Laverton Lily

Yesterday morning dawned, and once more I set off for Toddington.  I was booked to clean 2807.  The other steam loco out yesterday was Cheltenham.  I didn't fail to notice as I beavered away at cleaning 2807 that all the other cleaners had gravitated towards Cheltenham:

Jonathan, Matt & Karl swarming over Cheltenham

Arty-farty shot of Cheltenham reflected in a puddle

Well almost all, Andrew spent a while working on 2807 too.  The peace of the Cotswold morning was rudely interrupted when it was discovered that there was no milk to be found and we had to drink our tea black.  Discontented mutterings of  'one out, all out' were to be heard.

Black tea... yuck!

Mercifully somebody was dispatched to mug a cow the nearest store to obtain supplies and subsequent tea breaks were rather more civilised.  It wasn't all bad though, Andrew had brought chocolate biscuits with him:

George has found the biscuits.... they won't last long

Shortly afterwards, once Cheltenham had gone off shed, the newly arrived second guest engine for the gala, BR standard 80072 was shunted down to the pits for a spot of cleaning.

Cheltenham going off shed

80072 prior to being shunted

Like just about everybody else who was around on Saturday, I took a quick peek inside her cab:

Inside 80072's cab

 The layout of the controls seems to be quite sensible.  Initial impressions are that aside from having to fire left-handed, it all looks good.  Rocking grates are always welcome and that nice fully enclosed cab must be a delight in wet or wintry weather. You get good views running in either direction too.  The Llangollen railway may have difficulty getting her back from us :-)

There are many who mourn the demise of BR

Once again, when she had been shunted onto one of the pits, the cleaners swarmed all over her, even Andrew gave up on 2807 and left me to finish her off on my own:

Karl, Andrew & Chris smartening up 80072

Dan and Matt

I'm sure Matt was thinking that if he stood there long enough, Dan might just clean his boots as well.  Speaking of Dan, congratulations are in order as he has just been put forward for practical fireman training.  His instructor will be Ben.  I've never seen Dan fire a loco, but by all accounts he's already extremely proficient and should sail through the practical training with ease.

It was soon time for 2807 to set off and join her carriages waiting in platform 2 at Toddington:

Paul and Tina take 2807 off shed

Before I set off to join them, I noted a few things around the yard, firstly that the Permanent Way gang were now hard at work finishing off the turnout into the old ash pit. 

The permanent way gang working on ballasting the turnout to the ash pit

According to their flickr site, they have now finished the job, in fact they made it look like a piece of cake.  Needless to say, the steam loco dept is extremely grateful to the sterling efforts of the Permanent Way gang, the Cotswold Steam Celebration Gala which kicks off on Friday just wouldn't work without access to the old ash pit again.

I also noted that the fence holes that were excavated last week now have a fair amount of fence inserted into them:

The new fence takes shape

Ian Butler, the chairman of the steam loco dept had promised that he would donate an entire month's wages of his dept head's salary to me if I kept photos of him out of the blog.  That's him in the JCB, so he's let off the hook this week.  Well 100% of nothing is still nothing, so what did I have to gain?  He'll have to do better than that if he wants to avoid being in here.

A trip down the line is always entertaining.  I noticed that we had something of a reception committee outside the Carriage & Wagon Dept at Winchcombe:

Carriage & Wagon Dept at Winchcombe

And of course, we passed Cheltenham at Winchcombe:

Cheltenham at Winchcombe

We crossed Cheltenham at Winchcombe several times during the day, Andrew has uploaded a couple of short videos to youtube which can be found here and here.

We picked up a footplate passenger for the return journey, Ed Bounds, of the Permanent Way gang joined us for the ride up from Cheltenham to Toddington.  Tina was wearing make-up for once, so I was allowed to include her in this photo:

Tina and Ed

The bracket signal controlling the entrance to Winchcombe station from the Cheltenham end of the line is visible for quite some considerable distance from within Greet tunnel:

Board off for platform two

We were a bit surprised to find a marquee on the platform at Winchcombe and lots of people milling about who didn't seem to be wanting to get onto the train.  We'd completely forgotten that it was the 'Real Ale weekend.  Crowds on the platform meant that spotting the signal to depart from the guard was a bit tricky.

People in search of real ale and obscuring the view

Derek hadn't forgotten about the Real Ale weekend though, he'd chosen not to sign on for any duties and spent the day down at Winchcombe as a customer sampling the beers.  He'd strike up a conversation from the platform every time we appeared.

