Santa Came Down 3850's Chimney Early This Year

Santa has paid a visit to the David Page shed a little in advance of his usual delivery date and dropped off the new cylinders for 3850.  Given the size and weight of the things, there probably wasn't room for anything else on his sleigh which would explain why he wanted to drop it off early.  Allegedly several reindeer were heard up on the roof complaining about the weight.

Swindon works standard practice was to invert the cylinder block and attach the frame extensions rather than try to do it the right way up.  It was deemed wise to benefit from their many years of experience, so we did the same.  It may look a bit odd, but it seems to be doing the trick.

Upside down cylinder block, one frame extension lowered into place.

 As ever, nothing fits perfectly first time and a little lightweight chamfering of edges etc was required to obtain a perfect fit.

Dan chamfering the cylinder block

Neatly machined bores.

 Dinmore Manor was in the shed in need of a little fettling.  Mark fitted the refurbished retaining valve, Keith & I attended to the tender brakes which had developed a habit of sticking on.  It was just a simple case of dropping the brake axle down, removing the bearings, cleaning out the coal dust that had got in there, re-pack it with grease and reassemble it.   In the best steam loco maintenance tradition, it wasn't that easy.

Access to the relevant bolts was restricted

Before you could access the various nuts and bolts, a whole horde of the dreaded split pins needed to be removed.

Keith trying to think of a word I could print regarding his views on split pins

Keith failed in his quest!

Not all of the bolts could be easily accessed from within the pit, lying down on the oily floor of the shed was still necessary.

Keith attacking some of the harder to reach bolts

 Rather cheekily, a similar photo of me on the other side of Dinmore Manor surfaced on a certain person's social media pages claiming that I was sleeping on the job...  snoring like a needle gun!  I prefer to think of myself as having taken a "power nap".

The brake shaft weighs a ton... probably literally.  We pressed the "super trolley" with its extremely useful hydraulic table into service and lowered the brake shaft as far down as it needed to go using that.

Super trolley to the rescue

Unpacking the bearing shells...

...and giving them a jolly good clean

The bearing surfaces of the brake shaft were cleaned and then re-greased

 After that, it was all bolted back together, yet more grease applied via the various grease nipples and the hand brake was put on and off several times.  The brakes were seen to apply and come off again quite normally which they hadn't before.  All that remained was to insert fresh split pins as a trap for the next person to have to do this job.

2807's last day in traffic before its heavy general overhaul will be the 1st of January.  I for one will be very sad to see it withdrawn from traffic for the couple of years that it is anticipated that it will take.  The 2807 group have started making preparations for the overhaul, a slot has been booked for the boiler overhaul, and a new ash pan has been made on site by Ian.

Angela applying heat resistant paint inside 2807's new ash pan.

Moving on to last weekend, on the 14th I had my first driver training turn with Steve as my instructor.  Being a Santa crew 2, my task was to oil up 4270 and take it light engine to Winchcombe.  After that I was to swap over to 9466, unsurprisingly a strange loco to me from the driving point of view and take it for two round trips with hordes of excited children to see Santa at the North Pole before bringing it back with empty coaching stock in the dark. 

 I had relatively recently had a go at oiling up 4270 for another driver, so I had remembered about the otherwise hard to spot oiling pot for the vacuum pump.  I managed to overlook one or two others prompting Steve to remind me of their existence.

Job done

Eleanor was my fireman on this occasion, it seemed remarkably strange watching somebody else do up the coupling once I had buffered up onto the stock rather than doing it myself.

Eleanor battling with the steam heat bags

 Unlike my previous turn as crew 1, there was plenty of time to sample the mince pies and tea from the Coffee Pot cafe on Winchcombe station... gluten free mince pies were available on request.

Most welcome!

