Playing with matches

Cast your mind back to when you were young, your mother probably told you not to do all sorts of things, 'run with scissors', 'talk to strange men' and 'play with matches'.  If I'm good at anything at all, it is ignoring sound advice, in fact if there had been an Olympic sport for it, I'd have been a dead cert for the gold medal.  So yesterday it was the turn to cross 'playing with matches' off of the to do list that my mother had inadvertently provided me with all those years ago.   Apparently I was now ready for my final 'lighting up' assessment and after a midweek flurry of emails it had been decided that I should 'strike while the boiler iron was hot' and get it done soon rather than leave it until next season.  Subsequent emails from Sean Nielsen with the reassuring subject line of 'Failing to pass light up course' followed  during which a plan was hatched wherein Cliff Faulkner would mark me for the lighting up part of the process yesterday morning, and as he had to disappear off part way through the day, Sean would cover for him, taking me along too and then he would mark the disposal part of the process at the end of the day.  I am informed that there are a few people who read my ramblings who have little or no interest in steam locomotives.  For their benefit, I should explain that there is more to it than just pressing a 'start button' and off you go, more even than just bunging a lighted match on a few lumps of coal.  Anyway, in a change to the published roster, 2807 was the chosen engine for the day, the only one I had so far not had an opportunity to light up. The pre-light up safety checks seemed to go off ok and soon we had a bit of a fire spluttering into life.  Damp wood from the wood store took a little bit more encouraging to burn than I had hoped for, but eventually we had a good fire covering the grate and pressure coming up on the gauge. 2807 had been out on a special during the week and so was still pretty clean from that mercifully as I had little time left for cleaning her and as she hadn't done any Santa Specials so far this season and had yet to be tinseled up.

2807 wearing the last of the tinsel

There hadn't been much tinsel left in the decorating box, but we gave it our best shot.

Cliff prepares to set back off of the pit

The different loco owning groups specify different light up & disposal procedures. 2807's owning group favour a morning disposal process, so the smoke box and ash pan had to be emptied before she could leave for the day's work.  Emptying out the ash pan of 2807 is one of the least easy jobs as she no longer has a functional ash pan door to let the ash out, it's a case of get under with a hose pipe to squirt through the damper doors to deaden the dust, then scrape it out manually, finally finishing off with spraying water over the brake rigging etc to remove any ash that got caught on the way out.  Ed and James are caught emptying out the pit of the ash that I have just cleaned out of 2807's ash pan. Looking closely at this photo, it was raining at this point in time, real GWSR volunteers don't mind a drop of rain they carry on regardless.

Ed & James emptying the pit in the rain

Once 2807 had disappeared off shed to take take kids to Winchcombe the North Pole to see Santa, there were myriad jobs that needed doing around the place.  Some set off to work on the NRM's 4F, 44027, others to polish up Austerity 0-6-0ST, Earl David in preparation for her heading off to the Avon Valley railway shortly. Dan Wigg was up for an assessed lighting of a warming fire in Foremarke Hall.  George is seen here firing up one of the yard shunters in order to pull Foremarke Hall out of the shed in readiness for that or at least he would have been able to be seen if the shunter hadn't been making so much smoke.  I wondered if it didn't think that it was a steam engine not a diesel shunter.

George Forrest hides in a smoke screen created by the diesel shunter

I decided that I should replace some of the wood that I had just burnt in lighting up 2807 and broke up wooden pallet into firebox door sized chunks and put them in the wood store..... at least I did until it started raining again, whereupon the lure of the nice dry mess coach with its kettle and tea bags was just too much to overcome.  Breaking up pallets is quite therapeutic, but when it's raining, tea is even more therapeutic again.

Wood store and dismantled pallets

 Arriving at the mess coach, I discovered that one of the final renovation tasks was underway, Mike Wathen was busy plumbing in the new wash basins. I usually ask people if they mind being photographed for the purpose of this blog, often receiving unprintable replies or the sight of someone running away at speed, so it made a pleasant change to be asked to hold on a minute whilst he did something a bit more interesting like bend a pipe.  I only had to bribe him with one up of tea as well.

