The Wednesday Gang

Readers of this blog could be forgiven for thinking that interesting things only happen on the GWSR at weekends.  This is of course far from the truth, it's just that being a humble wage slave, I can usually only get along to the railway at weekends.  This week, work had me more or less passing Toddington on Wednesday (well with only a minor detour) so I thought that I'd pop in for an hour or two and see what the Wednesday gang were up to. Besides, the Saturday crowd have been starting to complain that they seem to be the only ones who have to suffer the indignity of appearing on this blog and would like the misery spread further afield.  My apologies in advance, I didn't manage to catch everybody's names and there is a sporting chance I've got a few of those I did scribble down wrong too.

Things didn't get off to a good start, pretty much the first person that I bumped into when I got into the yard was Gilbert.  He was curious to find out what I was doing at Toddington midweek and when I told him that I was here to find out what the Wednesday gang got up to, his reply was "Very little".  Undeterred I ventured further into the yard, to be rewarded with the fine sight of 4270 basking out in the sunshine.

4270 catching some rays

I'm not sure which is rarer, 4270 appearing outside or the sun shining, either way I decided that I should investigate.  Ian Carpenter was keen to show me recent progress, not only were all the smokebox fittings now in place, but both injectors and associated pipework were now fitted too.  Access underneath to fit the injectors & pipes were why 4270 had been pulled out onto the pit.

Driver's side injector

There were still a few bolts to hold the smokebox in place that needed fitting, Ian machined up some new bolts whilst Bob removed several plates to gain access to the location where the bolts would need inserting.

Ian turning up the new smokebox securing bolts

Bob works on gaining access to where the bolts will be fitted

Later on, Paul turned up to fit a bracket to keep one of the injector pipes in place

Paul got slightly distracted and started chatting about camera lenses for a bit...

...but he soon got cracking on the job in hand.

Ian managed to get a bit side-tracked by several members of the 2807 group who needed a steam feed pipe to the condensing coil for the hydrostatic lubricator soldering up... apparently it had been leaking recently.

Ian gets distracted by Bruce & Geof with their steam feed pipe

In the background to the above shot, you'll notice the 8F.  She has been largely turned out in war dept guise in readiness for the Wartime in the Cotswolds event this weekend.  She now carries the WD smoke box number plate 348 and has had an air compressor & air tanks fitted above her running plate.  The LMS logo & number were still in place on Wednesday, but will have been replaced in time for the weekend with the appropriate WD items.  She will of course be reverting almost immediately back to her LMS guise after this coming weekend in anticipation of the Cotswold Steam Celebration 2013 at the end of May, so if you want to see her in her WD guise, then you'll have to be quick.  The weather forecast for the Wartime in the Cotswolds event is looking extremely good, so why not come along?

8F, with WD 348 smokebox number plate & air tanks

8F with air compressor

Outside I discovered Roger busy restocking the wood store.  I hadn't noticed that the wood store had opening doors at this end before.

Roger & friend replenishing the wood store

Meanwhile, over near platform one, Chris, Pete & Nigel are busy erecting some fence posts

Chris wields a sledge hammer, Pete looks apprehensive

Nigel turns out to be less trusting and employs a piece of wood

The new water tower stands next to this point and there are a few open manholes that needed covers manufacturing.

The new water tower

Two of the three exposed manholes

Neil, Tom & Tim in the process of fabricating the covers

The finished manhole covers in place

The weather being fine, more painting was taking place in various locations in the yard and even on the station:

Peter refreshes the white paint on the platform edges

Tim paints the coal dock gates

Chris & Peter measure up the mess coach for the cream part of the chocolate & cream primer

Chris applying cream primer

David also applying cream primer

In an act of selfless dedication to the task, Chris checked the chocolate primer against a large sample of chocolate biscuits just to make sure that the shade was correct.  You don't get such exacting standards on just any old railway you know.

Meanwhile sections of scrap rail were being cut up into suitable sizes to fit into the scrap skip.  Some of them would be temporarily pressed into service to weigh down some of the marquees which were being erected in the car park for the coming weekend.

John cuts up the rail

Peter, Mike, John & John working on breaking up the old rail

Ben is on holiday this week and is spending much of it working on the railway, here he is shifting the cut up rail

Finally, plenty of work was taking place on the restoration of the National Railway Museum's 4F, 44027. 

The rolling chassis of 44027 in the David Page shed.

Clive & Dave making up a lubrication pipe for 44027

Meanwhile, outside in the sunshine, work was taking place on the boiler of 44027:

The inverted boiler of 44027

Mike at work on the firebox tube plate

Kev at work on the lap seals

Enlarging some of the stay holes, once again I'm afraid that I don't know the names of the people involved

So if this really was Gilbert's idea of "Very little", I'd love to see Wednesday gang at work on a busy day.

