Dinmore Manor Returns (briefly)

After the etching of various bits of concrete in the David Page shed, teams of volunteers were on site on both Wednesday and Thursday to put the paint on.  I have no photos of the relevant people at work I'm afraid, but Donna has sent a couple of photos of the finished work:

Newly painted section of road 8....

... and of road 7, photos courtesy of Donna Ludlow.

There was another diesel gala running over the weekend and you might have been forgiven for thinking that the steam dept would be a fairly quiet place on such an occasion.  Not a bit of it, there was lots to be getting on with and people turned up in droves to get on with it.

Dinmore Manor Locomotive LTD was having a particularly productive time, with work taking place on all three of their locos on site.  To start with, last Sunday saw the first work for a while on 2874, in which the cab was lifted from the frames.  There is nothing now (apart from gravity and 50 or so years worth of rust) holding the boiler in the frames.  There is no plan in place to lift the boiler just yet, but all the necessary preparations have been performed.

Ian uses the FLT to lift the cab off the frames (photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

The now cab-less 2874 back in the yard

The removed cab.

After her extended holiday on the Dartmouth Steam Railway, Dinmore Manor returned on Thursday.  In a frenzy of activity, she had a boiler washout on Friday, followed by a mechanical fitness to run exam and a steam test on Saturday.

7820, back at home on the GWSR

Unfortunately, Dinmore Manor won't be home for too long as she is soon off to star in events on the Battlefield line and the Severn Valley Railway, but she will be back once again in good time to take part in the Santa Specials.

Phil, mid-way through the FTR exam (photo courtesy of Steve Jones)

Mike stokes the fire in readiness for the steam test

Nigel cleans Dinmore Manor, Mike and Mark try to hide from the camera

Dinmore Manor has now been paired with the tender that until the end of last month was running behind 3850, the borrowed one will be returned shortly to the Bluebell Railway.  3850, including her tender was as you may recollect, "weathered" for a photo charter, and the paint applied as part of the weathering process now needed to be removed.  Kenneth attacked the tender the old fashioned way using a bucket of soapy water and a long handled brush.

Kenneth cleaning Dinmore Manor's newly fitted tender

3850 of course was heavily weathered, and I took on the task of cleaning that off.  I'm not such a luddite that I feel a compulsion to stick with 20th Century techniques of cleaning locos, if some 21st Century labour saving device is available.  So it was that I got the pressure washer out of its storage container and gave 3850 a thorough going over.  You never truly get a steam loco clean, and at times I felt that I was just rearranging the muck, but I think it emerged looking better for the treatment.  Several kindly folk took photos of me at work and offered to send them my way for inclusion here, needless to say, all have been rejected for the usual reason.

I'd not used the pressure washer for a while and had to work out how to use it again, I soon remembered that it's best to stand upwind of the direction of spray. 

A tender-less 3850 prior to cleaning

Giving the frames some pressure washing therapy

Some of the weathering proved to be remarkably stubborn.

The first tentative steps towards 3850's overhaul kicked off with the removal of her injectors which are to be sent off for refurbishment. 

Kenneth at work on the driver's side injector

One injector, removed and ready for cleaning

Nigel detaches the fireman's side injector

Kenneth starting to clean the injectors.

I have received a collection of photos of 3850's last day in service on the 30th of September, here is a small selection of them:

3850 under the canopy at Toddington

Waiting to set off from Cheltenham Race Course Station

In platform 1 at Winchcombe

 I particularly like this last one of 3850 with her crew at disposal, Mark (l) and Mike.  You may remember that this was the day that Mike has passed out as a fireman.

Mark, Mike & 3850

The four preceding photos, all courtesy of David Holmes.

Last but not least of the DMLL activities, was getting on with the real tender for Dinmore Manor.

Nigel (new starter) paints axle box covers

There was a lot of activity on the tender regarding the assembly of the brake rigging:

Raising one of the brake shafts. (photo courtesy of Mark Harding)

Tony using the hoist to lift one of the brake shafts into place (photo courtesy of Mark Harding)

Brake shaft and brake blocks in place

 Camera angles were a bit hard to come by, but Toddington looked like a proper steam shed on Saturday, 35006, 7820, 4270, 5542 and 2807 all in view in the photo below, 3850 just out of sight on the road to the right.

Toddington MPD

 It wasn't all just work on the Dinmore Manor stable of locos, 2807 had been out on a fire and drive on Friday and needed her grate and smoke box cleaning out. 

Foremarke Hall may be largely out of sight at Tyseley, but not out of mind:

Steve (l) and John work on Foremarke Hall's plumbing

 A large team of people were at work on 5542, reinstating her steam heating which has been disconnected for a while.  I'm sure that our customers will appreciate this now that the season of colder weather is rapidly approaching.

Clive at work on the steam heating

 5542 has had a few problems with the woodwork in her cab floor, Aaron had a go at cutting a few new bits of timber to size to effect a repair.

Aaron crafts a new floor board, John supervises (photo courtesy of Mark Harding)

The shops have long since been full of Christmas cards and festive fayre.  I'm pleased to say that we display rather better taste on the GWSR, by not kicking off the seasonal stuff until the last weekend in November.  We still need to make preparations behind the scenes though, and Sean has been repainting the Santa Express head boards.  The first one has returned from its refurbishment and looks extremely good.  

Very nicely turned out.

 In a departure from usual, the head board has been protected from the ravages of the shed by being placed in a cover.  If we did this for all our head boards, we'd have a hard time when we tried to rummage through them all to track down the one we were looking for.