Mike Wathen plumbing in the new wash basins

A lesson learned last week, is that is that even two gloves is not always enough when extracting long  fire bars out of the firebox.  The palms of rigger gloves may be well insulated and quite capable of surviving very hot temperatures, the backs of them rather less so.  This glove was one I used last week.  You'll be pleased to know that although the glove came off rather badly, no bloggers were harmed in the making of this photo.  Note too, the Jammy Dodgers packet on the table, a sure sign that Tony Stockwell is about somewhere.

The glove that has curled up its toes

From here, things start to get a bit complicated, Cliff was to be relieved at 16:00 at Winchcombe, yet Sean and I were in Toddington.  2807 was of course going to end up in Toddington. Luckily for us, the 3 car DMU set was out and about on the Northern section of the line doing its own Santa Specials, so we decided to see if we could flag it down and hitch a lift as far as the infamous Chicken Curve with a view to walking from there into Winchcombe.  It wasn't going all the way to Winchcombe as there was another Santa there, and apparently it's a bit like a matter & anti-matter collision should two Santas collide. The DMU wasn't supposed to stop at Toddington on this leg of it's journey, but the Station Master had organised the signals to be set to stop it anyway as there were a few late arrivals who had missed it earlier and wanted to get on too. 

The view ahead from the DMU

I turned round to grab a shot of the DMU as Sean & I set off to walk along Chicken Curve.  It wasn't until I looked at this photo a few moments ago that I noticed that the head board read 'Special'.  Somehow I don't think that I'll hear the end of that for quite some time.

Special

To cut a longish story short, we took over from Cliff, shunted the 8F's stock into the carriage sidings, transported some tired little boys & girls back to Cheltenham along with the presents that Santa had bestowed on them and then set off back to Toddington with the empty coaches.  Spending a little time out on the footplate with Sean recently has obviously been doing me some good as I seemed to manage to keep the grate covered, the pressure up and the boiler fairly full of water.  In fact soon after we hit level ground after the 3 arches bridge, there was a brief moment of 'heavy feathering' from the safety valves, which to the untutored eye might have been mistaken for blowing off.  That's not to say that there wasn't the occasional clang of shovel hitting the fire hole door followed by an expletive, but it was a much smaller ratio than last week.

Next followed the assessed disposal process resulting in 2807 being put to bed in the shed.  Normally at this point it would be a case of signing off and driving home for my tea.... and a much needed shower.  On this occasion, however this was also the date of the steam loco dept's Christmas dinner, 18:30 at the Harvest Home pub back in Winchcombe.  We were booked to return back at Toddington at 17:45, leaving 45 minutes for me to cover off the disposal (which for 2807 in the evening is commendably little) then head off to Winchcombe.  It should have been achievable, but as it turns out it wasn't, even with Tony Stockwell at the regulator doing his best to recover time.  The need to shunt the 8F's stock at Winchcombe when we started meant that we set off quarter of an hour down on the timetable. That followed by the need to coal up 2807 when we got back to Toddington conspired together to add up to me not getting to Winchcombe until an hour later than I should have done.  My apologies to all who were sat around waiting for me. To those who are interested, photos from the Christmas dinner will hopefully be provided by Tina Sutton in the near future and will become the subject of another blog post.

Finally my thanks to Cliff & Sean for taking the time to assess me yesterday as well as the myriad people who have signed off light-ups/warming fires for me recently.  Apparently there is a nice shiny new 'steam raiser certificate' sat in my mail slot in the mess coach.  It should also be mentioned that both Cliff & Tony were re-assessed as fireman & driver respectively and passed with flying colours, I had no doubt that they would of course.

