The Delicate Art of Delegation

To start with, there has been a significant development in the yard during the week, the water tank has been craned into place.  This will make topping up the water tanks/tenders of our locos before the first trip of the day much easier.  I imagine that it means that we'll no longer be dependant on the milk tanker (full of water of course, not milk) for boiler washouts too.

Over 6 tons of water tank takes to the air

Dropping it into place

Securing the bolts

The above three photos courtesy of Pete Gutteridge.

Job done, photo courtesy of Dan Wigg

 There are still a few jobs to be done before it can be used, such as fitting the arm, but the project has taken a significant step forward.

Saturday was always going to be a bit difficult for me from a blog writing point of view.  To start with, I had a meeting in the morning that as it turned out lasted well into the afternoon. Lots of useful things were discussed and decisions made etc, but nothing that is appropriate to report here just yet.  For the latter part of the afternoon, I was to be involved as a guide for a large group (150 and 180 were both numbers that I heard, I certainly didn't count them all) of people associated with collecting Bachmann models. This presented me with a bit of a conundrum, how on earth was I to get any interesting stories regarding what was going on for this blog?  The answer was to delegate.  I left my recently acquired camerain the hands of somebody who preferred to remain anonymous, with instructions on how to use it and advice on obtaining a collection of photos that could be woven into an interesting and informative narrative (that's not to say that I have done, just that the potential was there). There are remarkably few people in the Steam Loco Dept that I would trust with my camera, I know exactly what sort of pictures I'd get if I left it in the hands a certain individuals. Anyway, suffice it to say, the majority of the pictures this week were not taken by me.

I have studiously avoided checking the collecting point for cleaning rags in the car park, it never appeared to be over flowing and there always appeared to be rags in the oil store.  The mysterious process by which they were transferred from the one place to the other was answered by seeing this photo of Paul with a collection of rags.  Conclusive evidence that men can multitask after all is provided by the fact that he is also shifting a wheel barrow with a bin in it.

Paul, myth busting

Sean oils up 4270 prior to the day's work

Steve ready to fire 4270

Meanwhile, round on the parlour road, 2807 was being prepared for the day ahead.  For reasons that had eluded me, the GWSR was to be descended upon by  host of people from Bachmann Model Rainways.  A brass "Bachmann" head board had been brought along and was now adorning the front of 2807. Phil had put it there.

I could have sworn I heard him singing a certain song

Trainee fireman, Mike hiding from the rain as best he can in 2807's cab

Once the headboard was in place, it was decided that it could use a spot of therapy with the Brasso, so off it came again. Graham provided the elbow grease.

Graham makes the headboard gleam

There was a helicopter out buzzing the trains with a photographer on board as part of the event.  I saw the helicopter from the window of the meeting room, but so far have yet to see any of the photos from the shoot.  

If you recollect from last week, 5542 has had a few issues with her grate, the cross member that the fire bars rest on has warped a bit and needed straightening out. The first task was to remove the all the fire bars and then the offending cross member:

I think that is Rob in 5542's firebox

Chris provided illumination

Could be anybody really!

Well a start has been made, a few bars are out

Now that is Rob, who appears to have changed places....

....with Chris

Job done, firebars removed, cross piece still visible though

The process from here, was to remove the cross piece and restore it to as new condition. This appears to have commenced with Steve putting the fear of God into it with a large hammer:

Steve gets busy with a hammer, Rob watches

The sad condition of the cross member is displayed by this photo, no wonder it had difficulty keeping the fire bars where they were supposed to be:

In need of some TLC.

The decision appears to have been taken to seperate the two halves and attend to each one individually:

One half awaiting attention

The time honoured technique of heating the recalcitrant item to a cherry red colour and then bashing it into submission with a sledge hammer appears to have been employed.

Eleanor applies the heat

Personally, I prefer burgers on my BBQ

Once it was deemed to be hot enough, it was shown no mercy:

Chris hangs on, while Scott applies a little sledge hammer therapy.

It was about this time that I was able to escape from my meeting and liberate my camera, just in time to generate some hot air of my own and conduct the yard tour for the last group of visitors from Bachmann:

I was collared by Glyn (in the Hi-Viz) who was organising the turn out.

Glyn shepherding some of them into the diesel shed.

