The Anti-Cleaner

The recognised career progression within heritage railway steam locomotive departments is cleaner, fireman, then driver.  Some may even progress on to the dizzying heights of inspector.  Depending on quite how far you have scaled the career ladder, you are either cleaning locos yourself, or responsible for making sure that somebody else does the job.  Just occasionally, there are exceptions to this rule though.  When photo charters are organised, it is sometimes preferred for the loco to be 'weathered',  Back towards the end of BR steam, locos were often to be seen in an unloved and unclean condition and many photographers are keen to recreate as far as possible scenes of the sort that they dimly recollect from their youth.  I noticed some excellent examples of grubby locos at the end of BR steam on the Broadway Station Scrapbook website earlier today.  So it was on Thursday last week, that in an effort to recreate scenes from before my memory, I found myself in the company of Iain Ross (driver from the Llangollen Railway) who had been commissioned especially to unclean Dinmore Manor for a photo charter later that day. The process involves mixing together a lot of different colours of poster (water soluble) paints until they form a muddy brown colour whcih is then liberally applied all over the loco with a brush or roller.  The charter was booked to start at the earlier than usual start time of 08:00, which meant that the crew (John & Clive) needed to clock in at 04:00.  To help matters along, Clive had asked Derek (the preceding day's fireman) to bank up the back of the fire whilst disposing.  The upshot was that the fire was still in at the back and there was a fair amount of pressure on the pressure gauge when Clive turned up. 

It was of course still dark when I arrived to help out with the 'weathering' of Dinmore Manor which made it rather difficult to do.  For any ladies reading this, it's probably the rough equivalent of putting your makeup on in the dark.  For any of the gents reading this, try putting on your wife's makeup in the dark tomorrow morning and see what the end result looks like.  Do send me photos of the result for this blog.

Dinmore Manor midway through the weathering process

 The charter was using the freight train as stock, which is easier for all concerned if it commences from Winchcombe as that is where the freight train lives.  The way a photo charter works is that everybody piles on board, and the train steams off to the destination selected by the charter organiser (Neil Cave in this instance). The location being that which is deemed to be the most photogenic at that particular time of day bearing in mind the location of the sun.  The paying participants all alight from the train and take photos whilst the train runs to and fro past the gallery of photographers until everybody gets bored and decides that they want to move on to a new location. 

Working out where to go first

Weathered nameplate

 Neil Cave isn't as familiar with our line as he would like to be and had arranged for Jack Boskett to come along and decide where the runs past should take place.  Jack selected Chicken Curve first and so it was that soon after 08:00 we were all to be found out at Chicken Curve.  In defiance of both the forecast and my expectations, the day commenced with bright sunshine.  Bearing in mind that it had been raining cats, dogs and a variety of other domestic pets as I had been driving up to Toddington just a few hours earlier, I was more than pleasantly surprised.

Dinmore Manor in the sunshine on Chicken Curve...

..and again....

.... and yet again.

 Once we had got bored of that, it was back on the train and off to Didbrook before the sun disappeared.  Anybody paying close attention to our railway and in particular the freight train will know that for last year's gala, we had a fairly respectable length freight train with BR vehicles marshaled at one end along with a Queen Mary brake van and GWR vehicles at the other with a Toad brake van.  As time had gone on, a number of wagons had been dropped out until the freight train was looking a shadow of it's former self.  Neil Cave only wanted BR era wagons for the freight train, which would have left very little indeed.  I am extremely grateful to John Hamer and John Appleton of the Carriage and Wagon dept who along with Neil Carr our Operations Manager examined and made fit to run enough of our wagons to create the rather delightful freight train seen in profile below:

The rather excellent BR freight train at Didbrook

 I was most taken by the third wagon back, which is a con-flat with a Goff's beer container on it.  Sadly I had no tools with me to prize open the container to check to see what sort of condition the contents was in.  Note that the freight train has a BR 20 ton brake van on the rear rather than the Toad or Queen Mary.  It was there for decorative purposes only as it doesn't have a vac brake, just through piping.  The photographers were all transported in the Toad and Queen Mary (which are vac braked) both of which were dropped off the back of the train whilst the runs past took place.

I'm quite keen on pan shots and whilst at Didbrook, I managed to get a couple of pleasing examples of the genre.

