Speed to the West Day 2

Day two of the Speed to the West gala dawned bright and early.  I didn't though, being booked down for an afternoon turn on 6960, Raveningham Hall, I decided that a bit of a lie in was called for.  By the time that I ventured into the yard, loco preparation for the day ahead was well advanced.

Andy was out on Wadebridge.  For some reason, Phil decided that he would need a bigger shovel so he fetched him a dropping shovel. I'm not entirely sure now of his reasoning, but I suspect it was related to the alleged voracious appetite for coal of the Bulleids.  Alternatively, it might have been a suggestion that Andy had too much fire in there and needed to remove some.

Phil presents Andy with a dropping shovel.

I spotted George leaning nonchalantly against a Not to be Moved board and thought it would make a nice photo.  George has a suspicious mind and naturally assumed that I was up to something, but he couldn't work out what it was.  No trick, I just thought it would have made a nice photo

George, bemused and suspicious

To be fair to George, he was right to be suspicious.  I do have a reputation for taking photos of people in embarrassing situations such as this one where he has managed to trap his tie in the coffee jar in the mess coach on Saturday:

Just one of the reasons why I never drink coffee

Jamie being of a more trusting nature was more than happy lean against the Not to be Moved board and have his photo taken.

You see, no tricks at all.

Over on Wells, Neil and Phil were happily getting on with preparing their loco.

Neil (l) & Phil

John was in the process if oiling up Raveningham Hall, the loco that I would be taking over later on in the day.

John H oiling the slide bars

Brothers Rob and Steve were doing an excellent job of getting 6960's tender sparkling clean.

(l-r) Steve and Rob H

Meanwhile on the footplate, John C and Chris, the rostered crew for the morning were busying themselves getting ready for departure.  I'm not as up to speed with the names of all the recent intake of volunteers as I should be, in fact how somebody as dreadful as me at remembering names came to be asked to write this blog is a mystery to me.  Anyway, I think that is James on the running plate, my apologies if I got it wrong.

(l-r) John, Chris & James?

Aaron cracked on with cleaning some Bulleid wheels:

Aaron at work.

Steve, our newest fireman got his first turned since passing out on 4270. 

Steve F looking at home in the cab of 4270

The fact that Steve passed out last week also means that I am no longer the most recently qualified fireman on the GWSR.

Steve J had been busy cleaning 4270

Sean making himself useful, cleaning off 4270's running plate

Ben was oiling up 2807

Where on earth did he get that blue oil can from?

Eleanor was busy cleaning 2807's wheels...

Eleanor

...whilst Tom gave the cylinder covers some attention

Tom

Meanwhile on the other side, Steve was oiling up 2807 too.

Steve O at work

Graham and Tina were at work on the planet's favourite prairie, 5542

Graham and Tina

Chris was obviously happy with his fire and was busy shoveling coal forward in 2807's tender.

Chris

All of a sudden an extremely loud wooshing sound erupted as Wadebridge blew off.  Andy took a bow for the audience.  Now we know what the dropping shovel mentioned earlier was for.

Andy, pretending that it was nothing to do with him

Events conspired against a line up of all the visiting locos and all of the crews, so we settled for a view of everybody who was around at the time, lined up in front of Wadebridge just before she went off shed.

Lots of people, mostly called Steve... or Chris... or John.

Once some of the locos were off shed, I swapped hats yet again and manned the Dinmore Manor stand in the marquee for the morning.  I say that, except for the times when it was raining, I spent most of it out of doors by 2874 engaging people in conversation about her.  A subject close to my heart.  I'm not sure that I persuaded anybody to join DMLL, but a few made financial contributions.

At midday, I metaphorically swapped hats once more and hopped on board the freight train for a lift down to Cheltenham, where Steve B & I were booked to relieve the crew of 6960, Raveningham Hall.

Unhooking 6960 from the freight train proved to be something of a challenge, it finally took the combined efforts of Steve and two others to separate the vacuum hoses.  It's hard to tell from this angle who the other two are, that might be Chris on the left, I have no idea who it is on the right. Steve is the one without a hat.

How many footplate men does it take to.....

Having organised a roster of cleaners for the whole event, who had all been putting in a huge amount of work over the gala period, I was keen to get as many of them as possible out on the footplates in their down time.  The only one that I spotted on Sunday before I left  was Eleanor, so she got the pleasure of joining Steve and myself on 6960 for the afternoon.  I say pleasure, there is no such thing as a free lunch,  I soon had her helping out by pulling coal forward in the tender. 

Eleanor shoveling coal forward

I'm not sure why, but on Sunday at least there was no owner's representative on board Raveningham Hall.  Not a problem as she is of course identical to Foremarke Hall, which has not been out of traffic for so long that either Steve or myself had forgotten what to do.

Having taken over 6960, our duty started off by waiting around for a bit in platform 1 at Cheltenham Race Course (CRC) station, followed by moving out of the way down towards Hunting Butts tunnel to allow the double headed spam cans to come into platform 1 and run around.  Never having been down there before, I took the opportunity to take a peek at the wagons lurking down there.  The track bed gets a bit boggy in places.

A bit overgrown.

Eventually, our stock arrived and we ran round it and hooked onto the front.   At last, we were off on our way.

Heading into Greet tunnel.

We had a short wait to cross another train at Winchcombe, I took the opportunity to grab a photo of 35006 in the bay platform.  Bearing in mind that the tender of 35006 has the wheels from the class 40 that was involved in the Great Train Robbery, it was quite apt that she was at the head of a Traveling Post Office carriage, albeit one that contained model railways rather than used bank notes.

35006 at Winchcombe.

We had seven mk1 carriages in tow, and for the return leg of the second round trip, we were pulling along 2807 as well. 2807 was probably heavy enough to count as another 3 or 4 carriages, I built up the fire accordingly, great fun.

Dragging 2807 across Chicken Curve

Being a fairly recent recruit to the SLD, Eleanor has had little experience of footplate work so far.  At the end of our shift I considered it high time that she was instructed in the art of uncoupling a loco from its stock.

As I said earlier, there is no such thing as a free lunch. 

Having gone to the trouble of rostering not one, but two cleaners to assist crews with ashing out their locos at the end of the day, I was a little surprised to discover that Steve had disappeared underneath to do it.  I don't doubt that the ash pit crew (Jonathan and Chris on Sunday) were pleasantly surprised.

Steve ashing out 6960, Raveningham Hall

Ian replenishes 6960's tender with coal

Jonathan (l) and Chris did at least get to empty the pit afterwards

As up until last week, I was the most recently qualified fireman on the GWSR, I wouldn't normally have expected to get a trip out on one of the visiting locos, but I'm remarkably glad that I did.  I have a bit of a connection with 6960 as in a previous existence, I volunteered briefly on the WSR in the workshops at Williton during the time that she was being overhauled there.  It was a great pleasure to be able to fire her, a marvelous experience altogether.  She is a superb loco and I can't wait now until we have her sister loco, 7903,  Foremarke Hall back in action on our railway.

6960, Raveningham Hall at the end of her shift