Back to Work for a Rest

On Friday, I was rostered on 35006 all day, with Ade & Clive splitting the driving shift, and Clive taking a turn on the shovel in the middle of the day to allow me to have a lunch break.

A fire in the belly of 35006...

...and evidence that we are still on the Scottish coal. Ade ignores that and carries on oiling up

Being a horticultural illiterate, I have no idea if the bloom below counts as a weed or a prised specimen, I was amazed at its tenacity though, flourishing in a busy part of the yard.

Mother nature claiming back the yard

 The morning crew as Ade (driver) for the first round trip, and Brian (cleaner)

Ade, about to tuck into his bacon roll

Brian

 I say cleaner, Brian is in fact well advanced in fireman training and showed later on that he knew what to do with the shovel.

For reasons that eluded me, James (Ade's fireman training pupil) had arranged for his father-in-law to have a footplate ride with us, even though James was away fishing somewhere in Wales.

James' father-in-law

He hadn't made corrsponding arrangements for his mother-in-law, which might have been a bit of a blunder on his part.

 Friday may be a normal working day, but that didn't stop the line side drainage team from performing their magic at the Toddington end of Chicken Curve.

Line side drainage team in action

 Friday was a blue timetable day, just one steam loco and the DMU running all day, crossing each other at Winchcombe.

Crossing the DMU at Winchcombe

 At Broadway, there is evidence that the S&T dept have been at work, more point rodding has appeared at the north end of the platform.  Having the signal box working here will definitely be something to look forward to.

More point rodding at Broadway

 Back at Toddington, Paul, one of our drivers who is also one of the admin staff was busy burning documents.  Presumably this is part of the GDPR compliance, though there is a strong suspicion that he wants to have a go at firing again.

If only there had been a large mobile incinerator nearby!

 Toddington to Cheltenham was my lunch break, taken on the cushions... travelling by train whilst sitting down seemed rather strange, I'm more used to standing.  There are of course many customers of the big railway that are also rather more used to standing whilst on trains, so perhaps I'm in good company there. 

Checked at Chicken Curve

The signal didn't deter the line side clearance gang though

 By this time of course, the rest of the crew had changed, Ade & Brian had disappeared, replaced by Clive (driver)  & Gwendolyne (cleaner)

Clive

Gwendolyne

 We had the maroon rake, as the chocolate & cream rake was receiving some attention from Carriage and Wagon volunteers in siding 1 at Toddington

C&C rake receiving TLC

During the summer season, I've tended where possible to put myself down for Friday turns, as I suspect they would be more difficult to get people to fill. After the roster came out, there was still a vacancy on the Saturday that nobody had apparently wanted to take, so as I was going to be around anyway, I put myself down for it. Thus I was back for the second time in two days.

My loco this time was 2807

It was a red timetable and I would be firing train 2.  It's a curious turn, you leave shed first and hook onto the stock in platform 2 and perform a brake test, then sit and wait until train 1 has headed off to Cheltenham Race Course before running round the train and taking it off to Broadway.  You wait there for three quarters of an hour before bringing it back to Toddington and then wait for a quarter of an hour before setting off for Cheltenham race Course.  In fact from signing on in the morning to completing your first full round trip of the line takes almost 8 hours.

Starting with plenty of tea and biscuits is a must

 The brake test was performed next door to 35006 (train 1), and a combination of wind blowing in the wrong direction and the dreaded Scottish coal made it an unpleasant experience

Cough!

 Brake test done, we moved out of the way.  Roll on getting back to the Welsh coal.

Best off waiting upwind!

 It wasn't only the firing vacancy that had been filled at very much the last minute, up until Friday I had no idea who was going to be my driver, in the end, Clive and Steve split the shift between them.

Clive was first, here kindly pulling coal forward for me

 You'll find this hard to believe, but run rounds at Broadway have been so quick on all the turns that I have had so far, that I haven't had a spare moment to explore the new station building since it opened.  At last, I had time for a quick look on Saturday.

It is more than just a little bit impressive

 The security cameras are amongst the few things that I could spot that didn't hark back to the golden age of steam, a sad indictment of the times that we live in I'm afraid.

The station building on platform 1 is still not finished, there was signs of people installing flooring in what will be the refreshment room 

Work in progress

 The booking office is a bit of a gem, I was very much taken with the quality of the work here.

Booking office...

...and of course the usual facilities

 The ex Henley-In-Arden footbridge is of course still missing its steps, but as you'll have noted from the last blog, work is at hand in the steam loco dept to correct that.