This seems to be an appropriate way to finish off


   

Retirement of Steam Footplate man Tom Couling

On Sunday 9^th December 2012 GWSR steam locomotive crew member Tom Couling completed his last official turn of duty as fireman on 8F locomotive 45160 after approx 28 years of service on the footplate.  Tom joined the GWSR in the very early years and at first was an active member of the Permanent Way Department helping to lay the first track work at Toddington, in preparation for the railway running its first passenger trains.

  Tom soon became involved in the steam locomotive department and is one of the few original members to begin training to crew the locomotives ready for the first public services.  Like many other members of the department Tom has worked on the rebuilds of locomotives Peckett 1976, 15” Hunslet “King George” and the overhaul of 16” Hunslet “Robert Nelson No 4”.  He has also been involved in the building of the first locomotive inspection pit and erection of the original water tower at Toddington.  All in all Tom is a pioneer of the railway's Steam Locomotive department and hopefully will continue to be active within the dept for many years to come, indeed, he is currently working on the restoration of the NRM’s 4F locomotive regularly attending on the Wednesday work days.

In addition to the GWSR Tom is involved in “Classic Bus” Restoration and is a member of the Gloucester Model Railway Club, having built countless models over the years. 

As a thank you for his many years of footplate service, the department presented him with an inscribed book on the subject of model railways and some of his fellow department members and friends joined him at Winchcombe station in a celebratory drink (Apple Juice – as he was still on duty at the time) and a sticky doughnut.

Tom Couling & Andy Meredith

Tom Couling

Thank you once again Tom, you will always be welcome on the footplate.

Andrew Meredith

Chairman Steam Locomotive Department Management Team

The Long Weekend (part 2)

Well as I suppose there was a part 1 to last weekend, there should also be a part 2.  My usual Sunday lie-in was sacrificed on the altar of steam and at stupid O'Clock I pitched up at Toddington ready to get Foremarke Hall spruced up and ready for the day's work.  The first loco off shed in the morning though was to be 8F, 45160, crewed by Ben Evason & Tom Couling.

Ben Evason in seasonal attire

The rule about not wearing red on operational duties is apparently more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule during the Santa Season :-)   

It was announced today that Ben will be taking over from Jeff Lacey as roster clerk.  After 15 years of service as roster clerk, Jeff has decided that it is a good time to relinquish that particlular role. Tom Couling was firing for Ben and today was to be Tom's last turn before retiring from the footplate after 28 years service on the railway.  I am anticipating a report soon regarding Tom's time on the GWSR & the presentation that was made at Winchcombe during the afternoon.

Tom Couling & Ben Evason

I have been in elevated company these last few days, on Saturday I was being driven around on Foremarke Hall by Andy Meredith, the current chairman of the steam locomotive dept, and on Sunday I was being driven on the same engine by Ian Butler who it has been announced today will be taking over as chairman in January and whose driving instructor for the day, Mark Young has been announced as being the deputy chairman and consequently the chairman for 2014.  Although a trainee driver, Ian never seems happier than when he is shoveling coal about.

Ian Butler

Mark Young noticed that one of the fire irons had become rather bent.  No problem for Mark, just heat it up to red hot in the fire then lever it back into shape underneath a convenient bit of track:

Mark Young

Tina & Mark

Not many firemen on the GWSR insist on fixing their lipstick before having their photo taken, but Tina does.  She more than kindly passed the shovel over to me for a while.  Whilst the clangs of shovel hitting the firehole door hadn't diminished much since Saturday, I hope that the accompanying expletives had.  Tina has long since coveted Tom Couling's firing shovel which has now been loaned to her on a long term basis.  She was delighted when we got back to Toddington at the end of the day and found it in the mess coach waiting for her.

Many thanks indeed to Andy, Jeff & Tom for all the hard work that they have put into the roles that they have, or are in the process of relinquishing, doubtless they will all relish the free time that they will now have on their hands.

Congratulations to Ben, Mark and Ian on their appointments, I am sure that they will all prove to be a great success in the roles that they are about to take up and judging by the number of emails that have been whizzing by during the course of today, they are also extremely popular appointments amongst the department members.