Edit:  Subsequent to scribing this little lot yesterday, I've been informed (thanks John) that I managed to miss some of the most important events of the day.  Firstly, before I arrived, all the service locos had their grates/ashpans/smokeboxes thoroughly cleaned ready for the impending services on Friday/the weekend.  As somebody who has occasionally found themselves lighting up a loco at the weekend, it's always extremely nice to find that the grate is clear apart from the remains of a warming fire.  Secondly 2807 had been red-carded due to the defective steam feed pipe to the condensing coil for the hydrostatic lubricator, so the Wednesday gang had already stripped down the condensing coil pipework of 2807 in readiness for Ian Carpenter to re-solder the joint at one end.

The last shall be first and the first shall be last

A fine red crescent moon rose above the Cotswold hills as I progressed along the M5 on Saturday morning.  After marveling at it for a while and wishing I could stop and grab a photo, it occurred to me that the reason I could see the moon was that the sky was clear.  Clear skies of course meant only one thing.... it was going to be colder than usual.  I wasn't wrong, according to others who turned up later, it was about minus 5.  Now that the clocks have gone forward, it was still dark when I arrived at Toddington, it was certainly still too dark to see what the brass monkeys might be up to.  If they had any sense at all they would be safely tucked up in bed and with their electric blankets turn up to 11. 

I had thought that cleaners weren't supposed to function as Running Shed Foreman (RSF) however I sensed an air of desperation in Ben (roster administrator) when I queried it.  Obviously he was having difficulty tracking down enough mugs to fill the rota.  I've not seen a job description anywhere, but the general idea is to make sure the locos get sorted out and leave shed on time, after which you make sure that any volunteers still daft enough to be showing their faces are found something useful to do. Turn up first, leave last and boss people about, how hard could it be!

There was only one loco turn on Saturday, 8F 8274 was assigned to cover the steam portion of the blue timetable.  Ian and Ade got on with the process of oiling up and lighting the fire, everybody else looked for something to clean... preferably something warm.  I picked on the smoke box to start off with, that's always a good bet for being warm.

A clean (and most importantly, warm) smoke box

Chris cleans the motion

Andrew after washing down the tender

 Soon enough, 8274 was sparkling and off to tackle the day's work.  Well that was the easy bit of being RSF sorted out, now to find everyone something else useful to do.  I started off with what turned out to be a popular choice of heading over to the Flag & Whistle for breakfast.... never forget an army marches on its stomach.  Breakfast eaten, there was then the pressing matter of replenishing the wood store as it was remarkably bare.  The bad news was that there was no neat pile of wooden pallets next to the wood store awaiting breaking up. I dispatched raiding parties to the far corners of the yard to hunt out any lost looking wooden pallets and fetch them back to the wood store.  A surprisingly large number were to be found scattered around making the place look untidy and soon the yard was both tidier and the wood store fuller.

Andrew & Cheyenne in the process of converting an untidy pallet into useful fire wood

Should you be the proud owner of a wooden pallet in Toddington yard and are now wondering where on earth it has gone, then don't fret, it is now fulfilling a far nobler purpose than merely weighing down a tarpaulin or such like.

Another task that needed doing was getting Foremarke Hall warmed up for a turn on the Elegant Excursions dining train on Sunday, to that end she was fetched out of the shed, a warming fire lit, ash pan emptied and a start made on cleaning her up for the next day.

Cheyenne giving the brass a bit of therapy with the Brasso

Nick & Cheyenne hard at work

Clive cleaning out the ash from the pit the hard way

Well so far so good, all was going according to plan.... well in as much as there was a plan.  8274 returned from her labours a little later and the disposal process kicked off.  That is of course when the plan fell apart.  You'll doubtless have noticed that the loco roster on the main GWSR website mentions that locos are rostered 'subject to availability', that they may be changed at short notice for 'operational reasons' and other such weasel words that effectively say that it's pot luck what turns out to be hauling the trains on any given day and that the railway can't be held responsible if what you're hoping for isn't running.  Well on Saturday, the 'operational reasons' kicked in.  When examined at the end of the day, it transpired that 8274 had broken a spring and was declared a failure.  Such eventualities aren't usually too much of a problem as the leading lights of the owning group can usually get one swapped out in just a few hours in the morning whilst the loco is being prepped for service.  On this occasion however, the relevant persons had taken the not entirely unreasonable step of disappearing off to warmer climes for their holidays and given the recent freezing weather in the UK, who can blame them.  In their absence, that left the choice of either putting out a diesel on the Sunday or getting 2807 ready.  Not wanting to let the traveling public down, a hasty shunt of locos was organised to get 8274 into the shed and 2807 out.  Being the fireman on the second shift, Tina should probably have lit the warming fire in 2807, but her dog was home alone.  In an uncharacteristic moment of chivalry I decided that it was better that my dinner ended up in the dog than her dog's dinner ended up.... well you can guess the rest!

Tina is actually 6' tall, but she looks dwarfed in George's jacket as he is 6'8"

All that remained now was to get a warming fire in 2807, a process that takes several hours. So it came to pass that everybody else disappeared off into the sunset leaving yours truly to get 2807 warmed up and ready for the following day.  