Although she is an ex-GWR loco 9466 is rather unlike the rest of our current running fleet of locos.  From the firing point of view, as she has no super heating, you have to be very careful not to let the water level go out of sight at the top of the glass.  A super heater would give extra chance of turning water carried over into steam.  Carrying water over into the cylinders is not a good idea.  She is also a slide valve loco (the rest of our fleet are piston valve).  When drifting with a slide valve loco, you need to put the reverser into full gear for the direction of travel to prevent the valves chattering.  This is different to piston valve locos which have a drift position (45% on the ex-GWR locos) in which a minimum of ash will be drawn from the smoke box into the cylinders by the vacuum created by the pistons.  Another implication of slide valves is that the steam pressure makes it all but impossible to move the reverser whilst the regulator is open, meaning that you need to drive it more like a car, closing the regulator every time you want to move the reverser (the motoring equivalent of taking your foot off the throttle every time you change gear).  9466 is also blessed with a large amount of main line gubbins in its cab, which of course none of our other locos have.

Various bits of mainline required kit.

 Something that always catches my attention when I notice it, is the use of stainless steel fittings, 9466 was blessed with a fair number of these.

Just a couple of the stainless steel bolts holding the backhead in place.

 More prototypical was the presence of bacon on the shovel during some of the long rest periods whilst Santa was busy having his beard pulled by the children that we had brought to see him.

A better breakfast you will not find

 Steve very kindly emailed a photo of me cooking bacon, which like the vast majority of photos of me ended up on the cutting room floor.

How did the day go?  As has been noted before, getting a steam train moving is fairly easy, getting it to stop is also quite easy, getting it to stop where you want it to on the other hand is fiendishly difficult.  My stops were described as "smooth or accurate".  Unfortunately what is wanted is both smooth and accurate.

9466 at the end of my turn, but just about to head off on the Carol train

I handed 9466 over to Andy and Luke at the end of my shift for their turn on the Carol train.  No mere bacon on the shovel for them, they had a beef casserole nicely cooking away in the smoke box.

Progressing onto yesterday, I was once again tied up with meetings for a large chunk of the day, however things that I noted were:

The roof joists of the welfare building and roof felt are in place

3850's tender is now largely painted inside

3850's extension frames are both in place, brackets yet to be fitted

 A new set of accommodation bogies are being turned up for 2874 which will keep it mobile whilst its wheels are away to be re-tyred. 

Wheel blanks for the accommodation bogies...

...and a couple that have been machined

The frames to which the wheels will be attached

 Also in the workshop, the eccentric straps for 2874 were being machined. 2874 possessed the front half of each strap, but required new back halves. Blank back halves have been obtained and were being machined.

One set up to be machined...

...three more awaiting their turn

And finally, after 33 years of service to the GWSR, Ian has retired from the steam dept and will move to darkest Cornwall.  Saturday was his last turn. 

Inspector Irving (L) shaking Ian's hand at the end of his last turn (photo courtesy of Chris Irving).

33 years is more than a fair number of our younger volunteers have been alive for.  I understand that he will be moving to a new home reasonably close to another heritage railway, so our loss may well turn out to be their gain.  Thank you Ian, for all you have done in helping the GWSR to grow into the thriving heritage railway that it is today.

Santa's Sleigh Has a Flat Battery

You may recollect that when it arrived at Toddington, 2874 was pretty much an unloved rust bucket.  Since the formation of the 2874 Trust, a significant amount of money has been raised by donations, permitting the grit blasting and priming of the frames.  When I arrived on Saturday 23rd, the grit blasting and rust inhibiting primer had all been done, the next task on the list was to apply black undercoat.  The technique that seemed to work best, was for Tracy to work her way round the frames using a roller to apply the undercoat, then a small team to follow on round with paint brushes to finish the bits that the roller couldn't do.

2874's frames, freshly grit blasted (photo courtesy of Keith Smith)

Starting to be coated in heat resistant primer (photo courtesy of Keith Smith

Tracy gets cracking on applying the undercoat with the a roller...

...Dave & Mike following on behind with the paint brushes

 We also made a bit of a start in undercoating the wheels as well.  I had made some considerable progress on the pony truck wheel set before remembering that the funds raised thus far also covered the cost of getting the wheels re-tyred and so painting the tyres was rather pointless as they are soon to be replaced.