4270 reunited with her boiler

As mentioned in the last entry, 4270 has now been reunited with her boiler after a long absence.   Many thanks to Paul Stratford who has kindly provided the following report of the event:-

  

Thursday 3rd December dawned cold with a gold and blood red sunrise over the Cotswold escarpment as Ian Carpenter, Mark Young and Paul Stratford signed the Ops Office register at 7am. In the car park at Toddington an articulated transporter painted in colours that matched the sunrise had arrived the previous evening from Crewe bearing the newly refurbished boiler, itself in red oxide primer, for GWR 2-8-0 tank loco 4270. The huge Scania four axle tractor unit was fitted with an enormous telescopic crane with a 100 ton short lift capacity and with a lift capacity of 1 ton at the incredible full extension of 100 feet.

The task for the day, to refit the boiler to the refurbished frames of the former resident of the well known Barry scrapyard.

The first lift of the day involved removing the boiler from the trailer and lowering it down onto the awaiting newly fabricated ashpan. Whilst this excercise was  carried out the rolling chassis of 4270 was shunted around the yard and onto the unloading road.With a small degree of adjustment carried out by Andy Tranter who had traveled down from Crewe to oversee the whole operation the scene was set for the boiler to be again hoisted ready to be fitted to the frames.

 But hold on, by this time everyone involved was thoroughly cold in the by now overcast and subzero conditions. Guess who was sent to make the first of seemingly endless cups of tea?

The rolling chassis was carefully pushed forward with the resident 08 shunter into position alongside the suspended boiler. 

Steadied by ropes the the boiler was swung into position and carefully lowered into the frames, not without a few anxious moments and minimal clearances the boiler and frames were once again reunited after being separated at Toddington some eight years ago. A heart warming moment on a cold damp December day.

There still remains a huge task to complete the restoration but the end is certainly on the horizon.

The long weekend (part 1)

I'm not entirely sure how this happened, but somehow I found myself booked on for three days this weekend.  Don't worry, I'm rarely entirely sure how or why things happen to me, it's just situation normal as far as I'm concerned.  Just in case you're wondering, in this case the weekend included Friday afternoon as well as the more usual Saturday and Sunday.  My presence yesterday (Friday) is an easy one to explain, I needed to get in an assessed warming fire done and had arranged for Roger Molesworth to scrutinise my every move in getting a warming fire going in Foremarke Hall.  The student notes on how to do it made no reference to what you should do if you turn up and there is somebody inside the firebox fixing loose stay nuts.  "loose articles on grate - spanners, brushes etc", yes, people no. Eventually I decided that I should wait for him to finish before lighting the warming fire, though frankly it was a bit nippy yesterday, he might have appreciated it if I had.  Roger & I had a cup of tea whilst we waited and when we got back Adrian had finished, so I checked the grate again and noticed a large die about half way down, which was later claimed to have been left as a test to make sure that I was doing the job properly.

There are no photos of the light up of the warming fire, however here is a shot of 4270 complete with boiler which turned up yesterday.  A report on it's arrival and fitting into the frames is anticipated shortly.

4270 with boiler

Lighting a warming fire is all well and good, but to learn as much from it as possible, you really need to turn up the following morning to see how it burnt overnight.  Ideally somewhere between 10 & 20 PSI would be nice, the great fears are that you either under did it and the fire went out overnight and the loco is stone cold or worse still, you seriously over did it and the loco blows off all night and runs out of water in the boiler.  60 PSI was probably erring towards the latter, but Sean Nielsen the booked fireman for Foremarke Hall seemed to be very happy with that.  Personally I was just happy that I'd not managed to break the engine somehow. 

There were two trains out running Santa Specials today, the 8F was out first with Chris Brooks & Cliff Faulkner, here lost in a shroud of steam as well as Jamie Christie who managed to elude my camera today.

Chris & Cliff

8F Heading off to find Santa

Foremarke Hall was off soon after, here watched by some of the people who cleaned her today, Andrew joined us only last week, and today was Paul's first day.  I hope they enjoyed their time with us.

