the obvious items were the pole reverser and the sanding mechanism. Less obvious was judging by its location, part of the cylinder drain cock mechanism and one of the damper levers. Everything else had disappeared over the years.

Getting this cover plate off of the reverser proved to be surprisingly easy

Under the cab floor once it had been removed was this tapered pin holding the reverser operating arm to the reverser arm (another not sure what it's called moment). In an act of solidarity with the others of its kind that we had encountered earlier on 4270, the split pin had absolutely no intention at all of parting company with the pin and castellated nut that had been it's home for at least the last half a century. It was eventually shocked free by liberal use of Anglo Saxon.

The recalcitrant split pin.,

What there was of the floor was perforated with rust.

Aaron and Steve J encouraging the reverser arm to become free

The sanding lever was equally tough to budge, it was rusted on at the top:

Aaron gas-axed these off from the outside

Underneath the floor, the sanding mechanism was buried under a congealed mess of oil, coal dust and rust. It was hard work digging it out.

The operating arm eventually appeared after digging through 6 inches of crud

From the underneath, we never did free this up before it was time to call it a day

So a few small steps taken in the direction of restoring 2874. I'm hoping that she'll be in steam before I'm too old for footplate duties.

Finally, as I'm sure you're aware, Dinmore Manor has packed her bucket and spade and set off for a holiday on the North Norfolk Railway (NNR). Andy and Dan went over to act as 'owner's representatives' for a few days. Dan has very kindly provided me with this report for of his time on the NNR, our erstwhile resident, Black Prince along with Dinmore Manor were the locos that were in service while they were there.

"7820 had recently had a water change and a small washout as it had had priming problems earlier in the week. The washout seemed to do the trick, certainly for the two days that we were there as there were no priming problems to report. We went light engine down to Sheringham on "The Breakfast Run" and got our free breakfast bap from the buffet which was lovely! The manor did 5 trips on the Saturday, roughly equating to about 55 miles in total. On the last trip Alan (the fireman for the day) offered me the shovel and it would have been rude to say no! The one thing I had noticed since arriving at the NNR was that the coal that they were using (Scottish) was a lot more smokier than ours (welsh)! Unlike the Welsh, the Scottish coal burned with almost instant heat. This meant I didn't start building up the fire until about a minute before departure. All seemed to be fine until I over did it slightly on the approach to Weybourne, where I miss judged the time in which we would be sat around and the safety valves may have been tested whilst we waited for the 9F to arrive from Holt. This excess steam was useful as Weybourne is right on the start of the 1 in 80 Kelling Bank and other than one quick bit of firing when leaving the station, the fire was sufficient to get the train up the bank sitting between 210 and 225 psi all the way. The line leveled off after that so it was more a case of keeping it quiet on the approach to Holt. On the return the main task was to keep the engine quiet as it is pretty much downhill to Sheringham. This involved just keeping the back, front and sides of the firebox warm, whist trying to put as little in the middle of the box (other than to cover holes) and keep the water at a sensible level. After a good run back to Sheringham we were then shunt released and went light engine back up the line to Weybourne where we raked though the fire (no clinker!!) and disposed of the engine before putting it back on shed.

On the second day, Andy spent the morning looking after 7820 and I had managed to arrange a footplate ride on 92203 which brought back a lot of memories as it was one of the first locos I worked on in the department, and before I had even joined the department had had numerous footplate rides on the run rounds at Toddington, especially on evening trains (with one driver who will know who he is!) which really helped spark my interest in joining the department!

A most enjoyable couple of days at the NNR"