Henry, the Green Eyed Monster

Last Monday saw the Queen's Award for Volunteering ceremony take place at Toddington, amongst others, Chris was on hand to capture the proceedings for posterity.

35006's footplate was open for inspection

The GWSR's chairman, Alan Bielby, was besieged by photographers...

... and a step ladder!

The previous photos, all courtesy of Chris Crump.

The award ceremony spilled over into the David Page shed for a while, where concreting had taken place.  It had started before the dignitaries arrived, but had to pause while the guests came round the loco yard. Dame Janet Trotter saw the volunteers standing by the freshly poured concrete wearing boiler suits, leaning on their shovels and came over, asked us about them and shook their hands. I'm not sure that shaking hands was entirely advisable, most of our volunteers wander about with extremely grubby hands whilst on the railway at least.

Another section of concrete successfully poured

Last Friday’s Fire & Drive day, saw the last coach unhitched for maintenance (brake cylinder problem?). There was a delay while a spanner was brought along from 2807 to adjust the vacuum pipe alignment of what was now the last coach, which the participants enjoyed witnessing.

Coach being removed from the rake

The previous two photos and report, courtesy of Peter Gutteridge.

 Newly arrived on the railway is 3850, owned by Dinmore Manor Ltd.  Her home railway, the West Somerset have kindly agreed to allow us to use her for the last couple of weeks of her boiler ticket (expires Sept 30th).  She will be in traffic every day from Tuesday Sept 22nd until the 30th. 

Mark prepares 3850 for a steam test on Saturday morning

 You may recollect that 3850 was one of the guest locos at our 2014 Back to Black gala.  She will be overhauled at Toddington over the course of the next few years and I dare say that news of her progress will appear in this blog on a regular basis.  At this time it is uncertain where she will run when her rebuild has been completed.

Last weekend was the second visit this year of that "Really useful engine", Thomas.

Paul gives Thomas an early morning shower

3850's older cousin, 2807 was running on Saturday as Henry, the big green engine as usual. 

Cliff oils up Henry, Andy demonstrates how to lean on a shovel & loco simultaneously

 The weather was extremely nice on Saturday, with a little early morning dew making the cobwebs around the place glisten.

We're not very good at, dusting away cobwebs.

 Thomas came with a really useless lamp.  It may have had a lens at both ends, but it had no burner inside. 

You won't find a genie in this lamp, or a burner come to that.

 I did what any self respecting fireman would do and "borrowed" a set of lamps from the lamp store, 4270 being the unwitting donor on this occasion.  The nice new lamp prep table had been used to stash a barrel of kerosene, leaving precious little room for the lamps.

Ho hum!

Thomas arrived in a fairly filthy condition, meaning that Paul had a considerable amount of work to do.

Paul washing behind Thomas' ears!

Thomas lived up to his reputation and made himself "really useful".  Before setting off shed, Thomas shunted 3850 and 4270 around, so that 3850 was now on a pit and 4270 wasn't.  Thomas' fireman was grateful for the opportunity to use up a bit of steam.

Shunting 4270 & 3850

The 04 diesel shunter that normally runs as Mavis on these occasions has been nobbled by the troublesome trucks.  She is awaiting the delivery of a new fuel pump and was unable to run, but at least she sat in the parlour road and looked the part.  Thomas kindly went over and kept her company for a while.  Rumours that they may be more than just good friends have been circulating for a while now.

Thomas chatting up Mavis

Thomas and Mavis seemed to be getting on a bit too well as far as Henry was concerned and in a fit of jealousy he came over and enveloped them both in a cloud of steam.

Henry sneaking up on Thomas and Mavis

Henry the green eyed monster big green engine strikes again.

That's dampened Thomas & Mavis' romantic encounter

Thomas retreated into the station, where his crew had a very welcome breakfast.

Thanks Paul.

Ian and Paul get cracking on the most important meal of the day.

As usual, although Thomas and friends were present and ready to entertain the children, one of the stars of the show failed to put in an appearance.  We have this problem every year, getting the celebrity concerned out of her dressing room and into the limelight has proved a challenge in the past.  This year, we were defeated and her understudy had to be summoned at short notice to stand in. 

The fat controller introduces the understudy

The understudy put in an excellent performance and her big scene with Paul went off without a hitch, rave reviews have followed from all the critics present.  The missing star was of course the fish from the stream that gets caught in Thomas' tank, giving him boiler ache.  The stand in, was a small plastic whale, which wasn't quite the same thing visually, bit the children didn't seem to mind.

Never work with children or animals, especially fish.

Once Mavis had been left behind in Toddington, Henry refrained from the jealous behaviour of earlier and was quite friendly to Thomas again.