I ended up with three different groups of varying sizes to guide around the yard, which I mostly confined to pointing out 35006, 2874, 5542 and the recently erected water column and trying my best to say something vaguely interesting about each.  I suspect that I may have failed in that objective.  Matters weren't helped by the fact that for the first couple of groups, the class 20 was lurking over by the diesel shed with its engine running, drowning out everything that I was saying.  Probably a good thing really.

I noticed in my travels that the piston valves from 5542 had been removed, I have no idea why, but they weren't where they're supposed to be.

Something missing!

Dan touches up the paint on a few rusty bolts on 35006

Fresh from the same meeting that I had been in, Len & Mark have now found gainful employment on the brake mechanism of Dinmore Manor's tender

A bit more work required before it will fit

Another refugee from the same meeting, Kenneth was to be found painting the inside of Dinmore Manor's tender.

Kenneth at work.

I found Graham a bit later on, nearly wearing a variety of safety items, it turns out that he had been removing the scale form inside 2874's boiler.

Graham

Their work complete on straightening out the cross piece for 5542's grate, Scott & Chris reassemble and refit it:

Bolting it up.

Chris puts it back in place

Only around 40 or so firebars to refit now

Foremarke Hall's elephant ears have been undercoated

It seems that there was a fair bit happening on Sunday too, photos of the first coat of concrete protecting paint in the new pit being applied have arrived in my email account.  The second coat should have happened today by the time that you read this.

Why use a paint brush when a yard broom will do

David at work

The above two photos courtesy of Donna Ludlow
And finally, I am the bearer of several pieces of excellent news: 

On Sunday, we acquired a new fireman:

Well Done!

Inspector Irving congratulating fireman Clarke

 Congratulations James.  The above two photos courtesy of George Forrest.

My erstwhile firing instructor, Ade has also passed out as a driver.  As he was being assessed mid-week, when I couldn't be present, I gave him strict instructions to organise a suitable passing out photo for this blog, which he has managed to do.  The photo was very kindly taken by Neil Carr, who accidentally managed to line up a couple of fire irons in the background such that they look like antennae on Ade's head.  The dangers of delegation are it seems very real.

Driver Showell being congratulated by Inspector Lacey

 Congratulations Ade, hopefully we'll get a turn out as a crew sometime in the near future.  I promise to take a little more care when I point my camera at you.

Last but not least in line for congratulations are Ed and Laura.  Ed popped the question over the weekend and Laura said yes.

Ed even got up on one knee.

It's not just railway uniforms that they like to dress up in evidently.  As Ed is well advanced in fireman training, and Laura is a cleaner, who knows, we might even have a husband and wife crew on the GWSR in a few years time, that would be something to look forward to. Congratulations to both of you.

2807 Requisitioned

Originally on the bank holiday weekend, I was rostered to be out on 5542 on the holiday Monday. A couple of weeks ago, a plea from Tina was emailed to many of the firemen looking for somebody to take her turn on the Sunday as she now had some sort of contractual obligation family event to attend instead.  Being a knight in shining armour Quite fancying another day out on the footplate, I came to her rescue.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and the bank holiday weekend Sunday was blessed with a typical bank holiday weather forecast, unremitting rain.  For a change, I was rostered for 4270 (my last 5 turns have been on 5542, so I was looking forward to something different).  Added to that, 4270 has a nice enclosed cab like 5542, we would laugh in the face of the storm that was to come.  On the Saturday I learned that 4270 had been failed with a broken spring and would be out of action until a new one had been sourced.  My steed for the Sunday would now be 2807.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with our locomotives, just think of 5542 and 4270 as being like your average family car, whereas 2807 is more like a convertible that has lost its windscreen and roof, at least when running tender first.  Once that analogy has planted itself in your mind, take a moment to reflect upon which one you would prefer under the circumstances.  I feared that I would no longer be laughing in the face of the storm that was to come.   I packed an old trench coat into the boot of the car before setting off and hoped for the best.  As I was down for train 2 on the red timetable, I arrived an hour or so after Andy who had been rostered on 5542 on train 1.  No sooner had I emerged from my car, than I was met by a fluent stream of Anglo Saxon which when translated amounted to the fact that 5542 was in a bad way and that Andy would be requisitioning 2807 from me and running that on train one instead.  At that moment, my driver, Steve, arrived and after a bit more translation, we established that the grate on 5542 had partially collapsed and needed some remedial work before it could be used.  This was of course a challenge, could Steve succeed where Andy had not.  Well it turned out that he could, and after a complete rebuild of the grate we were good to go.