Derek waiting for the beer tent to open

On the second & third round trips, Paul had disappeared off the footplate to be replaced by Tony.  Tina very generously allowed me to fire those two trips.  There are few photos during this bit as I had my hands full with other things.... like the shovel for instance.  Once again, we picked up a footplate passenger, this time it was Gilbert who claimed 'owners representative' privileges and joined us for one of the trips.

Tina and Gilbert

Tina wasn't having the best of days, on a couple of occasions she got smuts of soot in her eyes, a larger chunk of coal managed to disappear down the back of her shirt and worst of all, she had a slight contretemps whilst watering the loco.  Tina usually prefers to stand on the tender and hang onto the water hose rather than operate the water crane, as can be seen in this shot taken on the first trip at Cheltenham:

Tina filling the tender of 2807 at Cheltenham

Now the new water crane on platform one at Toddington turns out to be slightly quirky in it's operation, water continues to flow for some considerable time after it has been switched off.  You need to call out for the water to be switched off some little while before the tender is completely full.  Tina, like me had hitherto been unaware of this... she knows now though:

Oops!

Soggy boots and trousers

A gentleman of course would have bounded onto the tender, and swept Tina off her feet with one hand whilst wrestling the water hose with the other.  Needless to say, I just took photos.  I don't think that Tina reads this blog so I'm hopeful that she won't see these shots and add herself to the (long and growing) list of firemen who won't have me clean locos for them.  She sent me on top of the tender whenever we filled up after that. She seemed rather disappointed that I called out for the water to be switched off early enough and chose to stand safely out of harms way on top of the water scoop dome anyway.

Tony asked me at the end of the day if I had learned anything during the course of the day. I seem to recollect that I gave one of my usual flippant answers along the lines of not to trust him when it came to operating the tap at water towers. Having had a bit of time to reflect, a better answer would have been that 2807 can still make steam with very little fire on the grate, and keeping her from blowing off whilst still keeping the fire in good shape is quite an art form. At one point during the day, Tony said that she "steams like a witch".  It's an expression that I have heard before, but don't understand at all.  Witches are known for cackling, flying around on broomsticks and cooking bizarre ingredients in cauldrons, (ok, given the recent food scandals, perhaps eye of newt and wing of bat aren't quite so bizarre)  but not at all for making steam.  If anybody has a clue how the expression originated, I'd like to know.

As we were arriving back at Toddington after the second round trip, I noticed some of the steam loco dept were busy enjoying a brew al fresco:

Ian, Ade, Matt, Rod, Tonia, Karl and Nick enjoying a brew

I have no idea what Ian was doing, possibly auditioning for "the steam loco dept's got talent".  Tonia is Nick's mum and today was her first day as a member of the steam loco dept.  Welcome aboard Tonia. Should you read this, you now know to be very careful using the water cranes at Toddngton if nothing else.  We have a couple of father and son teams in the steam loco dept, (Hoskin & Windscheffel) but this is the only mother and son team. I rather cheekily asked them to fetch three cups of tea up to the platform for us as we went past, but they declined.  I think that one of them said that we had a big enough kettle right in front of us and that we should make our own.

And finally, this morning at 08:30, yours truly became a grandad for the first time (people are soon going to stop believing me when I tell them that I'm only 21).  I was informed by my daughter that yes I could buy my new grand daughter a teddy bear however it couldn't be a Thomas the Tank Engine one.  I had no idea that they did such a thing.  Well I was as good as my word, a teddy was bought and it wasn't anything to do with a certain really useful blue engine. I purchased Laverton Lily from the good people in the 2807 owners group and couldn't resist the temptation to take a few photos of her on 2807 before we set off yesterday.

Laverton Lily and 2807

Lily at home on 2807

Lily knows her own number

Before anybody complains that I'll have got her mucky, this was straight after cleaning 2807 and in all cases she was either perched on top of my camera bag, on top of clean gloves or in the last case, held aloft by Tina wearing the clean gloves.  Should you be an impending parent/grandparent or just have a craving for collecting soft toys, then you too can obtain your own Laverton Lily, either through the 2807 website or perhaps on the stall that they will have in the car park at Toddington during the Cotswold Steam Celebration Gala which commences this coming Friday.  Laverton Lily is named after the current northernmost extension of the line of course.  They'll have to come up with new names when the line is extended.... perhaps Broadway Broad and Honeybourne Honey.  I presume that in the past they have sold teddies by the name of Toddington Ted, Gotherington Gertie, Cheltenham Chav and of course Winchcombe Wench Witch.