Pin sharp where it's supposed to be

Crop of the detail from a different pan shot

 It's not just with the desire for grubby locos that the requirements of lineside photographers are at variance with normal railway practice.  Lineside photographers prefer a fair amount of clag in the exhaust, which helps it stand out from the usual background of white clouds.  A dark exhaust is normally a sign that the volatile gases driven off from the coal haven't had enough oxygen to burn completely and would be viewed as an inefficient use of coal.  When you get through a couple of tons per day at around £200 per ton, heritage railways are all keen to try and make sure that every shovel full counts.  A light grey to clear exhaust without any blowing off will earn the fireman brownie points, anything else will cause adverse comments to be made.  To get past this conflict of requirements, it isn't unheard of for the charter organiser to bring along 'smoke bombs' which when thrown into the fire cause plenty of black smoke, without of course affecting the coal consumption.  I'm not entirely sure what was in these smoke bombs, but when used, they seemed to do the trick nicely:

Plenty of clag without wasting coal

 Of course, the smoke effects were short lived and didn't always last until the point where you were waiting with your camera.

Never mind, it stands out nicely against the blue sky anyway

 After Didbrook we went on to Stanway viaduct to grab a few photos.  Facing north, Dinmore Manor is really the wrong way round for this shot, but she still looked good going away from the camera.  Pleasingly, there is a little autumnal colour in the trees, particularly the one low down on the right hand side of the viaduct.

The going away shot on Stanway viaduct

 Neil Carr, although unwell had volunteered for the early guard shift and had been relieved at a suitable point in the morning by Ben, who was also going to be the driver for the afternoon shift.  The swap between Neil and Ben was carefully timed so that it didn't take Ben over his hours.

Ben, guarding whilst wearing his footplate gear.

 After Stanway viaduct, it was on to the crossing just north of there, which made an interesting vantage point for a few shots.  Once again, smoke bombs were experimented with as can be seen below.

Yet more clag

 I quite like this next shot, John was asked to lean out of the cab and the composition is nicely balanced by the line of trees on the horizon on the right.

Not so much clag, but I like it anyway

 After lunch it was all change for the crew/guard and signalman.  Paul relieved Clive as fireman.

Paul unhooking Dinmore Manor from the Toad.

 After half a shift as the guard, Ben moved to the other end of the train to drive it.

Paul (l) and Ben.

 For the second half of the day, the plan was to go down to Cheltenham and work our way back up the line to Winchcombe, stopping for glorious back lit photos, silhouettes and sunset shots along the way.  Well that was the plan however our luck with the sun had run out, the skies turned to a leaden grey.

A run past at Cheltenham Race Course station

 I was a little surprised at the start of the day t discover that Neil Cave had brought along his dog.  At 14 years old, Buster was long past the age of barking at postmen, passing trains or indeed photographers and just happily went along with whatever was happening.

Buster

Due to limited space, we split into several groups for runs past at Cheltenham, I decided to capture a shot of one of the galleries of photographers.

but Jack photo-bombed it

Dinmore Manor approaching Cheltenham from the south

And the next gallery of photographers grabbing the shot.

 Paul was experiencing some difficulty mastering the smoke bombs, here on the approach to Southam Road bridge, he has used it too soon.  We wanted the clag as it came under the bridge.

Premature eclagulation!

 By the time it burst out under the bridge, the exhaust was a light grey again.

Peaked too soon.

 The next run past, he was a bit too late, still looks good and stands out nicely against that grey sky, which by this point was delivering no small amount of rain onto the assembled throng.

Delayed action smoke bomb?

It hadn't escaped my attention that smoke was to be seen emanating not just from the chimney of Dinmore Manor, but also from the chimney of the BR 20 ton brake van.  Closer inspection revealed David Newman, the afternoon shift traveling signalman was warming himself by the stove.

Keeping warm and dry

Amusingly, about this time, we discovered that our walkie talkies were tuned in to the same frequency as somebodies baby monitor and we had intermittent bouts of babies crying coming over the airwaves along with a baby sitter telephoning the mother to say that the baby was crying and what should she do next. 

We tried a few shots at three arch bridge in Dixton cutting, by which time Paul had mastered the smoke bombs to very good effect:

Nicely timed smoke bomb

Bursting out from under three arches bridge

 No sooner had we got back into the brake vans, than the drizzle turned to a deluge, we called it a day and headed back to Winchcombe to dry out and set off home, pleased to have a good collection of photos safely in the can.

Great weather for ducks, not so sure about Toads.

Many thanks indeed to all those who crewed, guarded, signaled, begrimed the loco, inspected and marshaled the wagons for the freight train or otherwise helped to make it happen in whatever capacity.  A great day was had by all. Many thanks too, to all the keen photographers who came along to support the event.  We'll soon be doing it all again with Dinmore Manor and a rake of four maroon carriages, hopefully the weather will be as amenable on that occasion too.  Dinmore Manor is being kept in the same uncleaned state until then, which will please the cleaners no end.  Well it will please them until after the next charter, cleaning her up again after that will be quite a job.

