Enough to Feed the Five Thousand

Ok, so all the Santa Special's are "special".... the clue's in the name, however some Santa Special's are more special than others.  Last Friday, the GWSR laid on a freebie for the benefit of a group of children from Acorns Children's Hospice and Winston's Wish.  DMLL waived their steaming fee for Dinmore Manor, our regular coal supplier provided a couple of tons free of charge. The GWSR volunteers give their time for free anyway, but they did so even more freely on this occasion.  Being a wage slave (the emphasis being on the slave rather than the wage), I was unable to attend however Jack Boskett has very kindly provided me with the following photos.  I don't need to add too many words, the smiles on the children's faces says everything that you need to know.

Santa making young dreams come true

Dinmore Manor, even more special than usual

Volunteers and some of the attendees

Happy volunteers at the end of the day.

All the above photos, courtesy of Jack Boskett.

Saturday evening was the date of the Steam Loco Dept Christmas party.  I popped into Toddington on the way, just as Dinmore Manor's crew was chilling out with a cup or two of tea after a hard day's graft.  I'm not usually averse to seeing people dressed in tights, as the people concerned would usually be of the female gender.  Not on this occasion though, Phil had pilfered one of his wife's pairs of tights to wear on the footplate, ostensibly to keep his legs warm.  This is one footplate fashion that I very much hope doesn't catch on.

Phil does his best Rudolph Nureyev impression

 I was just in time to catch of photo of 5542 arriving back, no need for tights for the crew, who were well sheltered from the worst of the effects of winter in that nice warm cab.

Chris & Ian disposing 5542

 The Christmas party itself is probably not a fit subject for this blog, too many people making career limiting moves etc.  I'll limit my coverage to the fact that there was a Silly Christmas jumper competition.   Several people were taking it so seriously that they even went out and brought a jumper rather than fetch out any unwanted gifts from Christmases past that had been gathering dust at the bottom of the wardrobe.

Christmas jumper competition entrants.

 It fell to Mark to be the judge, and he decided on Roger's jumper as being the best.

Mark Congratulating Roger.

 As usual, many thanks indeed to Tina for organising the whole thing.

I was back bright and early on the Sunday morning for my own date with Dinmore Manor and the Santa Specials.  Rest assured gentle reader, I was conventionally attired.  In my opinion, the only valid reason for a man to wear tights is if he is about to rob a bank.  

I noted that we have received a generous donation of surplus fun run t-shirts for use as cleaning rags, many boxes of them in fact. 

You can't have too many cleaning rags

 The Traveling Ticket Inspectors have tumbled to the fact that the empty coaching stock moves at the beginning and end of the day are a useful opportunity to blag a ride on the footplate.  Alistair joined us on the way down to Cheltenham.

Alistair

 Besides me, the crew for today was Andy (driving) and Jonathan (cleaner)

Andy (l) & Jonathan, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was cold

 Nigel was the guard for our train and in keeping with the festive season had adorned his hat with tinsel and flashing lights.

Nigel, guarding his hat

 Upon arrival at Cheltenham, we filled our hitherto empty coaches up with excited young children and it has to be said, nearly as excited adults and set off for Winchcombe The North Pole.  Why the North Pole, well of course, it's where Santa keeps his grotto. House prices have risen dramatically in recent years, pushing up rents so much that all poor old Santa can afford is a grotto at the North Pole.  Long gone are the days when he could afford to rent a nice town house in Chelsea, with a helicopter pad in the back garden to land his sleigh on.

Chez Santa

 Still, he has plenty of Elves to keep him company on the North Pole, and as you might have expected, it was snowing when we got there.

Elves in the snow

 So much snow in fact that somebody had made a snowman

Merry Christmas from the North Pole

 Somehow I managed to miss it, but there was even a group of carol singers on hand

Carol singers. Photo courtesy of David Holmes

 So what was I up to, to miss the carol singers?  Well, one of the perks of crewing the Santa Special's is that there are a few nice long gaps in the timetable. Whilst the (hopefully) good girls and boys visit Santa and receive presents.  The obvious thing to do with the time is have a fry up on the shovel.  Andy and I had both independently come to this conclusion and had both brought more than enough food for the three of us.  If the biblical five thousand had turned up, they wouldn't have gone home hungry.  We set Jonathan to the task of rustling up the first of several fry ups.

Jonathan warms to the task in hand

 It smelled as good as it looked too.

Sunny side up.

 Given that you can hardly switch on the tv these days without stumbling across a cookery show of some sort or other, I'm surprised that nobody has televised a series on recipes to cook on the shovel of a steam loco.  It's got to happen sometime soon.  Which celebrity chef will it be I wonder?

Andy seemed pleased with the results.

 Tea and mince pies were generously provided by the cafe at Winchcombe station.

And jolly good they were too

 Jonathan had already demonstrated that's he knows what to do with a shovel when it comes to lunch, so I let him loose with it for the next round trip to Cheltenham and back.

We took water at Cheltenham, the leak on the water pipe hasn't improved since the last time I used it and the wind was strong enough to swirl it around and spray me from time to time.

Water column, complete with sprinkler attachement

 Platform 2 at Cheltenham is progressing well, at this rate they'll be finished before too much longer.

Platform 2

Another long gap in the timetable, time for another fry up!

 Shovel cleaned, time for a second sitting:

Sausages and bacon this time

 Needless to say, Dinmore Manor was looking marvelous with the head board and tinsel.  I do like the blue trimming on her lamps.  Somehow I managed to squeeze myself out of the cab (it hadn't been a squeeze when I'd got on earlier.... strange that) and grabbed a photo.

Dinmore Manor looking great.

 Of course 5542 was looking rather smart too

Crossing 5542 at Gotherington

 Jonathan is as good when shoveling coal as he is when shoveling food, no surprise there really, as he also volunteers on another railway and is taking his exam there as a fireman in a few weeks.  Best of luck Jonathan, though on the strength of Sunday's performance, you'll have no trouble.

Cooking coal rather than bacon

 It has to be said, it was a bit on the cold side and for the last trip down to Cheltenham, there was a bit of a downpour with the sort of rain that stings when it hits your face.  You'll be pleased to learn that regardless of the weather, nobody on this crew resorted to wearing women's clothing

Andy hangs on to his hat

 The nice shiny new storm sheet that we had been running with all day,was of course more than welcome however it still didn't manage to keep out all of the wind and rain.  What protection it did provide, we were all very grateful for nonetheless. 

No need to damp the coal with the pep pipe.

 We acquired another TTI on the footplate for the return empty coaching stock move back to Toddington. 

TTI

 I'm afraid I missed his name (sorry, whoever you are) however Santa knows exactly who he is and it seems won't be paying him a visit this year.

Oh dear!

 As has been observed on these pages before, wearing white on the footplate is very ill advised however I think that he got away with it this time.

Definitely on Santa's 'nice' list is Dan, fresh back from his studies.  Not only did he help out with watering Dinmore Manor at the end of the day, but he also emptied the smoke box and the ash pit after I'd emptied the ash pan.  Thanks Dan

Dan

 And finally, whilst drinking a post-shift cup of tea in the mess coach, I spotted this on the notice board:

"Xmas cake in the fridge, help yourself"

It would have been churlish to have declined the offer.  Thank you very much to whichever kind soul provided it, it was delicious.