Swindon Built - The Preamble

The Cotswold Festival of Steam "Swindon Built" gala is now largely done and dusted (the locos haven't quite all left yet).  Several years ago, I took the view that being actively involved in organising the gala and crewing the trains, with the attendant early morning starts was incompatible with burning the midnight oil in order to provide a blow-by-blow account of the gala as it happened on this blog.  Being a humble wage slave, and unfortunately needing to be earning my living for much of this coming weekend, a follow on post regarding the gala itself won't appear until some time well into next week. 

The first of the three locos for the gala to arrive, was 7812, Erlestoke Manor, courtesy of the Severn Valley Railway and the Erlestoke Manor Fund.  It turned up on Monday the 23rd, with a view to having a fitness to run test and a steam test on the Tuesday. This was in order for it to be available for a couple of pre-gala steamings on the Wednesday and Thursday.  All went to plan, and so Andy and myself found ourselves crewing 7812 on the Wednesday.

We  were still preparing 7812 for the day ahead, when one of the other guest locos, 46521 (courtesy of the Great Central Railway) appeared in the car park.  We hadn't really been expecting it quite so early in the day, nonetheless it was extremely welcome.

46521, arriving.

Somewhere in there, is 7812, on it's way out of the yard

 Rather amusingly, one of my work colleagues spotted 92214 & 46521's tender in transit to us and jokingly sent out a text to another colleague & myself:

 Not "Qualified enough" indeed.  I shall be having words with them!

I had received an email a day or two earlier letting me know that the cast of "The Railway Children" playing at the Everyman theatre in Cheltenham would be appearing at Cheltenham Race Course station for a publicity photo shoot on the Wednesday.  Although I have a copy of the Railway Children on DVD, been to the K&WVR and even met a few volunteers there who appeared in it, I have never actually seen the film.

Photo shoot in full swing

Being waved off from the platform by the cast.

A number of members of the Erlestoke Manor Fund (EMF) turned up to act as owner's representatives, we found useful work for them to do

Two EMF members topping up the tender.

 Of particular note was that for the middle trip, Foremarke Hall was added as the train engine in order for it to get a few running in miles under its belt.  Even at this late stage, it wasn't entirely clear whether or not Foremarke Hall would be declared fit to run in time for the gala.

Foremarke Hall as seen from Erlestoke Manor's tender...

...and as they looked in the platform

We were soon away...

...and Foremarke Hall was assisting in pulling the train.

Our Operations Manager has recently purchased a rather nice camera and was out and about with it.  The next two photos are courtesy of Neil Carr: 

Foremarke Hall, basking in the sun and showing off her lovely new paint job

Erlestoke Manor leading Foremarke Hall into Winchcombe

My driver, Andy, certainly seemed to be enjoying the day.

 On arrival back at Toddington on the second trip, we discovered that the final guest loco (92214) had arrived and was in the process of being unloaded. Added to that, the marquee was in the middle of being erected in the car park, a day earlier than expected.

92214 being unloaded

 Unfortunately, Foremarke Hall failed with a leak from the joint between a superheater element and the header.  She was withdrawn from joining us for the third round trip, to allow her to start cooling down so that remedial action could be taken on the Thursday.  I didn't get involved in that, I was tied up with changing a broken spring on Dinmore Manor's tender instead.

During the day, 2807 was renumbered to be 2808, in honour the record breaking 2012 ton freight train hauled by 2808 in 1906.

 The front buffer beam number was changed by sliding a transfer over the 7.  As you can see, the result was particularly effective.  If I hadn't told you, would you have been able to tell?  The rivet at the top right hand side of the "8", is partially painted yellow as the number 7 covered it in the same way as the two rivets in the number 0 are.  This was dealt with by covering the rivet with half a ping pong ball painted red.

Heavyweight Champion

On to Thursday, the third round trip once again saw Foremarke Hall out on a test run, double headed with Erlestoke Manor.

Erlestoke Manor leads Foremarke Hall past Toddington signal box

This time round, Foremarke Hall was declared to be fit and crew rosters for eight locos rather than seven were hurriedly put together by Ben.

46521 had a steam test on Thursday too:

Paul wasn't quite quick enough to escape being caught in the shot.

OK, here it is again, but without Paul in view this time.

92214 had its steam test on Friday.  Having a mobile BBQ sat around in steam, was considered a good excuse to get cracking with the sausages and a shovel.

Ian prepares a shovel full of breakfast...

...Brian added some bacon later.

 Yet more BBQ was to be found at Broadway later on, as usual, music was provided.

Take the A train

By the time I arrived, the queue for the BBQ was fairly lengthy

The view from the signal box is impressive....

...and the new station building is making excellent progress too

When we returned to Toddington and checked over the locos for the morning, one of the things caught my eye was that bath mats and a pair of slippers had been set out for the crew of Foremarke Hall.  Presumably those are steel toe-capped slippers and flame retardant bath mats to qualify as being suitable for use on the footplate.

All the comforts of home.

And finally, in a departure from usual practice, we did a loco line up with volunteers on the Friday morning.  All the locos needed shunting around to their start positions anyway, so we extended the shunt a bit and arranged all the south facing locos (all the GWR ones as it happens) in front of the David Page shed.  All that remained was for me to strap myself into a safety harness and ascend the  ladder to the top of the recently commissioned parachute tank in the yard to capture the scene for posterity.

(l-r), 7820, Dinmore Manor, 7812, Erlestoke Manor, 7903, Foremarke Hall, 2808 2807 & 4270

Yes, there are several photos of me up there, no, they won't be appearing in here.