I'd already done the other side, and very nearly finished this side

 The funds raised will also cover the cost of getting the axle boxes re-white metalled, so in a fairly short space of time, 2874 should be a rolling chassis, a major milestone in its restoration back to running order.

2874... off to a good start.

4270 of course has long since been returned to steam from Barry Island scrap yard condition.  The task now is regular maintenance to keep her in perfect working order.  To that end, the valves had recently received some TLC.

Refurbished valves re-installed.

I'm not sure exactly what was going on here, I can only imagine that Phil was trying to reach some largely inaccessible part of 4270, he couldn't have fallen asleep on the job... could he?

Phil at work (photo courtesy of Steve Foster)

After the hydraulic test of a week or two ago, 35006 needed some bolting back together to prepare her for a steam test.  Bob had the job of getting the dome back in place.

Bob preparing 35006 for a steam test

Meanwhile in the workshop, Tony & Devindra were busy machining a selection of clack valves for 3850 & 2807.

Clack valves for machining

 Their in-tray featured some cylinder drain cocks for 76077 as well

I think they're cylinder drain cocks anyway.

Rod was busy leading a consignment of fusible plugs for our locos

Rod at work...

...Two done, plenty more to go.

 Sunday 24th November was the official start of the Santa season, with the charity special.  As usual the loco was provided by its owning group for the day free of charge, this time round it was Dinmore Manor that was to haul the train.

Dinmore Manor with a warming fire in, the day before the charity Santa special

During the week, I received a selection of photos from my mid-week correspondent, who amongst other things passed on more photos of the as yet unnamed welfare building, which was having the roof joists installed on Wednesday. Prior to that, I received a few photos from Keith who was inside the welfare building checking that the builders have built it all to the specified dimensions.  

The view towards the yard (photo courtesy of Keith Smith)

Upstairs interior (photo courtesy of Keith Smith)

The view of the signal box from the welfare building (photo courtesy of Keith Smith)

 Then a week later, as the roof joists were being installed:

Crane in action (photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge)

Dropping in the roof support (photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge)

As you can see, there will be quite a sizable attic up there, more than one miscreant in the steam loco dept is dreaming of how big a model railway you could fit up there.  You might argue why bother though, when you have a perfectly good 12" to the foot scale railway literally right next door. 

I had a firing turn on Sunday 1st, and as I had been at Toddington for a couple of meetings on the Saturday I elected to stay overnight in one of the accommodation pods. There are precious few benefits to writing this blog, but keeping photos of me off of it and suppressing any embarrassing tales about myself are definitely high on that list.  At this point, I shall probably ill-advisedly forego one of those benefits.  My firing turn nominally started at 05:15 however given a time on train of 08:45 and that my turn finished soon after midday, I took the view that I might want to start a little earlier.  At 04:30 (yes, there really is such a time), my alarm went off.  Ten minutes later, I went to the bathroom and noted that the hot tap had failed to switch itself off and was dribbling.  It wasn't a conventional tap, but some wall mounted water heater with a plastic dial thing to turn the water on and off. A notice in the pod suggested that holding it in the off position for a couple of seconds should cure the problem if it failed to shut properly.  It didn't.  I pushed it shut a little more firmly and held it in place for what seemed like a week, but was in all probability about ten seconds.  Still no joy, it promptly fell open again.  This process repeated a few more times all to no avail, until on the last time, the dial thing snapped off and suddenly I was being drenched with mains pressure cold water (on a morning when the outside temperature was scarcely above freezing). If I'd been a little drowsy before, I was certainly wide awake now.  So there I was, with my finger in the end of the pipe inside the heater trying desperately to stem the flow of water.  Mercifully, Mrs Blogger was in the pod with me and she set off to locate the stop cock... in the dark and without the benefit of a torch.  After a few fruitless minutes she returned and we decided to swap places in order for me to have a search for the stop cock.  Before I set off, Mrs Blogger suggested that I call Paul, one of our admin assistants (as well as a steam driver) who might well know where the stop cocks were to be found.  It was Paul's wife who answered the phone first at that ungodly hour (my apologies to her), but thankfully when I spoke to him, Paul did know where the stop cock was located and a few minutes later I had found it and stemmed the flow of water.  Leaving Mrs Blogger to mop up the mess, I squelched my way across the yard to my car and put my dry overalls on top of my soaking wet clothes and got on with lighting up 2807 at about the time I was originally supposed to have done. Suffice it to say, all went well thereafter, but having wet socks on inside your boots on a freezing cold morning is a pretty miserable experience.

