A Farewell to Kings

As I sit writing this, 6023, King Edward II is now sat on the shed at Toddington slowly cooling down at the end of her last day in service with us this summer.  My final turn on her (seems a bit odd referring to a King as "her", but never mind) was on Thursday 15th.  The day of course started in customary fashion for the crew of a train 1 service with a bacon roll from the buffet.

Breakfast fit for a King

Not one but two footplate passengers had been arranged, Jamie (driver) took along his step-dad for a day out.

Jamie & his step-dad

We are still experiencing issues with the points at Broadway which are locked in position, so we're still doing the temporary top and tail timetable.  Once we arrived at Broadway, we were pulled back by a diesel.

Being pulled into Toddington.

It was a hot day, and the pile of coal in the tender was dry and very dusty, when running tender first it was like having your face pebble dashed as you went.  The issue was that the pep pipe had a fairly large aperture at the end, so the water came out at a fairly low speed and wouldn't reach the back of the tender.  Mark (cleaner) had a bright idea and phoned to Mike who was working on brake parts for 3850 in the machine shop.  By the time we arrived at Toddington, Mike had fashioned a suitable nozzle for the pep pipe and we were able to dampen the whole of the coal space. A small job perhaps, but it made the day a lot more pleasant for the crew.

Mike (L) and Mark attaching the nozzle to the pep pipe..

Mike checking that his handiwork operated as expected

Many thanks Mike.

Once Jamie's step-dad had finished a round trip, we were joined by the artist Nicolas Trudgian who has been commissioned to come up with some suitable artwork to raise the profile of 76077.

Nicolas on the footplate of 6023.

It's fair to say that King Edward II has generated a lot of interest amongst our visitors and our volunteers alike, even station staff and guards/TTIs have been seen to get their cameras out and grab a sneaky photo of her when they think nobody is looking.

Caught red handed...

...I suppose I was in good company by taking this shot myself.

I was back again on the Saturday to take care of some admin activities.  One of the curious aspects to the steam loco dept, is that there is scope to turn your hand to many things that a steam loco dept may not necessarily be associated with.  Roger for instance is of the green fingered persuasion and is perfectly happy tending to the small border at the yard entrance.

Roger proving that he does other things than working on 2807.

 I had been hoping to join the small team of people painting the inside of 3850's frames, but there was a problem.  The tin of paint marked "Venetian Red" when opened was deemed to be of a hue more closely resembling "Signal Red".  Most of the steam loco dept (myself included) beat a hasty retreat as soon as their better halves suggest going shopping for curtains to match the carpet or suchlike, secure in the knowledge that whatever they suggest will be ridiculed. Most of us just breathe a sigh of relief and consider ourselves lucky if they leave us at home and simply disappear off to the shops with our credit cards.  It came as a surprise to me then that people might get so fussy about a specific shade of red for in between the frames. 

3850's inner frames, remaining in primer

 Allegedly, signal red is the shade for buffer beams, not inside frames.  I am advised that Venetian red has a hint of brown in it.  I'm not entirely sure how one hints brown, but there you are.

Meanwhile, there were plenty of other jobs to get on with in the shed.

Richard cleaning one of the pits

 You'll probably get bored of photos of the new welfare building as it gets built over the coming however long it takes, consider yourself warned.

The foundations appear to be in place.

 We have also taken delivery of a few new wheel barrows.  These area pleasing shade of yellow and have been named after various classes of locomotives.

Hall, castle & king class lined up by the ash dock...

...Manor class has been "weathered" for a photo charter.

Moving on to this (late August bank holiday) weekend, the sun has once again graced our skies and record (and indeed fireman) breaking temperatures have been seen.  I was around on Saturday for yet another meeting, but in the afternoon, I got roped into shunting 2874 into the shed and onto the lifting jacks.  2874 is going to have her wheel sets removed and will get put on a set of accommodation bogies.  Next stop after that will be to grit blast her frames.

Apparently the tin of paint labelled "Venetian Red" that looked like "Signal Red" had been sat around for a long while and according to the manufacturers, all it needed was a thorough stirring and it would turn into the correct shade.  I left Martin to do the stirring.  

Martin busy stirring the red paint

Shunting 2874

 Jacking up 2874 was going well until it was discovered the one of the axle boxes was sticking and needed encouraging to drop.

Roger (L) bravely holds a sacrificial piece of wood, Ian provides the muscle power.

 The 2874 Trust had just taken delivery of a pair of cab side number plates for their loco.  These will in due course be fitted to the new cab that is under construction at the moment, but the opportunity to temporarily place them on 2874's chassis was too strong to be resisted.

One of the new cab side number plates...

...in fact both of them

 The number plates were match funded, the 2874 trust paying for one, whilst a donor paid for the other.  Should you wish to fund the one the trust paid for, then follow this link and make contact.

The venetian red applied to 3850's inner frames

 I was out on 2807 on Sunday.  The prep crew sign on at 05:30 still, but the train 2 crew have to sign in at 08:00 rather than 09:00 whilst we're running 6023 as a reflection of how much longer it takes to oil up the king, twice as many cylinders means twice as much lubrication required. To prove the point that it's not just tough on the driver, Jonathan (prep fireman) seemed to be wearing most of the contents of 6023's ash pan on his face.   

Perhaps he was getting ready for some night manoeuvres with the SAS?

 Not to be outdone, Paul (prep driver) was keen to show how difficult oiling up the king was...

...he'd torn a latex glove.

Paul enjoying a cuppa' after oiling up 6023.

 As I have said many times, you can't get passed out on the 4' 8.5" kettles until you've passed out on the domestic ones.

Roger (cleaner) fetching refreshments to the 2807 crew before we set off

 Later on, whilst waiting at Broadway, Roger complained about the lack of a seat at the end of the platform for crews to use when waiting for departure. He says that he raised the issue with the Broadway station master in Saturday and it has now been added to the to do list for Broadway.  Should such a seat ever arrive, it will obviously be known as "Roger's Rest".  To emphasise his point, he perched himself rather uncomfortably on 2807's running plate whilst we waited for departure.

Roger (seated on running plate) and Andy (driver)

 It wasn't just Roger in need of a seat, it turned out to be flying ant day, and I think we parked 2807 on top of a nest.  There was certainly quite a few of them taking up residence on 2807's tool boxes.

Flying ants at large.

We evicted the flying ants once we had established that they hadn't bought tickets.

We acquired a footplate passenger on this occasion as well.  Signal men training for a new signal box are encouraged to ride the line through the section including the box they are learning.  Gareth is learning Gotherington box, so he joined us for the trip to acquire the route knowledge.

I'm not sure that a white shirt on the footplate was a good idea.

Crossing 6023 at Toddington

 It's not uncommon to see people stood at bridges and other vantage points taking photos of the trains as they go past.  It's hard to tell from the photo below, but one such person is stood on the parapet of three arch bridge.  You would have thought that I shouldn't need to say this, but it seems that I do, no photograph is worth losing your life for.  If the person concerned is reading this, please don't do it again.

Not a good idea.

Passing the visiting class 50 at Winchcombe

 Earlier, I mentioned the feeble spray produced by the pep pipe of 6023 until Mike's newly crafted nozzle was attached.  2807's pep pipe has a different issue, it's too short, so some parts of the coal space behind the tool boxes are difficult to reach.  The trick is to spray the water up so that it goes over the tool boxes and lands just behind them

Roger demonstrates the technique for damping down the hard to reach parts of the tender

Crossing the king again at Toddington.

And finally,  3850's new frame extensions have been machined and have arrived at Toddington.  The cylinder block should be following in the fairly near future.

3850's frame extensions in rust inhibiting primer