Safe and sound

Photos of Sean at work have failed to surface so far, but this one of him later on in the day appeared on a well known social media web site:

Sean (photo courtesy of Steve Jones)

 It's not instantly obvious what is going on here, but I am assured that Sean was demonstrating for the camera the tried and trusted technique employed by drivers to encourage firemen to have ample boiler pressure available at departure time.  It's not recorded what Aaron's views on that were.

Readers of this blog with memories that stretch back to last year year will recall that the two Santa Express head boards are different, one aluminium, the other one wood.  The wooden one being highly favoured by crews as it was subtstantially lighter than the other, and less grief to move from one end of the loco to the other.  The bad news is that the wooden one has been retired, to be replaced by another aluminium one.  There's nothing for it, we'll all have to start having three shredded wheat for breakfast.

And finally, during the "Speed to the West" steam gala back at the end of May, on the final day, you may have seen a film crew loitering with intent on the railway.  Filming was taking place for a More4 series entitled Disappearing Britain.  Some of the preview trailers have caused a bit of a stir in the steam loco dept as both George and Neil have been glimpsed on the screen.  Yours truly knew about the cameras in advance and steered well clear of anybody who looked like they might possibly shove a microphone under his nose and start asking questions, so you'll have no excuse to avoid watching it.  To relive the delights of the gala, settle down in your favourite chair, put your phone on mute and tune your tv to the More4 channel on  Thursday evening at 21:00. 

Unhalfbricking

We've had a bit of a tidy up in the yard, a number of containers have moved on to pastures new.  The Wednesday gang took the opportunity to remove a bit of surplus track that ran between the bricked up wall of the goods shed/machine shop and the gents conveniences.  It was deemed a unlikely that we would ever want to reinstate services between those two locations, though given the amount of tea that they drink in the machine shop, you might have been forgiven for thinking that some sort of rapid transit system might be in order.  Nevertheless, out came the track, which for a brief while existed in monorail form:

I don't think we have any suitable stock for that. Photo courtesy of Pete Gutteridge

The concrete in the David Page shed may now be down on roads 7, 8 & 9, but some of it still needs to be etched and painted.  The etching can only take place after 28 days have elapsed since the concrete was poured, so only a few sections could be done on Saturday.  Ade & I did some etching

Ade, admiring his etchings.

Eleanor wasn't quite so impressed with our efforts and hosed it all down a bit later

Excellent progress has been made with Dinmore Manor's real tender, to start off with, some of the smaller brake mechanism components required case hardening.  Ian heated them up until cherry red, then Mark gave them a good dunking in an oil bath to rapidly cool them down.

Mark demonstrating his BBQ skills.

Various items of the being assembled brakes

 During the week, the re-wheeling of the tender has progressed well, with all axle box under keeps and horn ties now in situ.

Looking good.

 As ever, the running fleet needed a bit of TLC, 2807 was shunted onto the ash pit to have her smoke box, grate and ash pan emptied:

James and Liam (new starter on Saturday) empty 2807's smoke box

James cleans the grate..

...then they both get to grips with the ash pan.

 Next in line for some attention was 3850 which had come to the end of its boiler ticket on Wednesday.  The same tasks as for 2807 were required, except this time we needed to prepare for splitting the tender, everything to be disconnected apart from the centre pin of the main link.

Liam started off cleaning the grate

Jamie...

...and Chris disconnected the tender

Dinmore Manor will be returning to Toddington shortly and will be paired for a while with the tender  from 3850.  The tender that Dinmore Manor is currently running with is on hire from the Bluebell Railway and will be returning straight back there from the Dartmouth Steam Railway 

3850 on the ash pit.

 I finished off cleaning up the grate, and while I was in the firebox, there was an element of mission creep, as a request was made to remove the brick arch whilst I was in there. Predictably enough, my hopes of remaining tolerably clean for an engagement later that evening were dashed.  As I've said before, cleanliness is next to impossible in the steam loco dept

The request to salvage as many bricks as possible met with limited success

 A chain gang was formed to pass the mortal remains of the bricks from the grate to the cab, from the cab to the tender and from the tender to the ash dock.

Eleanor receives bricks from Jamie, (by now in the firebox), Chris prepares to launch one into the ash dock.

 A little later, Chris went into the firebox to sweep around the edges, ready for inspection, Jamie and I headed underneath to empty the ash pan.  A muffled curse was heard from above, followed by Chris asking if we could see the brush that he had just dropped.

Jamie retrieves the errant brush

 It wasn't just the brush that turned up in the ash pan, a large chunk of a fire bar and a stay nut were also to be found.

More things to add to the to do list for her rebuild.

All that remained to do after that was clear up after ourselves

 It was a green timetable running on Saturday, which meant that we had one steam loco and one diesel running.  The diesel was the class 26, and I noted that they were running with the correct head lamp code, at least on this end of the loco. I was put in mind of a well known quote, often attributed to Winston Churchill (probably erroneously), "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing... after they have exhausted all other possibilities".

They probably have tried every other possible headlamp code first.

 News filtering through from the 35006 gang was that they have commenced the construction of their brick arch.  Merchant Navy locos have brick arches that come in three sections, separated from each other by the thermic syphons.  Here we can see that part of the centre section has now been completed.

Not using bricks recycled from 3850.

And finally, yet more good news.  To kick off with, Steve Jones passed out as a fireman on Sunday:

Fireman Jones (l) and Inspector Irving.(photo courtesy of Chris Irving)

In my last blog post, I alluded to the fact that 3850's last day in service would hopefully be rather special, and so it turned out to be.  Mike Solloway, the vice chairman of Dinmore Manor Locomotive LTD (which owns 3850) also passed out as a fireman.

Inspector Irving (l) congratulating fireman Solloway on Wednesday, photo courtesy of Chris Irving

Congratulations to both Steve and Mike.