A hard day’s shunt

In my last post you may have noticed that Austerity, Earl David had a warming fire in her.  I neglected to say why, for the simple reason that I had no idea why.  The following message and photos that I received from Jonathan Perks explains all:

"January 2^nd was a busy day at Toddington with large numbers of volunteers starting the winter maintenance regimes for 2807, 7903 and 8274 (AKA 45160).  At the same time three of us were preparing Wemyss Private Railway No 15 Earl David for a day’s work.  The loco, a Hunslet designed War Department ‘Austerity’ 0.6.0ST has recently been returned to traffic at Wishaw and was on test prior to a visit to the Avon Valley Railway later in the year.  This tied in with a need to do a bit of shunting and rather than use a diesel, Earl David was to earn its keep for the day.

Firstly we tripped a parcels coach to Winchcombe and placed it in Carriage & Wagon’s yard, then doing a bit of shunting in the permanent way yard on the far side of the line, extracting a mermaid wagon from the depths of the back siding. Earl David then pushed the mermaid back through Toddington and all the way to Laverton, right into the headshunt.  Whilst steam has been to Laverton Loop in the last few months, this is the furthest (by a few yards at least) that steam has been since the line closed.  After well over an hours shunting in order to release some wagons for further track work, Earl David proceeded to work a rake of flat and ballast trucks back up the hill to Stanton where the wagons were left for the benefit of S&T. 

Earl David with the ballast train

A number of the road and footbridges enjoyed the noise of our engine digging into the climb.  Having uncoupled from the wagons which will be filled with ballast before being returned to Laverton by a diesel, Earl David returned to Toddington light engine for disposal.  

Disposal at the end of the day

 The end of a busy day which saw an Austerity doing exactly the sort of work it was built for."

The Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Railway has many unsung heroes amongst its volunteers, who do large amounts of work for little credit yet without whom the railway couldn't possibly function. The Permanent Way gang are high on that list of unsung heroes, and I personally find Nigel Black's pages on the flickr photo site to be an invaluable resource.  It was here that I first found out about the track work on Chicken Curve having been completed and the work on the run round loop at Laverton.  Nigel has kindly allowed me to include a couple of his photos of Earl David at Winchcombe with the mermaid wagon as mentioned above by Jonathan Perks.

Earl David with mermaid and 2 milk wagons

Steve Oddy on the footplate of Earl David with the mermaid. Jonathan Perks (trainee fireman) and George Forrest (driver) are out of view on the other side of the footplate.

 

Happy New Year

Well that's 2012 all done and dusted. Those passengers who could find the room to force down a mince pie or two on top of all the turkey from Christmas have now done so and all the locos have been safely tucked up in bed until the 2013 operating season kicks off for steam on March 9th (diesel railcars Feb 9th).  However for the crew of Stanier 8F, 45160 this morning, there were no mince pies and the mess coach was down to its very last tea bag.

Solitary tea bag in the tea pot

I’m sure that you don’t need me to tell you that this was a disaster worse than running out of coal, in fact nearly as bad as running out of beer.  A volunteer walkout was narrowly averted when Clive Norton managed to rustle up some emergency supplies of tea bags from deep within the bowels of his kit bag.

This Season’s Santa Specials have exceeded our previous best  in spite of the fact that we managed to sleigh Santa  and of course, the past year has been significant in the railway's history; the million pound appeal reached its target and the works to reinstate the line at Chicken Curve after the landslip of 2 years ago have been completed, culminating in the reopening event on October 30th.
Historically, Chicken Curve has been one of the most popular locations for line side photographers to congregate. This shot kindly provided by Paul Stratford of a beautifully back lit Kinlet Hall at Chicken Curve is an example what can be achieved here.

4936 Kinlet Hall on Chicken Curve (pre-landslip)

It would be easy to lean back on our laurels at this point in time and relax thinking that the hard work is over and done with.  Nothing could be further from the truth of course, there is still all the winter maintenance to be done, not just on the locos, but for all departments of the railway, be it permanent way, buildings, signal & telegraph, carriage & wagon etc. Mike Hoskin of the Churchill 8F group has already sent out an extremely lengthy email outlining all the work that he is looking for volunteers to assist with over the next couple of months.  I have no doubt that the 7903 and 2807 groups will be doing likewise in the near future.  Somehow I rather fear that what many rashly assume to be the ‘quiet season’ will actually turn out to be the busiest.

Our return to Toddington this evening found Andrew Goodman’s Austerity, Earl David stood on road 9 with a warming fire in her. I thought that the 8F and Earl David made quite a nice contrasting pair of ex-war dept locomotives, especially with Mike Hoskin symbolically blowing out the lamps of the 8F for the last time in what was still technically the 2012 season.

45160 & No 15,  Earl David

Finally, thanks are due again to Clive, Adrian, Paul & Mike for permitting me to join them during the course of the day. Thanks are also due to Karl for helping out with the cleaning of the 8F this morning.  They epitomise the warm, friendly and welcoming volunteers that I have had the privilege to work with over the course of the last running season.  Here's looking forward to a very happy new year for the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Railway, its volunteers and all of the readers of this blog.