It's not all playing around with cameras and steam locos in the steam loco dept, there are still plenty of jobs that need to be done.  On Saturday, a small team of people was carrying on with work on Foremarke Hall.

An even more grubby Dinmore Manor was waiting to leave shed when I arrived

 A bit of yard tidying was going on too, which as usual meant putting items that won't be needed for a while such as the small JCB bucket up on top of a container.

Bucket in a bucket

 The shed floor has seen a fresh pour of concrete, this time between road 9 and the wall.

More concrete

 My task for the day was to help change the bag connecting two sections of pipe work associated with the vacuum pump on Foremarke Hall.  It sounds like a simple job doesn't it, pull one bit of rubber hose out and replace it with another.  Simples! 

There are many maxims in use when it comes to railway engineering, principle of which is that "Nothing is ever easy".  First bit of the job was to clear away ten years worth of encrusted grit, grime, oil and ash that had accumulated under the running plate.  This was made more difficult because it is at an awkward height, it's dark under there and somebody had put a nice coat of grey primer on the wheels and frames as well as painting the shed floor.  Getting any of those mucky would not go down at all well.  Once the pipe on the running plate side had been cleaned, the clamp that anchored it to the frame came away fairly easily.

Undoing the clamp.

 The bag that wanted removing can be seen protruding by an inch or so through a hole in the frames, at the other end, out of shot to the right, the pipe attaches to the vacuum pump.

Meanwhile, inside the frames, the bag connects onto another pipe, the one shaped like the letter 'C' in this photo.  The other two bags in this shot had already been changed.

View from the inside the frames

 Let's just say that getting the bag off of either end of the pipe was an interesting process requiring the application of plenty of brute force and ignorance.  After eventually getting the end attached to the first pipe disconnected, it proved impossible to get the other end off of the C shaped pipe without removing the pipe, clamping it in a vice and giving it a very stern talking to.

Didn't want to budge.

 That of course was the easy bit, we now had to put on the new bag.  John had done this before, a tea can full of hot water warmed the bag up, thereby expanding it a bit.

Not quite my cup of rosy lea!

 The other part of the trick was to apply washing up liquid to the pipe to act as a lubricant:

Furry liquid, other brands do exist.

 And still it wouldn't go on. John, Graham and myself all sweated buckets over it before it finally submitted.

John applies a bit of elbow grease.

 A bit of filing to chamfer the edge of the pipe was tried. 

Note the bit of cork to prevent swarf entering the pipe.

 And eventually it gave in.

Success at last, John closes up the ring clamp.

 That still left the other end of the pipe to connect up.  This was not going to be a task for the faint hearted as it had to be done in situ.   As much of the paint had come off of the first pipe, I suggested to John that perhaps it was a good idea to do the job properly and strip the pipe of paint, then repaint it.  That this meant in effect, thatsomebody else would be stitched up with trying to make it fit together again on Wednesday never crossed my mind.... well not much anyway.  So my next task was to remove what was left of the paint from the pipe and its clamp:

The clamp, half stripped of paint

The finished pipe, fully stripped of paint.  Again note the cork to prevent ingress of foreign matter.

Tim was on painting duties, the stripped pipe & clamp was sent his way for the application of some grey primer:

Tim preparing to paint a different pipe

The process of polishing the con rods was in full swing.  Most people, including me managed to spend some time doing it.  You'll be able to see your face in them by the time they're finished.

Steve uses modern technology to bring the con rods up to a high shine

While Ade prefers the old fashioned approach

Sean pretends to be doing nothing...

.... before getting on with it when he thinks my camera is switched off.

 At the front end of Foremarke Hall, the inspectors were busy removing a section of the running plate to gain access to the draw hook which was being replaced.  Dinmore Manor Locomotive LTD had made up a batch of them some while ago when they had needed one, and one of these extra ones is now to be fitted to Foremarke Hall.

Jeff (l) and Chris undo the bolts of the running plate

 I missed what came next, but predictably enough, the draw hook did not come quietly, requiring plenty more brute force and ignorance before it parted company with the rest of the loco.

Aaron needle gunning the removed piece of running board, ready for painting.

Foremarke Hall

 And finally, just in case you missed it, Dr Who has been gracing the nations tv screens once again.  The reason that I mention it is that last Saturday's episode featured scenes shot inside Greet tunnel.  The rest of the railway scenes were shot at Barry, even though the sign says Bristol, but the DMU scenes inside the tunnel were shot in Greet tunnel using our 117 class DMU.  The driver as far as I'm aware was an actor rather than one of our volunteers.  There are no Daleks or Cybermen in this one, so you're fairly safe to watch it from a position on your sofa rather than hiding behind it.  If you're reading this in the UK, within 28 days of October 18th, then you can watch it for yourself by clicking on this link.