The Race to the Finish Line

The Cheltenham races took place during the last week, once again our crews took the whole thing in their stride.  The key to being able to cope with everything that the race trains throw at you is a good hearty breakfast, cooked in the traditional way on the shovel.  Adam did his tv master chef impression on the 17th:

Adam on the shovel, Photo courtesy of Steve Oddy

Once fortified with a proper breakfast, dealing with customers who have perhaps only had champagne (in no small quantities) for theirs presents no problem.  In the photo below, Ben escorts a young lady back to the train after she had somehow managed to find her way off the end of the platform. 

Ben being a gentleman, photo courtesy of Andy Beale

 Moving on to Saturday, various parts of 3850 which had been removed and cleaned some while back, were dispatched to DMLL's private site for restoration:

Martin moving some of the eccentrics

The white metal in some of them is past its best

In a trailer and ready to depart

 Not all of the removed components are able to be restored, many of the fire bars that returned with 3850 were so far past their best, that the only sensible course of action was to weigh them in for scrap and get new ones.

Beyond further use

The race trains had seen the first few runs of Dinmore Manor on the GWSR this year.  It had been reported that the steam feed to the fireman's side injector was blowing steam from one of the joints.

Steam feed to the injector

 Getting at the fiddly bolts that secured the pipe to the injector is a challenging task.  It' calls for the use of midget sized double jointed fingers coupled with arms that are twice as long as most. Most who are "lucky" enough to take on this task find that fluent Anglo Saxon is a prerequisite too, as it is the only language that the injector or its attachments speak.

David, with the steam pipe... it didn't give up without a struggle

The failing gasket, it's not hard to see why it was blowing by

Old gasket removed, and face cleaned up a bit

There is no owner's manual for Manor class locomotives, but if there was, it would doubtless feature an unhelpful picture of an ostensibly similar, but wholly different part, captioned with the immortal words "Assembly is the reversal of disassembly".  Needless to say, more fluent Anglo Saxon (along with double jointed midget fingers etc) were required to return it into place. At least now the job is now done.

Excellent progress continues to be made with Foremarke Hall

John and Will fitting the fireman's side steam pipe.

John fitting the seals on the driver's side

A small team of people at work on the back head cladding

 The smoke box door ring has been renewed during the overhaul, whereas the smoke box door has not.  The smoke box door had warped slightly to fit the old smoke box door ring, and doesn't form a good seal against the new one.  The solution is to build up the mating face of the smoke box door with weld and profile it with a grinder to be flat.  Hopefully that should then make it seal properly. 

Steve building up the dips in the smoke box door with weld...

...and grinding them down to be flat

Oil feeds for the cylinders & regulator have been run from the cab to the smoke box

 The blast pipe and chimney, regulator and steam pipes have all been fitted in the smoke box:

Inside Foremarke Hall's smoke box

Tim fitting a cylinder end cover casing.

The starfish wagon that is currently being refurbished in the David Page shed was receiving a coat of primer on its wheels on Saturday. 

Stuart priming the wagon's wheels.

 There was interesting discovery made regarding the date. 

Even older than 2807.

The brake actuating rods for 35006's tender have arrived and were in the workshop for a spot of attention, before being trial fitted.

One of the rods propped up in the machine shop

The other rod being worked on by Steve

 This is all good news, the tender brakes are the last major task that needs completing on 35006.  There are of course no end of small jobs that need doing though.

I'm afraid that I had to depart and attend a meeting shortly after lunch on Saturday, so I can't bring you the latest news on the state of play with either 35006's or Foremarke Hall's restoration.  I will attempt to make amends next week.

And finally, 5542 was off hauling the service trains on Saturday,  whilst 35006 & Foremarke Hall were inside the shed, nonetheless, we still had a pleasing line up of locos outside, visible from our viewing area.

L-R, 4270, Dinmore Manor, 2807.