Water Catastrophe

There are some things in life that you just take for granted, you don't realise how important they are until they are gone.  One such thing is water.  We're used to just turning on a tap, and out comes either hot water for washing in, or cold water for drinking.  Saturday was the day that it was gone, and suddenly we were all reminded of just how important it is.  For those of you who may have somehow avoided the national news since Friday, there was a 36" water main burst in a flooded field somewhere in the vicinity of Tewkesbury, which normally supplied water to places as far afield as Toddington.  Mercifully, it didn't supply Winchcombe or Cheltenham as well, so there was no effect on the steam hauled Santa specials, however at Toddington where the DMU hauled Santa trains were scheduled to run, it was a different matter.  No water meant no working toilets, or facilities to wash hands, and the prospect of yet more cancellations was a serious possibility.  I know not how, but emergency arrangements were put in hand and the DMU Santa services were able to run as advertised.  Thank you to all involved in allowing this to happen.

In the steam loco dept, the lack of water caused some issues:

Water for the kettle had to be dispensed from plastic bottles...

...bereft of H2O

 There was little dismay though from those who should have washed up their cups and were unable to do so.  I'm led to believe that Tim ended up washing the lot later.

A morning's worth of mucky cups.

 Back up at the main station, there were several water bowsers in evidence... the snow man in the background was more than a little concerned that he might be melted down and put in the bowser.

No idea where it came from

 Back in the David Page shed, there was an element of reorganising going on, there was now thanks to the welding skills of Luke & John, a lamp stand, which had just been given a coat of primer by Stuart. Not the sort of lamp stand that you might have in the corner of your living room, but one for accommodating the lamps that we put on our locos. The lamps are currently squirrelled away in lockers, which can lead to them being damaged when inserted/removed, this arrangement will hopefully mitigate that.  They will be arranged in sets, so it will be easier to spot if any have gone astray, and of course, it will be easier to spot if one has inadvertently been left alight.

Lamp stand, should be ready for use soon.

 The cold, and lack of water had an effect on volunteer turnout, but the intrepid team that are working on 35006's axle boxes are made of sterner stuff.  35006 had been moved into the area between the jacks and was being prepared to be lifted.  With a steam loco, nothing is easy and in the case of 35006, one of the harder things to do is get at the driving axle box, lifting the loco up being required.

35006, between the jacks

 I said that the 35006 team are "made of sterner stuff", but on this occasion, I believe that I can include the 2807 group in that.  They have got bored without their own loco around to fettle, so some of them were to be found under 35006 as well.  There were a fair number of disembodied voices to be heard under there.

Under 35006, they could just have been hiding from the cold of course

 Dinmore Manor's old tender had moved back into the shed

Back in the shed...

...and some rotted plate work has been removed.

 The directors of DMLL had wisely in my opinion decided to hold a bored board meeting in the nicely heated board room... at least one had brought a flask of coffee with him.  One item of note, is that the polystyrene patterns for 3850's cylinder blocks have now been made and soon the cylinder blocks themselves will be cast.  This is very much a cutting edge project for steam loco restoration, few other groups have done this.

Polystyrene pattern, photo courtesy of Premier Patterns LTD

Polystyrene pattern, photo courtesy of Premier Patterns LTD

 Non-destructive testing of both 3845's and 2874's boiler are both due to occur in the very near future, and hopefully 3845's boiler will be sent away for refurbishment very early in the new year.

The evening saw the steam loco dept's Christmas dinner, organised as usual by Tina.  The quiz this year had a festive theme, a team called "No hopers", in spite of their name managed to win.   

As usual there was a festive jumper competition

Festering Festive Jumper competition entrants

 Of note is the PLC's finance director who has combined a festive jumper with a piratical eye patch, and Mark, who turned up in a festive onesie!  Mark was disqualified as it was more of a jump suit than a jumper, so the judges finally awarded the first prize chocolates to Peter who had flashing lights on his jumper.

Peter & his prize.

Congratulations Peter, and many thanks indeed to Tina for organising the event once again.