Andy, Andrew, Matt & Paul

The pole is the one installed in one of the early log entries, no sign of lights having been attached to it yet, but I am informed that it is imminent.

Andy looks unconcerned as he is about to be engulfed in steam

Backing towards the empty coaching stock

John Cruxon, Andy Meredith & Paul Stratford

Paul turned the tables on me during the course of the as he spent a fair bit of time on the lineside photographing Foremarke Hall as she went past with the Santa Specials.

About to receive the token at Toddington signal box

Exiting Greet tunnel

So far so good, empty coaching stock move to Cheltenham Race Course station to pick up the passengers to take to Winchcombe (AKA North Pole) to meet Santa.  Cheltenham Race Course station was swarming with young kids.  If I'd known that there was going to be so many I'd have set traps. Not just kids as well, but hordes of Elves, I thought I'd died and woken up in Middle Earth.  I was half expecting Bilbo Baggins & Gandalf to appear at any moment.  Anyway against my better judgement we allowed the kids on board and set off for Winchcombe the North Pole.  Yet more elves..... and a snowman!  I was beginning to fear that that it  hadn't been PG Tips in my morning cup of tea in the mess coach after all! 

Elf and safety Snowman

Much later, the kids had finished visiting Santa, amazingly all of them seemed to have made it onto his 'nice' list and it was time for him to wave them off back to Cheltenham.

Santa and his helpers

Somehow Sean managed to convince the tea room staff at Winchcombe that there were 6 people on the footplate (rule book says no more than 4) so we ended up with 2 mince pies each rather than one.

Meanwhile, back at Toddington, Andy Webber and his helpers set to work on 2807.  Thanks to Dan Wigg for the next two photos.

Andy Webber

Andy Webber

After this, the photo trail dries up as Sean threw the shovel in my direction, and frankly shoveling is hard enough without trying to take photos at the same time. I'd only have shoveled my camera into the firebox.  Actually when I say 'threw the shovel', he passed me one of the 'pool' shovels on the engine rather than his own pride & joy.  He'd already seen how expertly I manage to clout the firebox door before and knew better than to risk his own.  He said afterwards that towards the end of the day after it had got dark, he couldn't see much, but had a clue as to how well it was going by the series of clangs and expletives as we went along.  
Other points of note were that some regular members of the steam dept came along as passengers along with various family members.  Ade Showell was caught taking photos of some of his family:

Ade Showell

We changed drivers as well part way through the day, Andy Meredith stepping off the footplate to be replaced by Ian Carpenter.  One of the nicer features of the day that we had plenty of time sat waiting in Winchcombe and were able to welcome lots of the kids and their parents onto the footplate, which some of them seemed to enjoy even more than meeting Santa. I was impressed by the nature of the questions that some of them asked and both Andy's & Ian's capability to describe how a steam locomotive works in the sort of language that a five or six year old can understand.  The only down point to the whole day was that I need to get an assessed disposal of a locomotive done, and after we finished, Foremarke Hall was down to haul the Carol Service special down the line, so there was nothing for us to do.  Never mind, all being well I'll be able to manage that tomorrow.

Santa Specials

Yesterday marked the first day of December and the first of the season's Santa Specials. It was also blooming cold.  The temperature gauge in the car on my drive in was indicating figures that would cause alarm to brass monkeys never mind GWSR volunteers.  Not being a complete fool (no sniggering at the back) I elected to get a bucket of warm soapy water and clean the warm boiler barrel of 8F, 45160 rather than clean the motion & wheels which wouldn't have been warm.  Dan was obviously feeling the cold even more than I was and decided that he was going to clean the outside of the smoke box, which gets very warm, in fact usually too warm for comfort.  You can just make out his legs on the left of this picture, the rest of him was lost in the clag emanating from the chimney:

Dan

Strict instructions had been emailed that the Santa Specials should be jollied up with decorations and to that end, nearly everybody present at some time or another attached various decorations to the hand rails or smoke box door:

Dan gets decorating

Andrew & Ed

Note the battery powered sparkly lights on the smoke box door grab rail.  The "not to be moved" board has appeared because somebody (probably Cliff Faulkner) had gone underneath to attend to the locos lubricating points.  It was Andrew's first day as a member of the steam loco dept. If you read this Andrew, I hope that you enjoyed your day with us and that we managed to make you feel very welcome.