Henry and Thomas, friends again

As several people asked after Thomas' health in view of the fact that he had been very poorly earlier in the year, I am pleased to be able to report that his boiler seemed to be in good order, no sign of boiler ache at all.  Thomas' driver had a few words to say about Thomas' ejectors though which struggled to pull the brakes off.  The nought to twenty inches of mercury time seemed to be about a week.  Twenty one inches?  Don't hold your breath.

The troublesome ejectors

Getting Thomas' injectors to run cleanly was a black art as well, sometimes they would, often they wouldn't.  The clack valves appeared to leak too, but that may have been related to having the ash pan sprinkler on.

Steam where steam should not be.

 Speaking of the ash pan sprinkler, leave it on for too long, and you end up with an embarrassing puddle under your loco.

Oh dear Thomas!

Enbarrassing puddle or not, Thomas was the star of the show, and people thronged the line side as well as the stations just to see him being really useful.

Thomas' fan club cheering him on.

Thomas' driver (Ian) helps Thomas to whistle back at them

Henry's day is quite a long one, without any real breaks.  Henry's driver (Cliff) had arranged with Jamie to split the shift.  Jamie came down to Winchcombe on our train to meet Henry and very kindly unhooked Thomas from his carriages too.  

Jamie.

Steam loco dept member, Pete was the compere at Winchcombe

Thomas was relegated to hiding in the sidings at Winchcombe whilst the other trains came and went.  Blackberries are in season again, and there are plenty growing down there. I helped myself.

Blackberries & steam

I was very nearly caught red black handed by the Permanent Way team.

Mercifully, Thomas didn't give the game away.

Another part of the proceedings is to fill up Thomas' tanks using plastic buckets of water delivered by the children.  It takes forever and gets precious little water into the tanks.

Paul on bucket duty

We still need to do the job properly of course, so frequent water stops at one of our water columns was in order.

It's much quicker and easier this way

Once all the children had gone home and Thomas had been safely tucked up in bed for the night, it was time for me to have a quick check around for signs of life.  The most striking thing was Dinmore Manor's tender has made further progress over the weekend and is now nearly back on its wheels. 

Getting there.

I was dared to post this next photo. Frankly it's far too small to identify the clown hanging out of Thomas' cab, so why on earth not?

Photo courtesy of Neil Carr

 And finally, some excellent news, we have one more newly qualified fireman, Pete Young having passed out during the week.

Fireman Young and Inspector Lacey (photo courtesy of Neil Carr)

An extremely chuffed Pete demonstrating the art of firing. (photo courtesy of Pete Young)

Congratulations Pete.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

The concreting of the shed floor has progressed well during the week:

The pit on road 7, newly sealed

In road 8

Between roads 7 and 8

Tim sorting out the drainage in road 8

Installing shuttering on road 7

Levelling off between roads 7 and 8.

All the above photos courtesy of John Cruxon, who also sent in a report of the activities of the Wednesday gang:

"On Monday we received three loads of concrete which proved to be a bit of a challenge to get laid as it was so warm. The last lifting jack area took best part of two loads and the area in front of Foremarke’s tender was also progressed further. We managed to lay another apron area outside by roads 6 & 7, so all in all real progress. In addition the top coat of paint was applied to the internal pit walls and floor. It was a long and exhausting day for the team but a very satisfying one.

You would think that would be it but no, another load of concrete was delivered on Wednesday. The area in front of Foremarke’s tender was finally finished as well and we made a start on concreting the area between roads 7 & 8. The plan is, provided there is enough support from Volunteers this weekend to prepare two more areas for concreting next week, so please if you are around on Saturday give the floor team a hand. The faster we get it done the quicker these appeals will stop. We are planning two more pours, so yet more back breaking work, especially for the two Chris’s, Chris Blake and Chris Smith, hopefully next week

Can I just add a real thank you to the small team that appeared last Sunday, following my email appeal to apply the primer coat to the new internal pit, that effort helped us make serious progress this week, Thank You.

In between all that shed work, we have still repaired the red card defect on 2807 as well as the usual housekeeping jobs to it. We have chopped a load of wood and started a bit of a tidy up around the yard now that the barriers are not required. So all in all a busy week."

I have also received a few photos from Paul who was at Toddington a week ago Sunday, helping to renovate the inside of Foremarke Hall's tender:

Clearly there was a fair bit of rust & scale to be removed in the tender

John peering around one of the baffle plates in the tender

One bucket load of rust from inside the tender

The previous three photos courtesy of Paul Burnham.