One of the things that I had spotted whilst crossing the car park first thing was a car had been left overnight with its lights on.  I discovered later that the car belonged to Stu, known best to me as one of the stalwarts of the 2807 group, but on this occasion he was rostered to put on a red costume and a white beard and distribute presents at Winchcombe The North Pole.  Needless to say, his battery was flat.  In the end, he cadged a lift with Mrs Blogger to his rendezvous with the excited children that I was by then busy fetching to see him.  He wouldn't have had this problem if he hadn't pensioned Rudolph off!

I had been feeling a bit bad about the water heater in the pod, however Mrs Blogger informed me later that when the plumber turned up, he said that it was the third one to have failed like this in a fairly short space of time. 

Mrs Blogger had had quite an eventful morning as she had also helped me empty the ash pan on 2807 and fetched several extremely welcome cups of tea as well, not to mention ferrying Santa to the North Pole and dealing with a pod full of water. 

The split shift system to make the crews stay within hours meant that my turn as crew 1 involved taking 2807 down to Cheltenham Race Course, collecting our passengers and taking them to see Santa.  In previous years, you would have simply got on with cooking bacon and sausages on your fire for an hour or so before taking them back, however on this timetable, we swapped locos with crew 2 who were by then waiting on platform 2 and then took 9466 back down to Cheltenham Race Course to pick up the next load of passengers. 

2807, decked out for the Santa specials

 The more observant of you will have spotted that 2807 is wearing express headlamps.  I had forgotten that this was an empty coaching stock move and put up the wrong code.  You just can't get the staff!

Not much view ahead with the drain cocks open

It was quite a pleasant day in the end

 And that was that, my last turn on 2807 before she goes out of traffic on Jan 1st for her heavy general overhaul.  I will definitely miss the old girl, she is a joy to fire.  I have it on good authority that they plan to have her back in  traffic after a couple of years... I can't wait.

My last turn on 2807 for a while, and also my first on 9466.

A better view ahead than is offered by most of our locos

Never pass a water column on a tankie... Mark does the honours

 At last, we had 40 minutes to ourselves at Cheltenham Race Course... time to get the bacon on the shovel:

It's what the shovel is for!

Clive (L) and Mark enjoying a well earned, but rather late breakfast

 It amused a number of our passengers to discover that on occasion, we really do cook on the shovel. 

No trouble getting 9466 to make steam

Crossing 2807 at Gotherington

 In no time at all, we had a second train load of excited children safely delivered to Santa's grotto

Somewhere in there, Santa was wondering how to get his car battery charged again

 All that remained now was to head light engine back to Toddington and hand 9466 over to its afternoon crew.  I got back to the mess coach to find that Mrs Blogger was waiting with a nice cup of tea for me... she is wonderful!

Steve doing the honours at Toddington

And finally, one of the bonuses of getting up close & personal with steam locos is that you notice that many of the parts are stamped with the loco's number.  Not infrequently, owing to standardisation of components, especially amongst ex-GWR locos, you find that parts have been transferred from their original loco to another one.  This was the case when I was painting 2874's frames and noticed that the reverser shaft was stamped with something other than 2874, in fact it was 6025.  6025 turns out to have been (for it is long since scrapped), King Henry III.  Reverser shafts don't particularly wear much, so I'm a little surprised that it ever needed to be changed during the running life of the loco.  How, when & why this happened will probably remain a mystery.  What happened to 2874's original reverser shaft will also probably remain a mystery.  Regardless, it appears that 2874, a humble freight loco has a little bit of royal blood in its veins.

6025, King Henry III