How Many Breakfasts?

The Santa season has just drawn to a close, normal services of one sort or another will be running between Boxing Day and New Year's Day.  The Santa Specials were deemed to be too long a day for the crews to comfortably do, and to prevent any danger of running over our statutory dictated working hours, we implemented prep shifts.  The plan was that a crew would appear at Toddington at some unholy hour of the morning, emply ash pans and smoke boxes, clean the grates and light the fires, oil up and of course clean the locos.   The real crews would pitch up at a far more civilised hour, and take over their locos and proceed to run the Santa trains all day, return to Toddington in the evening and park their locos on the pits outside the David Page shed, ready for the next day's prep team to dispose & light up etc in the morning.  I would get to sample both being on a prep crew and the real crew in the space of a few days, real crew on Friday 22nd, prep crew on Christmas Eve.

Friday started at an extremely civilised hour, the real crews mostly turned up already wearing their blues and almost all were to be found sporting a suitably festive Santa hat.

Chris... more than a little pleased not to have been in early.

 I was on train 2, with Jamie and Alex, soon after I arrived, Paul, Chris & Steve disappeared in a cloud of steam on 5526.

5526 sets off Empty Coachimg Stock (ECS) to Cheltenham race Course to collect the first train full of visitors for Santa

They say that an army marches on its stomach and the same is probably true for steam loco depts too.  Bacon had been provided in the mess coach fridge and the prep crew got to work on cooking it:

First breakfast

 After breakfast, I tried to rally Friday's prep crew for a group photo by Dinmore Manor, but it was like herding cats.  The closest that I managed was this sneaky shot as we departed from the ash pit.

Prep crew, (L-R), Tom, Andrew & Mike.  Steve was hiding out of shot

The turn started off with a light engine move to Winchcombe The North Pole, where we picked up our stock and headed off to Cheltenham Race Course (CRC) to pick up our first lot of excited children to see Santa.

Ready and waiting with the Santa Express

The coal is not behaving quite as it should do for Welsh coal, it is rather smokier, burns quicker and doesn't produce as much heat.

Rather smokier

The lineside photographers might like it, but homes adjacent to the track with washing out drying on the line probably aren't quite so keen.

Crossing train 1 at Gotherington

A station full of elves to greet us

Alex grappling with the elephant trunks.

Welcome to Santa's Grotto

The crews are provided with complimentary teas and mince pies at the North pole

Two mince pies already scoffed by the time I had whipped my camera out.

Once we'd run around the stock, we had to wait for all the children to visit Santa, which takes a fair while, nothing for it but to have second breakfast... sausages this time.

Alex does the honours...

...Sizzling sausages

Jamie and Alex scoffing second breakfast

Alex had passed the test of using the shovel for its primary function, time for her to try it in one of its auxiliary uses.

Alex, stoking the oven boiler

Once the children had all seen Santa, it was back to CRC for 3rd breakfast

Bacon this time...

...followed by black pudding.

There was still time after the various courses of 3rd breakfast for Jamie to shovel some coal forward.

Jamie.

The usual procession of children and adults came to the front of the train to see the engine.  At least one dad was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a real steam engine. I'm not sure what he had been expecting, but I was reminded of the Ullswater "Steamers" which have all been diesel powered since 1935 or thereabouts, so I can understand his reaction.

When questioned, all the little boys and girls said that they had been "nice" and therefore deserving of a present from Santa... well, all bar one.  A young girl  paused for a moment and answered "I'm not sure really".  Her mother wasn't one to miss a golden opportunity and quickly responded with "Well you'd better tidy your room when you get home to make sure then... and do some laundry too".  

Token exchange at Gotherington

Passing the skew bridge just North of Gotherington, for the first time in a while, I noted that the big pile of sleepers that had been there had dwindled down to a few remnants.  I took this as being a good sign that they had found gainful employment elsewhere on the line.

Nearly all gone.

Back to the North Pole again, and it's time for 4th breakfast... as well as tea and mince pies of course.

Sausages this time.

Yum!