And finally, trying to survive without clean water is not an easy thing, and it caused many issues for us just by not being there for a day or two at one of our stations.  Imagine if that situation was a permanent one.  You may wish to make a contribution to Wateraid who are trying to remedy that situation in places where fresh drinking water isn't simply available by turning on a tap.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Sun, Snow & Steam, the keen amateur railway photographer's dream were all looking like they were lined up on Saturday as I set off from home, the light dusting of snow on my car, and stars twinkling above indicating clear skies prompted me to set off from home with my proper camera and a copy of the working timetable, with plans formulating of where to be for the best shots.  Although there was a fair amount of frost and ice on offer at Toddington, the much hoped for snow was conspicuous by its absence, except for odd patches on the Cotswold hills.  Worse still, as I arrived, I noted that Dinmore Manor was on the stock in the platform and about to head out as train 1, when I had expected that to be 5526.  It turned out that 5526 had issues with its steam brake, which wouldn't come off, and Foremarke Hall was being readied for use in its place.

Foremarke Hall being coaled up

5526, "Not to be moved"

 It would take a while, Foremarke Hall wouldn't possibly be ready until the afternoon, and would miss at least the first Santa trip.  Eleanor had been down originally to fire Dinmore Manor on train 2, and had been heard to complain that she didn't feel it was right to just turn up and fire, and that she was missing doing the light up.  Well, her wish had been granted, all of a sudden, she was lighting up Foremarke Hall in a hurry:

Coal, wood, oily rags and a match or two...

...we have ignition!

 A substitute was required for the first Santa trip at least, at this sort of notice, the only thing that could be turned out was one of the diesels, the obvious choice being the class 37, D6948, for the reason that it was the only diesel loco in the fleet that was capable of providing steam heating.  Neil abandoned his plans for some Christmas shopping and was press-ganged into being the driver.  My photo opportunities having faded somewhat, I didn't mind standing in as second man. 

D6948 starting up, hard to tell it's not steam powered to be fair...

Before setting off, I noted that I would be missing out on the bacon that had been bought in for the prep crew to have after the locos had left for the day.

Breakfast... just waiting for a shovel to be cooked on.

 I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a replacement heater had been installed in the mess coach:

Nice and warm it was too

 Anyway, what of my steed for the day, well for a start off, in spite of the lack of anywhere to put the coal, it seemed to be a potent beast:

Could Santa & Rudolf keep up?

The driver's controls were uncluttered and ergonomically laid out

I doubt that all the fittings were entirely as built by English Electric...

...though obviously some were

 Crew comfort was obviously something that English Electric had taken into consideration when they designed it, for a start off, it may have lacked a fire, but it had a cooker element for warming up your lunch on, and there were nicely padded seats to sit on, as well as heaters for both the driver and the second man.

You could still cook your bacon sarnies on that.

Luxury compared to the spartan wooden seats on GWR locos

Cab heater... nice and warm

 D6948, boasts a "Driver Safety Device" (DSD).  You might be forgiven for thinking that this is some kind of seat belt or possibly air bags to mitigate injury in event of an accident however it turns out just to be a euphemism for "Dead Man's Switch", fail to depress the foot plate or alternatively press the DSD button, and the brakes will kick in automagically.

DSD button

DSD footplate, not to be confused with the cooking ring next door to it

The forward view was quite impressive compared to any of our steam locos, possibly 4270 running bunker first gets as clear a view, but that's about it.

You can actually see where you're going!

 Our troubles weren't over at this point, arriving at Winchcombe to collect our stock, we discovered that there was a problem with the motorised points at the south west end of the station.

The blades crossed over OK, but we didn't get the ground signal to proceed

 It turned out that although the points were working correctly, the facing point lock mechanism inside the point motor wasn't engaging correctly, having gone out of adjustment in the cold.  The solution was to summon James who was the Duty Operations Officer on the day to come along with the crank handle, point clips  and a block of wood to manually put the points into position and clip them in place:

James cranks the handle...

...clips the point...

...and inserts the block of wood.

 The points are now set and with the permission of the signal man to pass the signal at danger, we can finally proceed and connect up to the stock waiting for us in platform 2.

Able to proceed at last

 James had to go through the whole rigmarole again, to let Dinmore Manor in with the first train load of Santa's guests.