The light is fading a bit, but at least 2807 has some semblance of a warming fire in her

Getting the warming fire built up enough to be in a state where I could leave her for the night takes a number of hours and to while away the time where I wasn't shoveling coal, I soon found myself taking long tea breaks and contemplating how many other people over the intervening years since she had been built in 1905 had found themselves doing the same sort of thing.  Eventually she was in the sort of state where she could be left and I set off for the mess coach to change, only to find that Andrew Meredith was still around having been spent many hours working elsewhere on the water treatment plant.

The sun has set and the stars are out, 2807 continues to gently warm up

I had thought that to be the end of the story, but Ian Butler alerted me to an article that had just been uploaded to the news section of the main website.  Sydney Hogg, a long time supporter of the GWSR was celebrating his 100th birthday and to mark the event we even had a GWR reporting code of 100 displayed on 2807's smoke box.  Ian Crowder had been on hand to record the event for posterity and has kindly allowed me to use the following photos that he took.

2807 with a '100' reporting number

Sydney Hogg with family & well wishers

Sydney Hogg with driver Ben Evason

Still going strong at 100

It was a pleasure to have been able to have contributed something towards this event, even if it was only by making sure that Sydney ended up with steam at the front of his train as he had hoped for.  

Should anybody be able to let me know which train the reporting code of 100 would be for, then I'd be delighted to hear from you.  It's not easily tracked down on the web.

Edit:  Sean Nielsen has kindly provided a useful link which states that the reporting code of 100 denoted the Paddington to Penzance train after 1957.

Catching up with 4270

Time to 'fess up.... in the unlikely event that you'd believed it, Foremarke Hall is still in green rather than lined BR black that I said on April Fools Day.  In fact the joke was on me really, as I wound up getting out of bed an hour earlier than usual in order to get the story uploaded to the blog on the right date, before heading back off to Toddington again.  I nearly had to get up before I went to bed.  

The clocks of course had just gone forward an hour the day before, so it was back to starting off cleaning the locos in the dark.  As usual a merry throng of volunteers settled into prepping the rostered engines for the day and soon enough 8274 and Foremarke Hall were heading off shed to haul the 'Easter Eggspress' workings up and down the line.

8274 sets off from the yard

Soon followed by Foremarke Hall

Monday turned out to be a fairly quiet day at Toddington, so after I'd broken up the last of the stack of pallets and put them in the wood store I set off over to the signal box looking for a few photos of the trains departing down the line.

Neatly replenished wood store

Bill Tyndall in the signal box was most welcoming and even provided me with a nice hot cup of tea as we waited for the trains to depart.  Apparently the railway was very popular on Monday morning and Foremarke Hall was delayed by 15 minutes or so as a long queue of passengers progressed on their way through the booking office to the platform.

Chris Hayes collects the token from Bill Tyndall as Foremarke Hall sets off with the 'Easter Eggspress'

8274 returns from Cheltenham, Chris Bristow hands over the token to Bill.

Afterwards, a rummage around in the David Page shed turned up not the usual crowds of people working on the various engines, just Ian Carpenter making steady progress with 4270.

4270

Few Churchward locos survive with inside steam pipes, but 4270 is one of them.  The current aim is to get her ready for an in frames steam test.  To that end, since the boiler arrived back from Crewe, Ian has been working on the smoke box fittings.  I caught him working on the lubrication feed pipe for the regulator and the end of the ejector pipe that connects to the chimney.

Smoke box with the ejector pipe offered up rather than fitted

Ian manufacturing a nut for the regulator lubricator feed pipe

Regulator & cylinder lubricator splitter with part made regulator lubricator pipe

4270 left Barry Island scrapyard in a relatively complete condition, she still retains all her original coupling rods, but some items have one way or another found there way onto the loco from elsewhere. The driver's side piston valve front cover for instance is stamped '5227'

5227 stamped on piston valve front cover

5227 is now one of the 'donor' locos for the new build 4709 at Didcot Railway Centre and what is left will eventually end up as a static exhibit there.

Work has also taken place up at the other end of 4270.

The backhead is also taking shape

Not visible in this shot is the grate and brick arch which are both fitted.
In the hope of getting me to stop bugging him with questions and taking copious photos for the blog, Ian sent me off to turn up a couple of gaskets for the ejector pipe.  The last time I had to make gaskets rather than buy ready made ones was for my dear old BSA B33 when I was an impecunious student many years ago.... and I made them from old cornflakes packets.

The last victim of my gasket making... note no oil leaks underneath her!

Ian Meanwhile cracked on with the task of soldering up the regulator lubricator feed pipe and the ejector pipe.

Regulator feed pipe being finished off

Likewise with the ejector pipe

Quenching the new ejector pipe

Finally the completed ejector feed pipe and regulator lubricator feed pipe was offered up with the petticoat in place underneath the chimney to make sure that everything fitted ok.  The original petticoat from 4270 was rusted past the point of no return,  The one seen here came from 7200.  7200 at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre has been treated to a nice shiny new one.

Taking shape in the smoke box

The main steam pipes, cylinder lubrication pipes and superheater elements remain to be fitted, but it's all coming together.  Watch this space for future updates and hopefully for a bit of a history of the earlier stages of the restoration.