The front half of the firebars temporarily on one side of the cab

The back half on the other

 Once I'd got the fire lit and 5542 was starting to come into steam, I took a quick look inside the David Page shed to see if I could spot any signs of recent activity.  There were a couple of new bits of concreting:

On road 7....

...and between roads 8 & 9

 I also noticed that the boiler cladding for Foremarke Hall which had been sat in the shed has now benefited from a first coat of paint.

Will some scallywag paint them black?

 Back inside 5542, there were a few things to note, firstly Steve was keen to disseminate the information to our drivers that the right hand section of the lubrication pot in the cab of 5542 doesn't require oiling as it doesn't connect to anything.  Apparently somebody keeps filling it up anyway.

Don't fill the one on the right without the trimming

 Added to that, I was greeted by one of the fireman's last favourite things to find, a full glass of water.

Absolutely rammed full..... joy!

 Getting this going without blowing off was going to be a challenge, especially without steam heating being operational on 5542.  Many firemen have used a little too much coal in lighting up and found themselves blowing off furiously, long before departure.

Must be 10:00, 2807 is off down the line, at least I think she's in there somewhere.

There was a suspicion that Andy was willing the grate to collapse on us again, he certainly seemed to be disappointed that we had a fire on the grate and that all was well as he went past.

Andy, looking disappointed

For reasons too complicated to explain, or perhaps just because I've forgotten, the cleaners stayed with their original locomotives, so I now had Eleanor instead of Ash. Remember that full glass of water? I had a cunning plan. If I let her fire the first trip, she would then be the one who had 5542 blowing off in the platform at Toddington. I could just sit back and deny any responsibility as we passed the mess coach and any volunteers who might mock the plight of the fireman with too much fire. Eleanor was wise to my plan and somehow, apart from a very brief moment at the point of departure kept everything perfectly under control and continued to do so for the whole round trip. Most importantly there was no blowing off as we sailed serenely into Winchcombe station and crossed 2807 coming back the other way.

The unsuspecting Eleanor coupling up 5542

 We took water at Cheltenham on the first trip,

Steve operated the water, I kept the elephant's trunk in order....

....well, sort of in order, it still has a bit of a leak

After taking water, Steve informed me that leaving the fasteners on the filler caps of the water tanks doing anything other than pointing forward offended his ex-military sensibilities.  Hitherto I had always settled for just having them tight enough to keep the lid down, but evidently that's not good enough.

Standing by its bed, ready for inspection.

 I can't tell you how strong the urge was to accidentally knock it out of line by a few degrees as I clambered down. 

The return journey ends with around a 50 minute layover at Toddington.  Putting more coal onto the fire at Winchcombe is rarely necessary, if you do you will probably find yourself blowing off whilst waiting to commence the next round trip.  The pressure can drop to what would otherwise be considered relatively low levels for that last mile or two and the fireman has to know when they should hold their nerve, or if they really do need to do something.  Eleanor was looking a little perturbed at the pressure gauge when we were a mile or so from being safely back.  Unusually I wasn't wearing a hat on Sunday, so I borrowed hers and hung it over the pressure gauge.  Unfortunately my journalistic instincts temporarily abandoned me and I failed to take a photo of either the hat on the pressure gauge or the mildly indignant Eleanor who was keen to be reunited with her head gear.  I'll have to leave that to your imagination.

Back at Toddington safe and sound, Steve fetches the product of a different kind of kettle

Thinking to myself, "I bet you can't do that again", I let Eleanor fire the second round trip, just to make it interesting, I made her do all the other stuff, calling signals, tokens, watching in and out of the platforms, watching crossings etc that I had done the first time round.  Annoyingly, she was even better this time.

Thus far, the predicted deluge had failed to materialise, I was beginning to wish that I had been out on 2807 after all.   Eventually, the heavens did open of course and it was a doubly disappointed Jonathan (driver) and Andy (fireman) that we passed at Winchcombe.  Our fire was still on the grate and we were bone dry, a claim that they couldn't make themselves.

Jonathan and Andy, soaked through and regretting commandeering 2807

Eleanor & Steve watching for the "Right away" at Winchcombe.

Eleanor firing.