Cheltenhams (Three Different Ones)

Yes, I know.  Three different Cheltenhams in one day is just plain greedy, yet that is what came about on Saturday.  Cheltenham number one was the Cheltenham Flyer, featuring a non-stop run by ex-GWR Castle class, Earl of Mount Edgcumbe from Gloucester to Paddington and back. Several members of the GWSR steam loco dept had tickets to travel, including John Cruxon, John Hancock and Steve Burnett. Others of us thronged the lineside to grab photos as she went by, including at least Sean Nielsen, Phil Grange; Andrew Gough and me: 

The Cheltenham Flyer at Sapperton

From Sapperton it was on to Toddington to meet up with the second Cheltenham.  In this case it was the first of our guest locomotives for the Cotswold Steam Celebration Gala which is only a week and a half away as I write this.  I had been expecting Cheltenham to have arrived on Friday, but when I turned up at Toddington,only her tender had turned up. Apparently the main loco being taller wouldn't fit under a number of low bridges that the tender could and therefore had to come via the M4 and M5 to get to Toddington from the Mid-Hants Railway rather than the more direct cross-country route that the tender had taken.  Anyway, a bit later in the day, Movewright International delivered Cheltenham and she was reunited with her tender once more.

Cheltenham being offloaded in the car park

Andrew Goodman directs the offloading of Cheltenham

Neil Carr had a bit of trouble keeping some of the visitors away from Cheltenham as she was being offloaded.  Ben Evason was noted as setting a good example by remaining behind the white line in the car park and is congratulated by Neil:

Neil & Ben

Taking a short break from driving 2807 on one of the service trains, Mike Hoskin pauses to inspect the latest arrival:

Mike Hoskin

Dan Wigg has spent a bit of time manufacturing some Southern route indicator discs for Cheltenham to wear, which he fetched out and tried on her.

Ben and Cheltenham with Dan's route indicator discs fitted

I'm not sure where that particular code suggests that she might be going, but I'd be surprised if it turned out to be the right code for Cheltenham Race Course.  

Cheltenham

A peek inside the cab revealed that it isn't just the shade of green that differs from Great Western practice.  Much fun was had trying to work out which control was which.  Amongst the more curious anomalies that struck me was that she has two pressure gauges and the driver's one was showing a worrying 10 lb/sq in whilst she was sat in the car park with an apparently empty (assuming that my translation of text speak is correct, MT = empty) boiler.

Name the controls

There are some crew familiarisation sessions coming up before the gala, which is just as well.  I'm not quite sure what our firemen are going to make of that Detroit lubricator that has gravitated to the fireman's side of the cab.  In fact I'm not at all sure what many of our firemen will make of having to fire from the wrong side of the cab at all.  It will all be good practice for when 35006 is ready to steam I suppose.

Speaking of 35006, I noticed that she had acquired a nice shiny new plaque under her cab:

35006 Locomotive Company Limited

If you happen to find a Merchant Navy lying around looking lost, you'll now know whose it is and where to send it.

I'm getting out of step here, when I first arrived at Toddington, I had intended to help Chris Bristow finish off the chocolate coat of paint on the mess coach, followed by helping out with erecting a new fence on the West side of the yard.  My apologies to Chris, I was diverted by Clive Norton who needed somebody to take over from him in bringing 5542 into steam for a steam test.  I checked afterwards only to find that Chris had finished the job by himself and disappeared.

Lovely painting by Chris,just needs lining out now

The mess coach now looks immeasurably better than when the refurbishment project commenced, no longer an embarrassment, but an asset.  While Chris was doing that, I got on with bringing 5542 into steam. Ian Carpenter the boiler responsible person, wanted to know when she was off the mark, then 20, 40 and 100 lb/sq in as well as full boiler pressure.  Needless to say she came up just fine and passed with flying colours.