Train 1 returned at the end of the day as an "Express" empty coaching stock move if the lamp code was to be believed.

Oops!

Our day finished with a run to CRC to drop the passengers back to their cars, followed by an ECS run to Winchcombe, then light engine back to Toddington, all in the dark.  Features to note are that the new flashing light on the bracket at Gotherington is extremely bright, and probably easily visible from any passing satellite.  I am informed that we have new LED lights in the signals leading into Toddington, I'm not sure if they really are LED or not, but they were certainly visible from a considerable distance, much improved from last year.

Reader's of the Broadway Extension Blog will no doubt be well aware of the delights of Mrs B's home baked confections.  The Steam Loco Dept has it's answer to that, Mrs C's home made Christmas cake... it only appears once a year, but it's extremely good and much appreciated by all those who partake of it.

Thank you Mrs C.

All too soon, Christmas Eve came round (note to self, start Christmas shopping a day or two earlier next year) and I set off once more for Toddington... if I'd been leaving much earlier, it would not yet have been Christmas Eve.

Word had filtered through that the crew on 5526 had not had the happiest of days on Saturday, with the grate clinkering up badly.  Sam went into the firebox, lifted a few bars from the grate and gave it a thorough clean, hopefully today's crew will have a better time. 

Sam on 5526's grate...

...Once the grate was clean, it was time to empty the ash pan...

...and of course light the fire.

 There were of course two locos to light up, so the same procedure had to be gone through with Dinmore Manor

Sam, ashing out Dinmore Manor

 We had  two Toms helping out with the cleaning

Tom W attended to the brass work...

...whilst Tom E fetched wood and lit up Dinmore Manor under my supervision

Andy was the driver on the prep crew, who set about oiling up both locos

Andy at work

7820 & 5526 slowly coming round

 At this point, a tea break (well earned at that) was taken

(L-R) Andy, Tom W, Sam & Tom E.

 At around this time, the crew for train 1 appeared, expecting Dinmore Manor to be ready for them... this came as a bit of a surprise to the rest of us as we had been thinking that 5526 was train 1 and had prepared that first.   It wasn't actually a problem, as both were ready to go, however 5526 probably had a bit more pressure than was really wanted at this point, but we managed to keep it from blowing off though.

Crew 1, (L-R), Paul, Anthony & Ben

 There is only one thing to do with too much fire, so we soon set Tom E to work with the shovel and bacon

Tom E, learning the art of cooking on the shovel

First breakfast... bacon...

...second breakfast, sausages.

 You'd be forgiven for thinking that all we ever do in the Steam Loco Dept is drink tea and cook pork products on shovels.

I missed out on a turn on 5526, so know little of its ways, but I imagine that it is rather similar to 5542.  I did note in its cab though a tribute to one of the people who rescued it from Barry Island Scrap yard.

Julian D. Twyman

5526 cooks our breakfast, 7820 heads ECS to Cheltenham

 At the allotted time, crew 2 appeared to take our cooker away from us:

Crew 2, (L-R), Dan, Ian & Luke.

5526 heads off to Winchcombe and its appointment with Santa

Unsurprisingly, the last task of the day was the washing up...

...as the washing up fairy is a member of the RMT union and is on strike today.

If you are considering paying us a visit for the "Christmas Cracker" mixed traction event on the 29th and 30th, then please note that 5526 will be running in place of the previously advertised Foremarke Hall, so if you were hoping to travel behind 5526 before she returns to the South Devon Railway, yet had no small children available to take onto the Santa trains, then this is your big chance. 

Edit:  27/12/17 There are no trains running today on the GWSR due to snow and a power failure.  Assuming all is restored to normal by the 29th, it will be Foremarke Hall & Dinmore Manor on the Christmas Cracker and not 5526.

And finally...   Santa came just a little early this year, because, as I'm sure you're all well aware by now, the Permanent Way gang joined up the track in Broadway Station to the rest of our railway.  A fantastic achievement.  You can read all about it on the Broadway Extension Blog.

Happy Christmas one and all from the Steam Loco Dept, may your grate never clinker and your pressure gauge hover just below the red line.