Footex Fry-day

2874 has not been forgotten about, a set of eccentric straps have been cleaned up ready for a bit of machining in the workshop

It's easy to see how far you have got

The provenance of the eccentric straps is mixed, three of them were originally fitted to the now long scrapped 4208.

4208

Whilst the fourth one appears to have started life on 3803, which is still very much in existence.  I wonder where its eccentric straps came from?

3803

The eccentric straps featured oil reservoirs with a corked filler cap.  Several of them when opened revealed some rather ancient oil and broken off bits of cork that had presumably been there in excess of 50 years.

Left by a previous owner

 The oil passes through a small tube to get to the white metal bearing that it is supposed to lubricate, with a restrictor in the way to regulate the flow.  There are three passages alongside the restrictor, which needed prodding through to clear out any obstructions.

Prodding a piece of wire past the restrictor

 John eventually managed to find the correcet tool for extracting the restrictors, which made the job a bit easier

Correct tool, and a removed restrictor.

 There is always one that snaps off when you try to extract it, requiring it to be drilled out

Eleanor practises her dentistry on the one that snapped off

3850 is in the process of being levelled, with weight evenly distributed along the frame stands, shims need to be inserted to get the frames level.  Good old fashioned gravity and tubes of water indicating where level is.

You can depend on gravity

Once levelled, work can commence on replacing the cylinders and griding the horn guides.

Dinmore Manor LTD had three spare eccentric straps in the smaller size, suitable for pannier tanks.  These have now been passed on to another restoration project, 9629 on the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway.

Three small sized eccentric straps...

...apparently from preserved Hawksworth pannier, 9466...

...and long since scrapped Collett pannier, 4613.

No doubt their new owners will put them to good use on their loco.

Needless to say, work was also progressing on parts of Dinmore Manor's old tender: 

Keith stripping paint off of a vacuum pipe

35006 was also in receipt of some TLC, with John lapping in the clack valves which had been blowing past slightly.

John lapping in a clack valve

Last Friday there was a silver footplate experience running, and I was down to be the fireman.  Tom is already passed out to light warming fires, but needs some practice before he can be passed out to bring a loco into steam. Having arranged beforehand, he turned up at a civilised 07:00 to get the fire going..

Tom rocking Dinmore Manor's grate...

...he soon had a good fire going.

A number of other heritage railways, along with the national network have introduced steam bans owing to the risk of line side fires.  We haven't taken this step yet, however we have instructions in place to minimise the likelihood.  Line side fires are caused either by embers being expelled from the chimney (drivers instructed to drive gently, spark arresters have been fitted in the smoke boxes) or by embers falling out of the ash pan.  The last one is mitigated by emptying the ash pans first thing in the morning so that the ash doesn't get up as high as the damper doors and fall out.

Plenty of ash in Dinmore Manor's ash pan first thing in the morning

It turned out that there is a surprisingly large amount of ash that finds its way into the ash pan just be cleaning out the remains of the previous day's fire.

First driver of the day

A pleasant surprise was that Marcus, one the of the GWSR's admin team had booked himself onto the footplate experience day, along with his partner Katy.  It was amusing to inform them that green & red were not to be worn by footplate crew (could be confused with green or red flags from a distance), as they were wearing green and red overalls. 

Just as well that Jon was watching where we were going.

This chap reads all of the GWSR blogs apparently

There had been a late cancellation soon before the footplate experience, so several of our volunteers who look after the participants back in the coaches at the times when they are not on the footplate stood in.  Amongst those was Tim, who retired as a fireman on our line a few years ago.

Tim still knew how to fire

Also amongst the volunteers who had a go on the footplate was Peter, who frequently contributes photos for this blog showing what the Wednesday gang have been up to.

Peter, with his hand on the handle

Another stalwart of the Wednesday gang, is Roger who keeps the wood store stocked with cut up wooden pallets for lighting up the locos with.

Roger

They were so keen, they even helped out with filling the tender at the end of the day.

Peter, telling us about the one that got away... I think

Having not had to do the light up, and having had the participants on the footplate experience course do almost all of the firing all day, the only thing left for me to do was the disposal and make a cup of tea, or at least that is what I had thought. Upon arrival at the ash pit, Alex was waiting with a cup of tea and Jamie, Andrew and Alex all helped out with the disposal.  At the end of a particularly hot day, I was very grateful for their assistance.

Jon drinking tea and conversing with Jamie

Andrew empties the ash pan...

Alex, Jamie & Andrew empty the pit

Andrew and Jamie were there to prepare 2807 for its duties on Saturday

7820 & 2807 simmering on the new pits at the end of the day

And finally, the much anticipated return of 4270 has happened. 

Photo courtesy of Nick Carter