Take the Last Train to Clarksville Laverton

Christmas & the New year have come and gone since I last put pen to paper fingers to keyboard.  You can't fail to have noticed that whether Santa paid you a visit or not, that the weather has been absolutely awful, almost ceaseless rain for as long as anybody in the steam loco dept can remember.  I say almost ceaseless, because the rain kindly held off for the first day of the Christmas Cracker mixed traction gala. As is becoming something of an annual tradition, yours truly set off in search of photos to record the event.  The timetable conspired against the discerning steam photographer, as there were only three runs in daylight with steam on the front of the train and the loco facing the right way, and one of those was only between Laverton and Toddington.  Regardless, I like a challenge and at least the forecast was on my side.  Here's what I got up to:

The second train of the day, the 10:40 off of Toddington, presented a photo opportunity, on the Tuesday, it was hauled by 7820, Dinmore Manor.

Dinmore Manor, passing Didbrook with the maroon set.

 A slow moving lorry thwarted my hopes of making it to Winchcombe in time to catch Dinmore Manor departing from there, so I headed on to Gotherington for a second bite of the cherry.

Dinmore Manor departing Gotherington

Paul, preparing to exchange tokens at Gotherington

 The second photo opportunity was the 12:30 from Laverton, which would be hauled by Dinmore Manor as far as Toddington.

Dinmore Manor on Stanway Viaduct

From Toddington onwards, the Peak was on the front

 The third, and most hopeful shot of the day would be at Gotherington for a glint shot of Dinmore Manor pulling away towards Cheltenham Race Course.   The preceding service was hauled by the class 20, with the PFP on the back, and still looked quite good.

It's hard to tell from here that the PFP is at the tail end of the train

For the diesel fans, here is the class 20 setting off, moments before

 Needless to say, by the time that Dinmore Manor arrived, low cloud had infiltrated the horizon, stealing away all hopes of the shot I was looking for.

Mustn't grumble I suppose

 Even on the worst of winter days, there is always the standby of the long exposure shot during disposal, with the added option of a little light painting thrown in.  Many thanks to Ian for the nifty torch work.

It's much harder than Ian has made it look

The more traditional long exposure shot, this time in black & white

 It wasn't all about the trains though:

A bonus was that John had kindly left some Christmas cake in the mess coach.

 Well it would have been churlish not to:

It was jolly nice, thanks John.

 It wasn't just John that had paid the mess coach a visit and left presents, Santa has been down the mess coach's chimney and left a consignment of new mugs, one or two of which may catch out the unwary.

For example, Ian was caught out. Photo courtesy of Dan Wigg

Friday was of course New Year's day, and yours truly was rostered for the last firing turn of the season (or first of 2016, depending on how you want to look at it).  The day was notable for the fact that it was to be the last ever timetabled steam train to Clarksville Laverton Loop, the points will be lifted and sent up to Broadway Station for use there during the course of the year.  The gala will see steam trains head up to a point just short of where the loop is, in top and tail mode, but not go quite as far as the where the loop currently is.

For reasons that I never fathomed, the oil store now boasts a large bag of kitty litter.  Best guess is for dealing with oil spills, though for all I know, we now have a station cat and we're trying to house train it.

Kitty litter, purpose unknown

 As usual at this time of year, the loco preparation was mostly done in the dark.  The loco rostered was the Planet's Favourite Prairie (PFP), 5542, which requires little hard work to get into steam, or to clean it for that matter.

Getting the PFP into steam

 Being a kindly soul, I let Eleanor (rostered cleaner) have a go with the shovel for the first trip.  There is of course no such thing as a free lunch and she paid for it by being snapped for inclusion in this blog.

Building up the fire before departure

"Does he ever stop taking photos"

 Unusually, Eleanor had neglected to bring along one of her trademark hats.  There are perils to being out in such cold weather bereft of head gear.

Fearlessly coupling the coaches to the PFP.

 The driver for the day was Neil

Neil, in the office.