Today marked a few more firsts as well.  This was Steve Oddy's first trip in his new capacity as driving instructor and for Cliff Faulkner, this was his first official driving lesson.

Cliff Faulkner & Steve Oddy

Firing instructor Clive Norton and his pupil Chris Bristow spent much of the morning hiding from my camera on the footplate, their excuse was that it was much warmer up there beside a roaring fire.

Santa couldn't be kept waiting and soon enough the 8F was disappearing off shed to collect children to take to Santa's grotto.  

8F,45160 setting off

Now that word of the existence of this blog has got out, somebody decided that it would be a nice idea to have a shot of the posse of people who had turned up to prep the engine today.  Senior Firing instructor Sean Nielsen was present too, but like me feels more comfortable behind a camera rather than in front of it so he neatly side-stepped out of the way.

Dan, Ed, Andrew & Tim

After the group photo, it was back to the nice warm mess coach to try and thaw out by one of the radiators and consume tea and biscuits.  I notice that Tony Stockwell has provided a department wide Christmas card.  Rather than go to the expense of getting a card for everybody, just sign this one and put a donation into the 'tea fund'.  Tony chose a rather enchanting wintry scene including Collett 0-4-2T, 1442 in the happy carefree days before she was bricked into a museum in Tiverton.

1442 as she is today

1442 on the steam loco dept Christmas card

After copious quantities of tea and biscuits had been consumed, Sean, Dan & myself set off to grab a photo or two of Princess Elizabeth as she ran along the mainline from London Paddington to Worcester through Honeybourne. Before the Santa Special had set off, Clive Norton had provided us with directions to a suitable viewing spot by a level crossing near Honeybourne where the line went through open enough countryside for photography purposes.  Roughly speaking the directions were to drive through some small village or other then turn left four or five times until you reached the crossing. Personally I was convinced that we would end up driving around in circles, but amazingly enough we found the right spot.   Honeybourne is of course the ultimate goal of the GWSR. Currently we are working on getting as far as Broadway where we are rebuilding the station, after that, only four more miles to Honeybourne.  Once we get there of course, the dream is that mainline railtours will run from London to Cheltenham Race Course along the GWSR.  Something to look forward to indeed.

Lizzie nearing Honeybourne

Dan was convinced that I wouldn't be able to Photoshop all of the electrical wires running across the field out of the scene without it being noticeable.  Never forget Dan, the camera always lies!  Princess Elizabeth's boiler ticket has nearly expired now, so sadly there are very few more chances to catch her at work for a while.

Back at Toddington, there were several tasks that needed attending too.  Most of them involved being stood out in the freezing cold and shoveling ballast from one place to another.  The one that didn't, involved painting up the vestibule of the nice warm mess coach.  Did I mention that it was warm?  Still not being a complete idiot, that is the one I decided to do.  The vestibule is at the end of the coach nearest the toilet block, I lost track of the number of people who having had too many cups of tea, had to squeeze past, usually getting paint on themselves in the process only to repeat the process as they came back.  Speaking of the toilet block, it appears to have delusions of grandeur and thinks that it is rather like the Hotel California, "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave".  It appears that once you have shut the door behind you, it refuses to open again.  Plaintive cries for help in escaping were heard several times throughout the course of the day. 

Eventually of course, Santa had been visited by all the children and departed in his sleigh leaving the 8F free to return to shed at Toddington.  Note that the pits here have lights in them, a luxury that we didn't have when operating out of Winchcombe.  

45160 at the end of the day