2807 and 4270 were down as the service locos of the day on Saturday.  Steve did the lighting up of 2807 and decided that he wanted to use the dropping shovel to get some of the ash and clinker off of the grate.  The dropping shovel needed a bit of therapy first though.  Coal picks can serve many and varied purposes aside from just pulling forward coal, prising up fire bars off the grate, hammering shovels into shape and hospitalising people you don't like are just a few of them.

Steve beats the dropping shovel into submission

 I noticed that the oil store now contains a table specifically for cleaning and trimming the lamps. 

Lamp prep table.

 Further to the notes from John at the start of this blog, the preparation of the concrete floor was still ongoing on Saturday in anticipation of yet more concrete arriving on Monday.

Setting up the steel reinforcing for the next concrete pour between roads 7 and 8.

 Work is progressing well with Dinmore Manor's own tender, the horn tie bars are now largely fettled and ready for fitting and the wheel bearings are being profiled, ready for fitting.

Wheels nearly in place

Ian (l) trues up a bearing, Roger adds a second coat of paint inside the frames

Mark building up with weld the place where one of the horn ties will fit...

...and later on grinding it smooth.

Paul, adding an extra top coat to the outside of the tender frames

Part of the brake rigging fetched over from DMLL's own site.

The GWSR has been awarded the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service.  An award  ceremony will have taken place place in a marquee in the car park at Toddington by the time that you read this.   35006 was to be wheeled out to make an interesting back drop.  To that end, the driver's side con rod was  refitted on Saturday, along with the name plates.  Dan and Donna had also spent some time during the week cleaning it until it sparkled.

Raising the con rod into position

Looking good

New starter, John, carries on with cleaning 35006

Dan, Cliff & Steve refitting the con rod.

Nameplates refitted

 Badges are being handed out to everybody who was a volunteer on the relevant date.

Here's one

Last week, as you may recollect, Ade passed out as a driver and James as a fireman.  On Sunday, they were rostered together as our most recently qualified crew, on  4270.

Ade (l) and James with 4270

 I was back again on Sunday for a day firing 2807.  Finding the loco with no water space in the glass, I was pleased to be informed by the guard that steam heat was required for the first trip.  Unfortunately as I discovered, turning on the steam heat on 2807 doesn't make as much of a difference as I'd have liked, the water level remained stubbornly high and the safety valves may possibly have seen a bit of action before we reached Winchcombe.

Steam heat on.

Ian was the driver...

... and having his biennial assessment from Chris.

Crossing Ade, James and 4270 at Winchcombe

 The "Friends of Toddington Station" aren't usually in attendance on a weekend, but on Sunday, they were out in force to spruce up the station in readiness for the Queen's award for voluntary service event on Monday.  

Chris digging out weeds whilst his wife, Frances engages a TTI in conversation.

 I dare say that Chris will use the above photo as ammunition.  Frances may never speak to me again.

Jack Boskett was out and about on the railway on Sunday, he was back again on Monday to act as the official photographer for the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service ceremony.  Here is my vengeance for the photo of me that he posted on Facebook earlier today.

Jack poses, Ellie runs away

 It's not at all uncommon to receive requests to come up and have a look around the footplate when we are sat in stations.  On Sunday, we had a much more unusual request.  A lady wanted us to wipe a paper napkin in grime from the footplate, so that she could take it home for her elderly uncle who was blind, but could at least smell the napkin to remind him of steam locomotives.  I had spent quite a while in the morning cleaning around the cab, so this wasn't as easy a task as it at first seemed.  Roger managed to get a bit of oil oil and grime off of the warming tray and the lubricator.

Roger presents the napkin to the lady who requested it.

 The 26 that was taking the third round trip of train 2.  According to the lamp code displayed, it is no longer on royal train duties and is now allegedly on a class 9, ballast or stopping freight service. 

The 26 approaching Winchcombe

 I'm  not sure whether they thought our passengers were ballast or freight however I am starting to suspect that they set these codes just to see what my reaction will be.

Ian had been roped into doing a yard tour on the Monday of the QVA award and had arranged for a shunt to take place to organise the yard to give him something to to talk about.  After disposal, 4270, 2807 and 2874, three of Churchward's finest were proudly on display.  I particularly like 2807 and 2874 being parked up next to each other as a 'before and after' exhibit.

L-r, 4270, 2807 and 2874

And finally, I strongly advise sitting down or standing well clear of fragile objects before reading any further.  The big news is that after a decade or so, George has finally remembered where his local barber shop is.  The news first broke on a certain well known social media site and was met with a certain degree of disbelief, he has cried wolf before.  Anyway, it's true, I have seen it with my own eyes:

Photo shamelessly nicked from George's Facebook page

The hair was sent off to be made into a wig for children with cancer.