Foremarke Hall sets off, as seen from the cab of 5542

55 on the 55

Blowing off, when she's meant to for once

Once 5542 was in steam, Andrew Meredith turned up to check over the bottom end as part of her B exam:

Andrew Meredith at work on 5542

Andrew later went on to do the same for Cheltenham:

Measuring Cheltenham's vital statistics

After a spot of lunch (well ok then, very late breakfast) in the Flag & Whistle, I set off to join Mark Young and his merry band of men digging fence post holes to the West side of the yard.  The idea is to create a viewing area where visitors for the gala can watch the locos being prepared and disposed at either end of the working day. As a keen amateur photographer myself, I think this is a wonderful idea,  As a volunteer who will have to find a way of digging holes through several feet of ballast and rock to accomodate dozens of fence posts, I'm appalled.  Lets just say that it involves a lot of back breaking effort.  

Ed Brooks & Steve (tractor with auger attachment owner) by the first fence post hole

The idea was to dig manually through the ballast/rock and then use the auger to carry on through the clay layer below.  

At one point we discovered an electricity cable.  At a best guess it was decided that this was the supply to the North Gloucestershire Narrow Gauge Railway.  Should you happen to be a member of the narrow gauge railway and you're reading this on your mobile phone by candle light, then oops... sorry! 

The mystery electricity cable

Ed is brought to his knees by the exertion, Mark and Andrew don't seem to be concerned

Clive helps the auger to dig into the clay

Needless to say, some while later, we managed to break the auger when it discovered rock when it should have found clay. The broken bits will probably be sent over to Rod Minchin in the machine shop to fix/repair/create new parts for:

Rod tries to look enthusiastic about having more things to fix

Once rock/clay had been excavated, we shoveled it into the waiting bucket of the JCB. The best way to make this interesting was to pretend that you were shoveling coal into the loco of your choice. Dan went for the left handed approach in readiness for the three right (as in wrong) hand side fired locos that will be visiting for the gala.

Dan 'firing' the JCB left handed

I tried pretending that I was firing a King by standing 16' away and shoveling. It all fell a bit flat when Steve Oddy remarked "I can take a hint" and moved the JCB nearer to me. It was more like firing a Collett 0-4-2T by the time he'd finished.

Once the JCB bucket was full, we just moved it up the path a bit, found a particularly bumpy bit and filled it in.

Steve smoothing out the path

So far we've only had two of the Cheltenhams.  The third was the Cheltenham Fryer, the occasional evening fish and chip service.  An evening on 2807 in May would normally be a delightful prospect, but as I joined the crew, Ben Evason (driver) and Paul Richardson (fireman) on the footplate, the heavens opened and a torrential hailstorm engulfed us.  The cab on 2807 works just fine at fending off the elements as long as you're traveling chimney first. Tender first is an entirely different matter though, there's nowhere to hide in that cab. The prospect of the tender first run down to Cheltenham quite frankly filled us with dread.  We were informed later that Sean had been laughing his socks off over in the nice dry David Page shed at the thought of us heading out in a hailstorm. 

Paul & Ben putting a brave face on the prospect of getting soaked

 Fortune favours the virtuous however and the skies cleared up before we set off and aside from a slight headwind on the outward journey, all was fine.  Paul made something of a strategic blunder, he kindly allowed me to fire from Toddington to Cheltenham, then he fired Cheltenham to Toddington & then I fired to Laverton and back.  The blunder was that Ben had ordered us all fish and chips, which we collected at Cheltenham.  Consequently Paul was suddenly pitched into firing and I found my hands free just as the fish and chips turned up.

Andy Beale made the journey as a passenger and taunted us with beer

2807 in the waning sun wearing the Cheltenham Fryer headboard

My fish & chips (thanks Ben)

So it was that I also had my hands free to grab a few photos of the return journey to Toddington as well as scoff my fish and chips.  Poor old Paul had to grab his as best he could whilst firing.

Paul admires the sunset

2807's shadow

Approaching Gotherington

Our exhaust trail through Dixton cutting

Ben and Paul on the footplate

We stopped at Gotherington for quarter of an hour on the way back, plenty of time for a few photos and some ice cream (again courtesy of Ben).

The gallant crew

All in all, a pretty good run, no shortage of steam or blowing off and the timetable was adhered to.  All that remained afterwards was to shunt Cheltenham (the loco, not Flyer, Fryer or town) into the shed and put 2807 to bed on the pit.

Ben checking over 2807 at the end of the day

And finally, after taking one photo on Saturday of a certain member of the steam loco dept, I was informed "For heaven's sake don't put that on Facebook, nobody on there knows that I smoke!".  The photo in question has now been safely filed away in the folder called 'blackmail, subterfuge & skulduggery'. A very well stuffed plain brown envelope should ensure that it remains there!