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 |
I'd already done the other side, and very nearly finished this side |
2874... off to a good start. |
Refurbished valves re-installed. |
Phil at work (photo courtesy of Steve Foster) |
Bob preparing 35006 for a steam test |
Clack valves for machining |
I think they're cylinder drain cocks anyway. |
Rod at work... |
...Two done, plenty more to go. |
Dinmore Manor with a warming fire in, the day before the charity Santa special |
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) |
Crane in action (photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge) |
Dropping in the roof support (photo courtesy of Peter Gutteridge) |
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
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 |
Not much view ahead with the drain cocks open |
It was quite a pleasant day in the end |
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 |
It's what the shovel is for! |
Clive (L) and Mark enjoying a well earned, but rather late breakfast |
No trouble getting 9466 to make steam |
Crossing 2807 at Gotherington |
Somewhere in there, Santa was wondering how to get his car battery charged again |
Steve doing the honours at Toddington |
6025, King Henry III |
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