What Happens When You Run Out of Coal?

We may be hurtling towards Christmas at a rate of knots, but there has been no let up in activity for the steam loco dept.  To start off with, I received this report from Foremarke Hall's loco manager, John on the progress with her overhaul at Tyseley.

"Whilst the work is taking longer than I had hoped progress to completion at Tyseley is well on the way.

The overhaul of the bogie was completed on Friday by a small gang of us from the Steam Dept. The bogie has had a full axle box overhaul as well as tyres turned. The bogie pressure pads have been repaired and generally given some TLC. We also witnessed the final bit of tube plate caulking as the boiler is now full of water.

Saturday saw us at Toddington sorting out the grate and its various bits ready for movement to Tyseley for the Steam test.

More info on the 7903 Foremarke Hall website"

The bogie, ready for installing (Clun Castle in the background), photo courtesy of John Cruxon.

Rolling the bogie under the front end, photo courtesy of Steve Jones.

The bogie in place, photo courtesy of John Cruxon.

Firebox tube plate, photo courtesy of John Cruxon.

Tube plate caulking in progress, photo courtesy of John Cruxon.

 It's not just Foremarke Hall that has seen major activity, the tank for Dinmore Manor's own tender was collected from DMLL's private location and placed on the tender chassis during the week:

Collecting the tender tank, photo courtesy of Roger Tipton.

Delivered to Toddington, photo courtesy of Roger Tipton.

Being lowered into place, photo courtesy of Roger Tipton.

Looking much more like a Collett, 3500 gallon tender now, photo courtesy of Roger Tipton.

 Meanwhile, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the GWSR, with Santa specials in full swing.  We are running the DMU at Toddington (round trip to Laverton and nearly to Winchcombe), with Santa on the train. Added to that, we have a steam hauled service from Cheltenham Race Course to the North Pole (AKA Winchcombe) where Santa has his grotto.  He's a busy chap at this time of year is Santa.

Frances seems to think that Chris has been a naughty boy.

 Saturday evening saw the SLD Christmas dinner, at the Corner Cupboard in Winchcombe.  There was a quiz (no railway related questions) and the annual festive jumper competition.  In the face of stiff competition was finally judged to have been won by Phil (front row of the photo below with the illuminated Christmas pudding on his jumper).

Festive jumper competition entrants

 Many thanks to Tina for organising the Christmas dinner.

It was whilst at the Christmas dinner, that I was informed that my steed for the following day's Santa specials, 5542, had a few issues.  That the ash pan hopper door couldn't be closed properly wasn't a surprise, it can be difficult when hot, but is fine when it has had a chance to cool down.  That was sorted in a few moments when arrived in the morning.  The other issue was that one of the steam heating bags had exploded rapidly disassembled itself.  They go with quite a bang and a lot of escaping steam when they go, so I dare say that it caused the crew some concern when it happened.

That won't be much use

The remainder of the steam heat bag

After the reusable items had been salvaged.

 I suspect that for the return journeys to Cheltenham Race Course were a little bit chilly for the passengers.

In best SLD tradition, the steam heat bag was replaced by pilfering another one to use in its place.  On this occasion, the unwitting donor was 2807's tender.

Dinmore Manor and 5542 being prepared for service

 I noticed a suitably festive item in the pile of cleaning rags and couldn't resist using it as a light up rag. 

One Christmas stocking that won't see any more presents

Before long, Dinmore Manor was off as train 1 to shuttle children from CRC to the North Pole, we would follow soon after.

Dinmore Manor sets off, 5542 waits her turn.

 I'd stayed at Toddington on Saturday night, and listened to a howling gale rip through the place from the sanctuary of the crews accommodation units.  Not only was I pleasantly surprised to discover that the locos hadn't been blown over, but that Sunday was a surprisingly nice sunny day.

Blue skies and steam

 My driver for the day was Steve, who had gone to the trouble of wearing a Santa hat.  I own several, but had managed to forget to bring one with me.

Steve Claus

 The timetable involves large periods of waiting around, Steve knew how to deal with the inactive moments

A relaxing day in the office

The hat even doubled up as a pillow for a while.

 The long breaks whilst the children were seeing Santa (funny how they all claimed to have been 'nice') weren't all spent snoozing, these breaks were ideal for lunch on the shovel.

Pork and apple sausages... nothing but the best

Steve and Roger tucking into the first of several lunches

Roger cooking second lunch, bacon butties!

There was a plentiful supply of tea and mince pies from the cafe at the North Pole too, I'm surprised that I could fit in the cab of 5542 by the end of the day.

Roger is relatively new to the joys of operating steam locos and had a little contretemps whilst filling the tanks with water

Roger filling the water tanks...

...never mind, his trousers were soon dry again.

Roger also had a stab at firing for one round trip and made a good go of it.

I think we were onto a third lunch by this point... I lost track to tell the truth

 I had suggested that another bucket load of coal in the bunker before we set off might be a good idea.  Steve considered what we had to be ample, so we didn't bother taking any more.  By the time we got back to Toddington, we had precious little coal left in the bunker, and almost all of what there was, was slack.  During the day, one of the many children to visit the footplate asked the question, "What happens when you run out of coal?".  Roger made mention of a pile of logs that he had noticed at a certain spot along the line, mercifully we didn't end up needing to use them.

Most of the way down the bunker by lunch time.

Another memorable quote, this time from a distinctly older visitor to the footplate, who asked of me was "Did you use to do this for a living?".  He seemed to think that I could pass as being old enough to have crewed steam locos back in the days when BR were still operating them on the mainline.  I'll never hear the end of that one when the rest of the SLD finds out. 

One of the bonuses of firing at this time of year is that you get to do some of it at least in the dark.  As the timetable had slipped a bit, we ended up doing rather more than expected in the dark.

Sunset at CRC

Crossing Dinmore Manor at Gotherington, Neil prepares to exchange tokens.

 And finally, 35006 having had all necessary work on its centre con rod during the week, was ready for a test run with all three cylinders operational.  Today, was that day, and she set off for a few test runs up and down the yard at Toddington.  The diesel shunter attached was to provide braking assistance, as the tender's brakes on 35006 have yet to be fitted.

Cliff, trying out the driving seat for size, photo courtesy of Dan Wigg

In the parlour road,photo courtesy of Chris Crump

Dan, lighting up 35006, photo courtesy of Steve Parker

On siding one, photo courtesy of Steve Parker

By the ash pit, photo courtesy of Steve Parker

The generator, photo courtesy of Steve Parker

The crew, Jeff (L) and Dan, photo courtesy of Steve Parker

A few of the restoration team, (l-r) Dave, Andy, Steve & Ian, photo courtesy of Steve Parker

A few words to accompany the photos from Steve:

"As you can see from the smiles on their faces everything went very well, we only did a few adjustments i.e. freeing off the valve rod and gland to one of the injectors and adjusting one of the cylinder relief valves which was blowing off a bit early.

Checks on all the running gear bearings/bushes etc. with an infrared meter showed all axle boxes and motion joints were fine."

Simmering in the shed at the end of the day, photo courtesy of Dan Wigg