Dinmore Manor approaches from Cheltenham Race Course

 The point of using D6948, rather than any of the other diesels was that it was capable of providing steam heat:

Seems to be working OK

 Normally when approaching Greet tunnel, I'd be thinking about the water level, how much pressure we had, making sure that the blower was up a bit and being ready to crack open the fire hole door to provide a bit of light on the footplate.  On the diesel, there was nothing to do, except perhaps grab a photo

Approaching Greet tunnel

 I had been slightly concerned by the reading on the fuel gauge:

uh oh!

 I was informed that it always says that, regardless of how much is in there.  Apparently there was about 700 gallons, or about 700 miles worth.  I'm glad to say that I get rather better than that fuel consumption out of my car... there again, my car can't carry quite so many passengers.

One of the few jobs left that the second man has to do, is hooking on and off.  This turned out to be more difficult than it is on any of our steam locos, as there are rather more pipes down there to get in the way.  It didn't help that the vac pipes at both ends are new and stiff and didn't line up with the ones on the carriages very well.  Time and adjustment will ease that.

Not much room!

 We hadn't had any opportunity to liberally apply tinsel before we set off, our token decoration consisting of the Santa special headboard, no central lamp bracket meant even that was relegated to one side.

Looking back we should have got it to say "Ho Ho" rather than 2B37.

 I was interested to note that it sported a shed code plate for 86A below one of its numbers.  86A was Newport (1950 - 1963) and Cardiff Canton (1963 - 1973).  Having been built in 1964, would imply that it was based at Cardiff Canton in its early life.

86A. 

 By the time that I had discovered an interest in trains, many were in BR blue with the full yellow front ends, but there were still a few around in green with the small yellow warning panel and the late BR (ferret and dart board) crest on the sides:

Ferret and dart board

Neil pulls away from Cheltenham Race Course

 The fact that the ground was frozen, and snow was in the forecast didn't deter the line side clearance and drainage gangs, who are obviously made of stern stuff.

Line side clearance in action.

 The drainage gang didn't even have nice brush fires to huddle around.

Crossing Dinmore Manor at Gotherington

Arriving at Winchcombe The North Pole, elves waiting on the platform

 Why did Santa's little helper go to see the doctor?   Because he had "Low Elf esteem".

That is the standard of joke put online by Jack Boskett. Mercifully his photography is far better.  Don't give up the day job Jack.

By the time that we got back to Winchcombe, the steam brake on 5526 had been adjusted and was operating correctly again, so she had been fetched up to Winchcombe ready to take over our train.  The Carriage and Wagon dept don't miss a trick, spotting an idle steam loco, they had commandeered it and got it testing out the steam heating on a short rake of carriages that are soon to be put into service.

5526 in the distance, testing steam heat.

 All we had to do now, was to hand over the "Santa Express" headboard to the crew of 5526, and head on back to Toddington.

Once back at Toddington,  I found Jonathan cleaning and priming one of the brake hangers for 3850.  He was doing it outside the shed, as it was warmer than inside.

Jonathan, wire brushing a brake hanger...

...and later on, after a coat of primer...

...still more waiting inside the shed to be done.

 Probably done last week, but unreported were the spring hanging links and cups from Dinmore Manor's old tender, which were now in grey undercoat.

Waiting for a few top coats

 It is hoped to get the boilers of both 3845 and 2874 non-destructively tested (NDT) shortly.  To that end, Martin, David and Roger were removing small sections of recently applied primer for the NDT probes to attach to.

David (l) and Roger preparing 2874's boiler.

Des was still in the shed, along with the removed axle, nobody seemed to know what was happening with this.

Des (Diesel Electric Shunter)

And finally, the snow that I had wished for on Saturday turned up a day later on Sunday.  Unfortunately there was rather more than an artistic dusting to look good in photos, and the decision was taken in light of the fact that volunteers and customers alike would have difficulty in getting there, that the services would have to be cancelled.  It was a very difficult decision to have to be taken, and I don't envy the parents of the children having to explain why Santa couldn't get there because of the snow.  Hopefully the weather will improve in time for the remaining Santa trains.

5526 in the snow on Sunday, photo courtesy of Ben Evason