Steps will be erected soon

The line side drainage team was back in action at Chicken Curve again

Upon arrival at Gotherington, we had the signals set in our favour and were just starting to pull out of the platform, when the signals went back against us and we screeched to a halt.  Once we had stopped, the inner home was cleared, but the section signal remained against.  The signalman indicated that he wanted us to stop at the token exchange platform which we duly did.  He advised us that there was believed to be a suicide at Southam Rd bridge and that the police were in attendance.  We needed to proceed past the bridge at extreme caution and be prepared to stop if need be.   We did as instructed and found nothing at all out of the ordinary at Southam Rd bridge, so we progressed on towards Cheltenham Race Course.  Arriving at the home signal, we were again held and had to ring the signal box.  The advice now was that the suicide was at Evesham Rd bridge, not Southam Rd bridge and that we should pull into the platform as normal, but again proceed with caution under Evesham Rd bridge on the run round.  Once in the platform, we were updated by the station master who told us that the bridge had been closed to road traffic temporarily whilst a woman was arrested by the police for some misdemeanour and that there was no impact at all on the railway.  Quite a relief in the end.  Mrs blogger had her train commute seriously delayed during last week by a suicide on the big railway, and the inconvenience to her will have been trivial compared to suffering of the loved ones of the person concerned.  If you feel that it might apply to you, then the Samaritans are just a phone call away.

Held at the Cheltenham Race Course home signal

Evesham Rd bridge

 Saturday saw the Permanent Way gang out and about south of Gotherington loop, stone blowing.

P Way

The red timetable has three steam trains running, crossing each other at Gotherington and Toddington.  The Gotherington one is an interesting challenge for the fireman, you need to have enough pressure to get up the bank from Cheltenham Race Course, but then you have a ten minute wait until the train that you are crossing arrives and you can carry on. Skill and judgement is called for as to when to put down the shovel to ensure that you're not blowing off whilst waiting.

Crossing 35006 at Gotherington

Steve P was the cleaner, seen here having a go on the shovel

Steve O was the afternoon driver

 Ashing out 2807 has become marginally more difficult with the ash pan guards in place, but in reality they are fairly quick and easy to remove.

Steve P, raking out the rear section of 2807's ash pan

One of the ash pan guards awaiting refitting

On the loco restoration front, 76077 has had it's horn guides fetched out of storage ready to head off to join the rest of the loco.

76077's horn guides seeing the light of day for the first time n many years

 3850 had a small working party present on Saturday, one of the tasks undertaken was to remove the pole reverser from the cab in order to start wire brushing and painting it.


 The photo below was sent to me as Keith (l) & David F drilling the reverser plate.  I'm not entirely convinced, it looks like the plate that the firebox should rest on.  Regardless, the reverser was removed and it should be pointed out that the following day, David F enjoyed one of those milestone birthdays with a zero in it.

Many happy returns David (photo courtesy of Martin Ginger)

Kenneth painting inside the now reverserless cab (photo courtesy of martin Ginger)

David E carries on with the painting (photo courtesy of Martin Ginger)

 So having fired two days on the trot, and if you include last Tuesday, 3 days out of 5, it turned out that we were also short of firemen for Sunday, with two turns still being vacant at the last minute.  Yours truly had tickets to travel on a Torbay Express on Sunday, however due to a lack of motive power on the 2nd, it had been deferred at very short notice until the 9th. Suddenly becoming available, I thought what the hell and signed up for Sunday too.  My office for the day, dear old 2807 once more.  This time, we were on the red timetable as train 1.

Steve oiling up 2807

Tom W attending to the cleaning

 Unfortunately, Tom W was unable to join us on the footplate, so we ended up taking out Tom M instead who had cleaned 4270 (It is a bit cramped in there with three).

Tom M seemed to know what to do with a shovel....

...and a bacon roll come to that.

 It was the usual busy day of people visiting the footplate and having their photos taken

It was this chap's birthday.

Train 1 on red timetable day does a couple of round trips behind steam, and then has a diesel take over for the third one.  It was an early finish for us.

The view from under 2807 as the class 20 departs with our train.

 After 4 turns in the space of 6 days, 3 of them on consecutive days, I decided that it was time to go back to the day job this morning for a rest.

And finally, a bit of good news from another department, Saul, one of our guards was assessed as a signalman on Saturday and was passed out to operate Toddington box.  He was back again on Sunday, this time on his own.  Congratulations Saul.

Our latest signalman manning his office