Foremarke Hall Steam Test

Saturday was another busy day at Toddington:

4270 seemed to be getting a lot of TLC, with a sizable number of people making themselves busy.

Clive was polishing the boiler barrel

Sean wasn't to be moved from cleaning the smoke box door

New starter Alex, was polishing the water tanks

Stuart polished the bunker

 It wasn't just the outside of the bunker that was getting all the attention either, bitumastic paint was being applied inside:

Chris (l) and Andy apply bitumastic paint in 4270's bunker.

 Meanwhile, underneath 4270, Phil and Steve were at work on the injectors and brakes.

Phil cleaning up a mating face on an injector

No photo of Steve I'm afraid, but he was under there too.

Dinmore Manor was getting plenty of attention as well:

Another new starter, Ian got to grips with cleaning Dinmore Manor's wheels and frames

David cleans up one of the faces of an injector

Andy fettles a big end journal

Somewhere inside the frames, Nigel cleans the axle boxes

Dinmore Manor appears to have got a bit peckish and decided to eat Mark

More good progress has been made with 35006, the last major job being the fitting of the brake mechanism to the tender:

Dave (l), John and Steve (r) raise one of the brake beams into place...

...there were still a few more to be fitted though

As mentioned last week, 2807's leading wheel set has been returned from the South Devon Railway and was ready to be refitted to the pony truck:

It had even been painted black (cue the Rolling Stones)

 The only problem was it was on road 6, whilst 2807 was on road 7... and blocked in behind 4270, Dinmore Manor's tender and a starfish wagon. 4270 and the tender were shunted, whereas the starfish was shifted the hard way:

Who needs a shunter!

Chris used the FLT to transfer the wheel set from road 6...

... to road 7...

...from where it could be rolled along to 2807.

 That wasn't all, a nice shiny new bush was fitted into the pony truck pivot

Bush installed

Axle boxes were placed on the axle

Note for drivers; the axle boxes now have two filler holes

Springs fitted

And the pony truck lowered into position

 The pony truck is now largely complete, spring adjustment and fitting of the under keeps was still outstanding at the close of play.  Hopefully the pony truck will be in a position to be re-installed soon.


A little more work has taken place on 3850 over the course of the last week, with Ian making a start on removing the boiler tubes:

The smoke box tube plate was beyond repair, tubes are starting to emerge

Martin cuts the pipes in two to allow them to fit into the metal recycling skip

 Curiously, I received an email only today regarding 3850, it turns out that one of its original cabside number plates exists in the collection of M Shed, (better known by its previous name, Bristol Industrial Museum).  The cabside number plate isn't ordinarily on public view unfortunately, but is held in the "Large Objects Store" in the nearby L Shed.  

Photo courtesy of Alisdair McNicol

 For completeness sake, 5923, Colston Hall, was built 31/05/33 and cut up at Cox and Danks 31/12/63.  5191 was a large prairie, built 31/10/34 and cut up 31/10/64 at Birds, Risca, Newport.

And finally, it gives me great pleasure to be able to pass on these photos of Foremarke Hall's boiler undergoing its out of frames steam test last week at Tyseley.  Needless to say, it passed with flying colours.  From here, the boiler will be painted in heat resistant paint, before being reunited with the frames and returned to Toddington.  All photos from here on, courtesy of John Cruxon.

The blue touch paper is lit

No smoke without fire

A little over 200 PSI...

...The safety valves lift at last

There are a lot of people who are keenly looking forward to Foremarke Hall being back in traffic on the GWSR, she's one major step closer now.

How to Change a Tyre on a Bulleid Merchant Navy

Circumstances prevented your humble blogger attending Toddington on Saturday, but thanks to the good offices of both Paul & Mike, I can at least bring you some sort of report.  I managed to get along for a while on Sunday to see for myself what had taken place.

The winter maintenance schedule is now progressing well, with all resident home fleet locos receiving some attention at the weekend.  The white board in the mess coach has a long to do list on it, which is slowly but surely shrinking.

Paul was one of a group of 10 or more people who tended to the Planet's favourite Prairie (PFP), 5542 on Saturday.  The grate has been replaced with a new front carrier and a cold boiler exam has taken place along with the usual mechanical checks.  Her running contract with the GWSR is not far from being over now, yet she was still being lovingly cleaned and polished (including being steam cleaned underneath where it doesn't show).

The PFP receives some TLC (photo courtesy of Paul Richardson)

Even the inside of the tool box under the cab, used to contain the oil cans came in for a clean up.

Not usually anywhere near as clean in here (photo courtesy of Paul Richardson)

I am a great believer in getting people interested in volunteering at an early age.  Without new people coming through and acquiring up the necessary skills, operational steam locos will be consigned to the history books in just a few generations time.  Paul evidently shares that view and now regularly brings along his son Dan to help out.

Dan having cleaned the tool box (photo courtesy of Paul Richardson)

Good news for the 2807 group, the wheels from their pony truck have come back from the South Devon Railway, where they have been turned.  They had discovered that one wheel had been ground to a slightly different diameter to the other one back in BR days and have just had it corrected.  Unfortunately when delivered on site, it had been dropped of the wrong way round.

Brian guards the newly arrived wheels (photo courtesy of Paul Richardson)

The fork lift truck was used to turn it the right way round (photo courtesy of Paul Richardson)

When I was around on Sunday, Brian had put on a coat of primer to the wheels, before they get painted black (not Crimson Lake).

