Unhalfbricking

We've had a bit of a tidy up in the yard, a number of containers have moved on to pastures new.  The Wednesday gang took the opportunity to remove a bit of surplus track that ran between the bricked up wall of the goods shed/machine shop and the gents conveniences.  It was deemed a unlikely that we would ever want to reinstate services between those two locations, though given the amount of tea that they drink in the machine shop, you might have been forgiven for thinking that some sort of rapid transit system might be in order.  Nevertheless, out came the track, which for a brief while existed in monorail form:

I don't think we have any suitable stock for that. Photo courtesy of Pete Gutteridge

The concrete in the David Page shed may now be down on roads 7, 8 & 9, but some of it still needs to be etched and painted.  The etching can only take place after 28 days have elapsed since the concrete was poured, so only a few sections could be done on Saturday.  Ade & I did some etching

Ade, admiring his etchings.

Eleanor wasn't quite so impressed with our efforts and hosed it all down a bit later

Excellent progress has been made with Dinmore Manor's real tender, to start off with, some of the smaller brake mechanism components required case hardening.  Ian heated them up until cherry red, then Mark gave them a good dunking in an oil bath to rapidly cool them down.

Mark demonstrating his BBQ skills.

Various items of the being assembled brakes

 During the week, the re-wheeling of the tender has progressed well, with all axle box under keeps and horn ties now in situ.

Looking good.

 As ever, the running fleet needed a bit of TLC, 2807 was shunted onto the ash pit to have her smoke box, grate and ash pan emptied:

James and Liam (new starter on Saturday) empty 2807's smoke box

James cleans the grate..

...then they both get to grips with the ash pan.

 Next in line for some attention was 3850 which had come to the end of its boiler ticket on Wednesday.  The same tasks as for 2807 were required, except this time we needed to prepare for splitting the tender, everything to be disconnected apart from the centre pin of the main link.

Liam started off cleaning the grate

Jamie...

...and Chris disconnected the tender

Dinmore Manor will be returning to Toddington shortly and will be paired for a while with the tender  from 3850.  The tender that Dinmore Manor is currently running with is on hire from the Bluebell Railway and will be returning straight back there from the Dartmouth Steam Railway 

3850 on the ash pit.

 I finished off cleaning up the grate, and while I was in the firebox, there was an element of mission creep, as a request was made to remove the brick arch whilst I was in there. Predictably enough, my hopes of remaining tolerably clean for an engagement later that evening were dashed.  As I've said before, cleanliness is next to impossible in the steam loco dept

The request to salvage as many bricks as possible met with limited success

 A chain gang was formed to pass the mortal remains of the bricks from the grate to the cab, from the cab to the tender and from the tender to the ash dock.

Eleanor receives bricks from Jamie, (by now in the firebox), Chris prepares to launch one into the ash dock.

 A little later, Chris went into the firebox to sweep around the edges, ready for inspection, Jamie and I headed underneath to empty the ash pan.  A muffled curse was heard from above, followed by Chris asking if we could see the brush that he had just dropped.

Jamie retrieves the errant brush

 It wasn't just the brush that turned up in the ash pan, a large chunk of a fire bar and a stay nut were also to be found.

More things to add to the to do list for her rebuild.

All that remained to do after that was clear up after ourselves

 It was a green timetable running on Saturday, which meant that we had one steam loco and one diesel running.  The diesel was the class 26, and I noted that they were running with the correct head lamp code, at least on this end of the loco. I was put in mind of a well known quote, often attributed to Winston Churchill (probably erroneously), "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing... after they have exhausted all other possibilities".

They probably have tried every other possible headlamp code first.

 News filtering through from the 35006 gang was that they have commenced the construction of their brick arch.  Merchant Navy locos have brick arches that come in three sections, separated from each other by the thermic syphons.  Here we can see that part of the centre section has now been completed.

Not using bricks recycled from 3850.

And finally, yet more good news.  To kick off with, Steve Jones passed out as a fireman on Sunday:

Fireman Jones (l) and Inspector Irving.(photo courtesy of Chris Irving)

In my last blog post, I alluded to the fact that 3850's last day in service would hopefully be rather special, and so it turned out to be.  Mike Solloway, the vice chairman of Dinmore Manor Locomotive LTD (which owns 3850) also passed out as a fireman.

Inspector Irving (l) congratulating fireman Solloway on Wednesday, photo courtesy of Chris Irving

Congratulations to both Steve and Mike.