Tartan coal and black skies

The drive to run down the coal on some locos to minimise the proportion of slack in the tender as reached new extremes. During the week, 2807's tender looked rather depleted when it made it back to Toddington.  The cleaner (in this case Mike) was stitched up with firing the last run and I have to say it's a credit to him that he managed to judge his usage of the coal so finely.

Down to the last few lumps, photo courtesy of Andy Beale

Last week, I showed you one of 35006's steam pipes having a wasted section of the pipe removed.  Here we can see the newly welded in section, and below that Bob working on a trial fitting of the pipe.

New section neatly welded in

Bob offers it up to make sure it fits, photo courtesy of Stephen Parker.

Dan has been moonlighting, spending his free time polishing up the con rods for 35006.  I hope that isn't the middle one that he's working on there, because nobody will be able to see it when it's fitted to the loco.

Dan polishing one of 35006's con rods, photo courtesy of Stephen Parker.

Meanwhile more work has been taking place on preparing road nine in the shed for its concrete floor.  Here we can see Andy, Pete, Ben & Tim all hard at work.  I would have taken a photo on Sunday of the progress so far, but somebody had parked a diesel it.

Road nine in progress, photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge

A welcome piece of news is that Dinmore Manor has returned to us after her holiday at the seaside in North Norfolk.  For the benefit of a few upcoming photo charters, she has been returned to us facing north this time. 

Dinmore Manor back with us again

Points are usually deducted for creating so much clag

As a rule, creating excessive black smoke is frowned upon.  Apparently Dan who was firing had just launched three shovels full up to the front of the firebox.  Even with the firehole doors open and the blower up a bit, there was still a very heavy smoke screen being put up.  The reason was that the North Norfolk Railway had returned her to us with a tender full of Scottish coal, which burns quickly, but creates plenty of dense smoke as it does so.

Tartan coal

I Needed a lift down to Winchcombe to act as a brake van chaperone and had been intending to just sit on the cushions, but Mark and Dan insisted that I join them for the ride, well it would have been churlish to refuse.

Mark & Dan as we're about to depart

There were plenty of unkind comments from the mess coach as we passed asking for even more smoke:

Not enough smoke for this lot

Even the crew of 2807, which was waiting to follow light engine to collect the freight train got in on the act.

Passing 2807

As you probably know by now, the Elegant Excursions dining train is no longer running, the coaching stock is all off to pastures new.  What appears to be rather less well known is that the empty slot in the timetable on dates when the Elegant Excursions should have been running have been taken by the freight train.  The footplate rides sold out well in advance, however the brake van rides were best described as sparsely patronised.  Hopefully more people will join us for the final one on October 5th.

2807 pulls the freight train out of its siding into Winchcombe's platform 2....

.... and waits patiently for 7820 to return from Cheltenham

Safety valves lifting a bit

Chris who was firing would like me to make it clear that we set off four minutes after the booked time, therefore the steam emanating from the safety valves was quite excusable.

L-R, David (footplate passenger), Chris, Ed & Endy)

As mentioned earlier, attendance was sparse, we only had two passengers in the Queen Mary brake van

They had bags of room

The gap between any brake van and the loco is much wider than the gap between a mk1 coach and the loco.  Chris made the most of the extra room.

Uncoupling at Cheltenham

Claudette, the guard

The floral display at Gotherington is quite impressive at the moment

Gotherington station

Running round at Laverton

As all the passengers were in the Toad for the Winchcombe - Laverton - Winchcombe working, I changed ends at Laverton just to be sociable.

Jonathan made the most of the nearest thing to a seat on the verandah

Jonathan kindly sent me a few photos that he had taken during the day:

2807 & 4270 at Cheltenham, photo courtesy of Jonathan Perks

2807 in Greet tunnel, photo courtesy of Jonathan Perks

2807puts the freight train to bed, watched by Dinmore Manor, photo courtesy of Jonathan Perks

Crossing Stanway viaduct

Driver Andy returns the Laverton section staff

4270 off down the line

Steve has been cracking on with 2874 too, he'd just run out of gas as he was making a start on extracting the tubes from the boiler.  As I was leaving, he had found some more and was just about to carry on.

Tube extraction begins

He's removed the bolts holding the smokebox onto the saddle too.

Just gravity holding the smoke box in place at this end.

And finally,  The brake van rides are quite a novel way to enjoy our line.  You get much better views than you do from the carriages and the sensation of the wind (and occasionally soot) in your hair only serves to enhance the experience.  Just to entice a few more of you into joining us on the brake vans on October 5th, here is a shortish video of the journey from Winchcombe through to the far side of Greet tunnel taken from a brake van directly behind the loco.  The booking details can be found by clicking on this link.