 The last timetabled trip out to Laverton was also the first time that Eleanor had had the opportunity to fire that section.

Calling on the PFP at the far end of Laverton Loop.

Setting the points for the PFP to exit the loop onto the running line

Ready to leave Laverton Loop for the last time

 For the second trip, Eleanor rode on the cushions, and Sam, a recent starter in the steam loco dept joined us for a round trip, he was soon making himself useful.

Sam, topping up the water on the PFP

Neil (l) and Sam in the PFP

 The only other train running on New Year's day was the DMU, crewed by Stuart and Paul, which was sporting a suitably festive headcode at the southern end of its formation.

XMAS.

 The forecast had suggested that it would be dry until early afternoon, at which point, it would progressively get wetter and wetter.

The forecast was right for a change

 The other notable feature of the day, was a biting wind, which seemed to cut right through the cab of the PFP.  Heaven knows what it would have been like on one of our less well protected locos.

The wind snatching the exhaust off to the side

 The trains turned out to be well packed, as many visitors to the races at Cheltenham Race Course elected to beat the jams by taking the train.  This was put down in no small measure to the Race Course re-Tweeting our Twitter stream.

The PFP beats the jams

There were no trains running on the weekend following New Year's day, but that didn't deter a hardy bunch of steam loco dept members turning up at Toddington to start off the winter maintenance programme on our locos.

The PFP was shunted round to the ash pit for cleaning the grate and de-coaling

 Storm Frank had left its mark on the David Page shed, with one of the doors being blown in.  Apparently the next one is to be called storm Gertrude, I dread to think what that one will do.

Door blown in

 The solution was to take off the runner on the right hand side, raise the door, and reattach the runner with the door reinserted into it.

Runner detached, door raised

John and Eleanor reattaching the runner at the lower end

Once the runner had been reinstated and door lowered again, all was well.

As good as new!

 Meanwhile, in the mess coach, the booby trapped mug mentioned earlier has been noted and now, even when full of tea, has been spurned by all.

Nobody is falling for it any more

 Dinmore Manor was up for winterising too, removal of the guts of the injectors was one of the tasks to be done, along with cleaning the grate etc.

Fireman's side combining & delivery cones

 A bracket is sandwiched between the injector body and the overflow pipe, and a gasket on the fireman's side had been leaking badly.  The overflow pipes and the bracket were also removed to allow the gaskets to be replaced.

The injector body with the overflow pipe beneath it, before the overflow was removed.

A fine collection of 7820's injector components being cleaned in the oil store

 For the eagle-eyed, yes there is 3850's blowdown valve in the shot too, which had sneaked in for a spot of cleaning up as well.

Meanwhile, 2807's pony truck wheels are way at the South Devon Railway for re-profiling and the new underkeep castings are away for being machined, resulting in work being halted on that front.  There are myriad other tasks to attend to, one of which was to ream a pivot point that had been reported as having excessive play.

Bruce with the ream

Gil, having crawled between the frames trues up the hole.

35006 moved under her own steam using all three cylinders just before Christmas, but aspersions are now being cast as to whether or not it was really steam, or possibly some alternative...

"Nobody will notice if we hide that in the tender!"

 Ade made the mistake of saying that he hadn't seen me taking many pictures, and asked if I'd forgotten to bring my camera.

He soon regretted it!

Progress was made on Dinmore Manor's own tender, which had the tank access manhole raised into position.

The manhole being jacked up from underneath and pulled up with ropes from above

In situ.

 For many of us with day jobs, the prospect of going back to work after the Christmas break is just too much to bear.

Phil wasn't alone in not wanting to go back to the day job.

And finally, an acquaintance has let it be known that he is considering building an OO gauge layout of Toddington station and goods yard from the late 1950's era.  He is looking for any track plans and period photographs that may exist to assist him with this project.  Does anybody out there have anything that can help?  What was used for the excellent layout in the discovery coach?

Best wishes to all for a happy and steam filled new year.