 Down at Cheltenham, I resorted to subterfuge.  Just before we set off back up the line, I bought a Magnum (other chocolate coated ice creams do exist) for the three of us.  I've been caught out like this before, firing whilst trying to scoff fish and chips or eating a rapidly melting ice cream (and lets face it, the cab of 5542 even on a cold day will make one melt pretty rapidly) is a tall order.  All to no avail I'm afraid, more text book firing followed.

Crossing 2807 yet again, they were still annoyed that 5542's grate had held up.

 The bank holiday Monday, and I was back again, this time officially on 5542.  After disposing of it the night before, I was pleased to find that I had an easy to clean grate (without any fire bars hiding in the ash pan) and an inch or so of space in the glass.  Happy days.  Well, ok, perhaps not entirely happy, I hadn't seen a weather forecast, but the uniformly dark grey sky coupled with the persistent precipitation told me all that I needed to know.

5542 with a good fire in her belly

 Both the pits in the yard were blocked by other locos in various states of immovability, so we had left 5542 on the parlour road and 2807 had been left on the old ash pit.  This was the opposite way round to what we wanted them to be, as 5542 was on train 1 and would need to be prepped for service first.  Jamie, my driver somehow managed to squeeze himself through the gap between the boiler and frames to make a start on oiling up as many of the bits of the inside motion and axle boxes that he could reach whilst we waited for 2807 to get up enough steam to be able to evacuate the pit.

Jamie is in there somewhere, I didn't even try to follow him in to get a photo

 Once the locos had swapped positions, The crew of 2807 were already wet and the day was only going to get worse for them. They abandoned all hope of staying dry and even drank their tea in the rain.

Drinking tea in the rain... photo taken from the nice warm cab of 5542

 The inch of water space had proved to be a life saver, we were off at 10:00 with the first train with no drama from the safety valves.

Off on our way

Of course, there may have been "drama" elsewhere.

 The inclement weather brought out all sorts of protective apparel.

Staying dry, Winchcombe signalman style.

Jamie watches as Howard puts the bag in the tank

Wet boots time

 We don't usually run trains on a Monday, so unusually we spotted the Cheltenham Race Course Platform 2 team at work.  For more details of what they were up to, see here.

Just a few of the CRCP2 team at work.

Crossing 2807 again.

"Did you get my good side?"

 The beneficial effect of 5542's nice warm dry cab on a wet day can be negated by neglecting to call for the water to be turned off in time when topping up the tanks.

He's done it again!

 I let Howard have a go at firing and he had a pretty good stab at it.

All under control.

After keeping dry all day on the Sunday, it was Steve's turn to get wet on 2807

Steve wishing that he was on 5542 again

 The fact that we had a nice warm fire in 5542 hadn't gone unnoticed by others:

The guard, Nigel, sought relief from the rain at CRC

 I tried the same trick with the Magnums on Howard that I had played on Eleanor the day before, he didn't fall for it either

Howard, multitasking.

He just popped it back in its wrapper when he needed to do something

 My turn to be the tea boy between the second and third trips, I went looking for signs of activity in the yard while the kettle boiled.

Underneath 4270, spring changing was in progress

The new DMU car was being fettled

George had the engine running for the first time since 1992 later in the day

At least one of 35006's con rods has come off again for a little more polishing.  Fresh from his exploits at firing 35006 a few weeks ago, Dan spent a while making one of the con rods shine. Contrary to what it might say in the latest edition of a certain specialist railway publication, Dan is not the most recently qualified fireman on our railway, there are two others (one of whom is me) who have passed out since him.

Dan attending to one of 35006's con rods

Howard looking quite pleased with his day's work, as well he might.

 Later on:

Oops, he blotted his copy book

Well you can't get it 100% right all the time can you!

And finally, we often get asked questions by people who visit the footplate when we're sat in the platforms of our stations.  Popular questions would be "What does that bit do?", whilst pointing vaguely at something in the cab, "How much coal do you use per day?", or the ever popular "When was it built?".  Most crews will deal with this sort of thing quite easily (well ok, the last one often causes a bit of head scratching).  On Monday, one young lad (aged 9 or 10 at a guess) asked a new one on me, "What is the thermal efficiency of burning coal in a steam engine?".  I didn't have the first idea, not a Scooby Doo.  I've hacked into Santa's computer and placed the lad concerned on the "naughty list".  That'll teach him!