Freshly primed wheels

 Meanwhile, the rest of 2807 is progressing nicely, with the new pony truck axle box under keep castings having been machined and trial fitted in place

2807 and the pony truck

An inverted axle box with the new under keep casting in place

Just for good measure, here is the other one

35006 had just one person working on it on Sunday, it looked for all the world like he was about to jack it up and change a tyre:

Trolley jack in place, that should do the trick!

The trolley jack would of course have proved unequal to the task of lifting 35006 far enough to change a wheel, but as it turns out, it was just right for taking the weight off of the brake hangers, allowing the pins to be removed and given a coat of copper-slip.  First time they'd been off in 20 years apparently.

Extracting one of the brake pins

I'm never too sure what to say about the bubble car, yes it's owned by a consortium of people, many of whom are members of the steam loco dept, but it's not steam or part of the infrastructure of the department.  Anyway, regardless of whether or not it's part of my remit, it is in the David Page shed for a major refit at the moment, and the gallant team of volunteers who work on it mostly do so on Sundays. At the moment, most of the internal fittings have been removed for refurbishment and the windows are being replaced after attention where necessary to the window surrounds.

The bubble, 55003.

Back to Saturday, Dinmore Manor was receiving some attention.

Mark stripping down the safety valves prior to the annual exam (photo courtesy of Mike Solloway)

Nigel paints the front buffer beam (photo courtesy of Mike Solloway)

Roger was keen enough to help clean Dinmore Manor on Sunday as well as Saturday

7820's coupling rods with bearings removed for checking/replacement

Three of Swindon's finest (l-r) 5542, 7820 & 4270

And finally, I am advised that there are just a couple of spaces available on a photo charter that will be running on the line with 4270 on March 22nd using the freight train.  If you're a budding photographer, and fancy joining in, the full details can be found by following this link.

4270 with the freight train during the 2014 gala

AGM

As usual, the year has kicked off with the Steam Loco Dept AGM, held in the village hall. It's not appropriate to reveal too much regarding what was said during the course of the meeting, however, Mark has come to the end of his one year tenure as chairman of the SLD management team, 24 months after taking it on, and has now been succeeded by John.  Yours truly had to pop up to the front and say a few words about the gala.  I noted when I returned to my seat that my phone had been rung, it turns out that Phil was trying to catch out all the speakers by ringing their phones as they were talking.  Only one person was caught out by having their phone on, our new chairman.

Ben speaks, Ade listens, Clive tucks into a packet jelly babies, out of view, Phil rings Ben's phone

The coveted annual "Percy Pig" awards for the most turns covered were awarded:

Steve (l) did the announcing, John (r) hands the second place award to Ade

As usual, 1st place award was for John P (l) who receives his award from John C.

If memory serves, John covered 43 turns in 2015.  Both recipients looked disappointed when they found out that the prize didn't include a year's supply of bacon sarnies for breakfast.

After the AGM had drawn to a close, it was off back to the David Page shed, to continue with the winter maintenance of our home fleet.

The 2807 group are working through their winter maintenance schedule, On Saturday, the hanging link bearings were coming in for some attention

A third John, with one of the hanging link bearings

Where it came from

Dinmore Manor had no less than 22 people working on it on Saturday according to Facebook.  I didn't count them all myself, but there certainly seemed to be quite a few people.

Kenneth working on the brake hangers

David, lapping in the hydrostatic lubricator shut off cock

Andy checks the tolerances on a big end journal.

Martin cleans the wheels

Mike, thwarted in an early attempt to get a photo of me for the Facebook page

Happy to be relieved of his role as chairman of the management committee, Mark assists Andy in checking various tolerances around the loco

Mark (l) and Andy

There was also a concerted effort to clear out the tubes of accumulated soot. 

Stuart (l) and Aaron feed in the cleaning rod

Aaron borrowed my camera and took this photo of Cliff in the smoke box

Cliff in the smoke box

Meanwhile, Paul was cleaning out the firebox

Rob cleaning the wheels/frames

Eleanor was delighted to find that some kind soul(s) had turned up on Wednesday to continue the needle gunning of the coal space in the tender.  It was deemed to be likely to be too anti social from the noise pollution point of view to finish the needle gunning on Saturday, so instead she put a coat of rust inhibiting primer on the bits that had already been done.

Eleanor priming the coal space of Dinmore Manor's tender

Ben, fresh from speaking at the AGM helped clean Dinmore Manor too

Mark cleaned up the boiler cladding

The 35006 group had been hard at work on their loco too, the fitting of the electric lights was the task for Saturday.

Five of the six head lights in position

The head lights are electric, powered by a generator located below the cab on the driver's side.  The lights themselves come in rather tasteful brass cases. 

Brass head light

I understand the Southern Railway used the six head light positions to indicate the route to be taken by the train, rather than what class of service the train was.  Sadly none of the codes that I could discover were to Broadway, never mind Laverton, Toddington, Winchcombe or Cheltenham Race Course. 

And finally, my appeal on behalf of a friend who wishes to model Toddington station has not fallen on deaf ears, and a number of people have come forward with signal box diagrams and even a scaled drawing.  Many thanks indeed to Graham, Anon, Neil & Mike who all provided very helpful information.   Any period photos of the cattle dock, the fruit packing shed or the yard crane (actually in the yard, there wasn't one in the cattle dock as there now is) would be gratefully received.