Welded to the Railway

The concreting of road 6 in the David Page shed has progressed significantly during the last week, prompting an influx of emails to your humble blogmeister containing photos of the work in hand:

Concrete mixer arrives (Photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

The concrete pour begins (Photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

By the end of Wednesday, a sizable section of the floor had been done.

Photo courtesy of John Cruxon

Moving forward to Saturday, yet more concreting was taking place in the David Page shed

A second section in progress

Even a section of the apron on road 7 had been done too

I didn't have the pleasure of meeting Luke, a new starter in the department, however that didn't prevent him from forwarding a few photos of more preparatory work for the next concrete pour on Saturday, with shuttering and steel reinforcing being put in place:

The next two photos both by kind permission of Luke Hudman:

Wednesday's pour on the left, steel reinforcing appearing

No explanatory notes came with this picture, however I have to hope that Aaron was about to weld some of the steel reinforcement into place rather than weld Sean's boots to the track.

Aaron about to weld something... but what?

More work has taken place on 2874 during the week, with a few more photos appearing from Roger.   With the boiler now out of the frames, the full extent of the corrosion of the rear drag box is becoming evident.  There will be a lot of work required here before she is ready to run under her own steam again.

2874's rear drag box as seen from between the frames (photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

 That the final years of the decline of steam on British Railways saw a sad neglect of maintenance is well known and documented however the following image of a pin that secured one of the brake equalising beams is still shocking. 

Used and abused (photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

 The well known second hand car joke, "One careful owner, the rest were not so choosy" seems to be applicable here.  The Great Western Railway (as in the 1835 established original company to trade by that name) was the first careful owner, the 2874 Trust will now carry on in that tradition rather than the one shown subsequently by BR (at least in its latter years of ownership). 

Saturday was the date of the AGM of Dinmore Manor Locomotive LTD (DMLL), the owners of Dinmore Manor (well the clue was in the name) as well as 3850, 3845 and until the 2874 Trust formally takes ownership, the owners of 2874 as well.   The group's supporters gathered for a round trip of the line behind their flagship loco with a fish and chip lunch, before heading off to the Toddington village hall for the actual AGM.

Dinmore Manor setting off on the first round trip of the day

 For the lunchtime run, with the DMLL members on board, the "Dinmore Manor Shareholders Special" headboard was rummaged up and put in place on the top lamp bracket.

DMLL Shareholders Special, about to depart

 The lure of fish and chips was too strong, but at least I had enough time before hand to get in a little light needle gunning of 3850's boiler before joining the train.  Roger had been around for much of the week and had managed to make a great deal of progress, including finishing off the backhead and the whole of the top of the firebox.

Needle gunned & primed firebox crown...

...and the now finished backhead.

Roger's extraordinary input of time and effort into working on 3850 & 2874 was  recognised by DMLL at the AGM, by awarding him the "Volunteers Cup".

One of the diesel shunters that is used from time to time to shunt the yard has been jacked up to allow its springs to be removed so that they can be sent away as a batch for refurbishing.

Des, all 6 springs removed

The drain funnel for the parachute tank in the yard that was manufactured last week has been painted

Tim painting the new drain for the parachute tank on Wednesday (photo courtesy of John Cruxon)

 On Saturday, somebody (I'm afraid that I don't know who) had treated it to a top coat.

Soon be ready for installing.

Later on in the day, after the DMLL AGM, I needed to put a warming into 4270, as I would be its fireman on Sunday.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that a keen new starter in the Steam Loco Dept called Mike had decided to hang around until the end of the day to see if he could help.  Of course he could:

Mike getting the warming fire going in 4270.

Sunday morning arrived, and as if on cue, the heavens opened as soon as we had started prepping 4270 for the day's work to come.

Steve watches as trainee driver Clive oils up 4270

Cleaner Andrew tries to shelter under the running plate whilst cleaning the wheels & motion

 As luck would have it, the skies cleared up as soon as we set off shed and stayed clear for the rest of the day.  Operationally, we had a slight issue, the water crane on the end of platform 2 at Toddington is currently out of use.  This meant that we had to take water each time at Cheltenham where we had little time to do it. 

It helped that we could fill up before we left the yard.

Ready to leave on time from Toddington...

...and off we went...

...and into Greet tunnel, which has yet to be relocated

 It was perfect conditions for lineside photography, and the usual suspects were to be seen at various points along the line with their cameras.  One enterprising chap at Gotherington was even using one of those new-fangled drones. 

Smile, you're on candid camera!

 As noted earlier, the water crane on platform 2 at Toddington where we would usually replenish our tanks was out of action.  That forced us to take water each trip at Cheltenham.  The timetable allows little more than time for a "splash & dash", rather than fully filling the tanks.  The fact that the water tanks on 4270 take a fair while to balance across (the one you're filling can be full and the one on the other side still half empty) meant that we were taking rather longer on the runarounds than the timetable allowed.  My apologies to anybody who was inconvenienced by our slightly late departures from Cheltenham Race Course on one or two of the trips.

Some of the water dispensed even reached the tanks.

Breakfast was kindly provided by Steve

 One thing that I have noticed with trainee drivers, is that they all seem to miss using the shovel.  Clive was no exception, and whilst I was busy pulling down coal in the bunker, he took the opportunity to swipe the shovel and build up the fire for me.

Clive building up the fire...

... and eventually back on his side of the cab.

 I don't think that I've seen it reported anywhere else yet, but platform 2 at Cheltenham Race Course has now been given a layer of tarmac.  The team that built platform 2 must be congratulated on a first rate job.

CRC platform 2

 A hot tip for any cleaners/trainee firepersons, presenting the hard working crews with a cup of tea when they arrive back at Toddington will always be extremely welcome

Eleanor has got the idea... she'll go far!

And finally, Dan has read all the way to here in this blog post and must have thought by now that he had got away with it... no such luck!  He'd been keeping it quiet, but on Sunday he reached the grand old age of 21, which as a number of people pointed out makes him the same age as me.

Dan, 2 years ago on his first solo firing turn (photo courtesy of Jamie Christie)

Happy birthday Dan.