Speed to the West Day 1

At the 12th hour, we finally had a full complement of locos for the Speed to the West gala.  I have aged at least 5 years in the week leading up to the gala, but at last we can all smile again.  For the first day, Andy was going to be the Running Shed Foreman (RSF), making sure that all the locos got off of shed on time, I would be the gala coordinator.  It sounds grand, but basically means that when anything anywhere goes wrong, I had to get it fixed. 

Andy, wearing the RSF bowler hat and happy that we're off at last

Wells was in need of a bit of a clean after a protracted journey.  Before the cleaners got to work on her, the Monty Python graffiti team had paid us a visit:

Spam, spam, spam, spam....

Phil had heroically pulled an all nighter, and not only had Wells in steam, but had kept the warming fires in on all 7 locos.  He went off for some much deserved sleep, whilst the firemen stood around, drank tea and complained that if they'd known that there would be so little for them to do that they'd have had an extra hour in bed  There's no pleasing some people.

Tea consumption in progress.

With so little for them to do, the firemen resorted to taking photos and even a bit of loco cleaning too.

John poses with an ACE headboard, Tina captures the moment for posterity

Needless to say I got in on the act too.

Remember that Wells had yet to have a steam test, at 06:10, she got one.

I'm not entirely sure who was responsible for this, but Wells was briefly adorned with as many headboards as could be fitted, which turned out to be seven. 

That should confuse the passengers

Jeff noticed a rather interesting moth which had taken up residence on a length of hose pipe in the yard.  If you know what kind it is, please let me know.

Fabulous beast, not welcome in my wardrobe though.

Even before the locos were off shed, I had to switch hats and get on with being gala coordinator.  A perennial problem is staffing the car park, which during major events is the fields to the East of Toddington station.  We have come to an arrangement with the local Air Cadets who have taken on the role.  They did a brilliant job, it certainly made my life easier.

Air Cadets manning the car park.

One issue was that the second field which was supposed to have been cleared of sheep hadn't been.  My preferred solution was to get them onto the seven mobile BBQs that we had running up and down the line along with a generous helping of mint sauce, but the farmer who owned them somehow got wind of my plan and swiftly removed them just in the nick of time, as the first field was almost full.

As mentioned earlier, one of my tasks was to deal with the trade stands/marquee at Toddington.  We had an excellent turn out of groups:

Dinmore Manor

2807

Tony's Trains

Even one of our diesel owning groups set up a stand at our steam gala.

Cotswold Diesel Locomotive Group

Port Talbot Railway & Docks Company loco, 813 is a previous visitor to the GWSR and it was nice to see them with us.  Her heavy overhaul is nearing an end and they are optimistic that she will be back in steam later this year.

813 stand

Judith manned the Kingmoor Black 5 (44901) group's stand for all three days of the gala.

Some interesting items for sale here

The Toddington station shop took some space to try to deplete their stock of second hand books.

Plenty of reading matter for the discerning bibliophile here.

The GWSR had its own gazebo placed in front of the admin office for amongst other things selling tickets for the brake van rides.

Brake van rides available here.

Cheltenham Models were a very late booking, but we were glad to see them anyway.

Cheltenham Models

New build projects were well represented with the LMS Patriot Project and the Sandringham B17 groups having stands

The Patriot Project stand

The Spirit of Sandringham B17 group

I have recently been given a BBQ (not one of the mobile variety) and am now on the hunt for some garden furniture.  This lot definitely caught my eye.

GWR benches

May apologies to RailTrail Tours, whose stand I seemed to have managed to miss photographing.

If you are part of a project that would like to take a stand either in the marquee or outside in the car park for next year's gala, then please contact me via this blog.

One of the many plans for the gala had been to shunt 2874 out into the car park in the spot that 35006 had occupied for the previous two years.  The Dinmore Manor Group who have recently set up a charitable trust for 2874's restoration were hoping that it would drum up a bit of interest in the restoration plans for the loco and perhaps even attract more volunteers or sponsors.  With Wells not arriving until late the night before, the only opportunity was on the Saturday morning.  She needed a bit of lubrication first, which involved me getting a tin can full of motion oil, a paintbrush and scrabbling around underneath the thing oiling up the axles.  The two axles at the front were relatively accessible, the two at the back involved crawling underneath the ash pan.  There isn't much room under there!

As befits the occasion, Len and I bought along our plates and attached them to the loco.

2874 with Len's smoke box number attached...

... and my cabside

She proved to be something of a talking point, I had to wait for a while before I could get a relatively clear photo of her in the afternoon sun.

2874, dreaming of the day when she will appear at one of our galas.

For a while, sister loco 2807 was nearby and they made a interesting comparison.  No photos sadly.

With all the locos off shed, and a few operational issues dealt with, Andy was so pleased everything was going to plan that he treated anybody who was still around to an ice cream. 

Thanks Andy.

I saw precious little of the action on the line, but I did notice the double headed spam cans coming up from Winchcombe.

Wadebridge leading Wells into Toddington

As for the last couple of years, the freight train was running and offering brake van rides.

4270 sets off with the freight train

We had five traction engines in the car park, which as we'd kept most of the cars over in the field had plenty of space to run around.

Fabulous machines.

To my shame, I  have still never managed to take a ride on the narrow gauge railway.  It will happen one day, but I didn't manage to find the time during this gala.  As in previous years, the entry to the narrow gauge line was included in the cost of a gala ticket.

Narrow gauge loco at work.

Another part of my remit had been to organise the cleaners, making sure that enough people were there to empty out the smoke boxes of ash in the mornings, clean the locos, act as brake van attendants, chaperone the footplate passengers and assist with loco disposal at the end of the day.

AAndy and Mike empty the ash pit

 A very big thank you indeed to all of the cleaners (including one of the GWSR's directors) who gave up their time for these important tasks. 

And finally, Steve from the 35006 group bumped into David Brown, a fireman at Yeovil Town MPD who fired 35006 on the Eastly Mails from Yeovil Junction during July 1964, just a week before she was withdrawn.  All photos from here on courtesy of Steve Parker.

David Brown with 35006

His diary from July 1964 showing 35006 on the 30th & 31st of July

Steve also sent me this excellent study of all three Bulleids at Winchcombe as 5542 arrives from Toddington.

Busy day at Winchcombe

Speed to the West, the prologue

The Speed to the West gala has of course finished.  Yours truly is sat on a plethora of photos of the event and the run up to it.  I'm hopefully going to be able to play catch up over the course of the next week or so.

A great deal of preparation goes into making an event like the Speed to the West gala happen, which will be glossed over, because for the most part, although necessary, it is dull.  The fun stuff starts when you turn up at Toddington to get it all ready.  I started on Wednesday last week, and then only because my grand daughter's second birthday was on the Tuesday.  Much against her mother's better judgement, I am hoping to indoctrinate her in the ways of Thomas the Tank Engine very soon.

Anyway, I digress as usual.  The Wednesday gang were in fine form and set to work fetching in the pallet delivery from Saturday and placing it in their compound, along with chopping up enough to refill the wood store.

Mechanical assistance was sought...

...but the job was finished off by hand.

Getting the locos coaled and watered was part of the plan too.

Watering 4270

Dinmore Manor put in an appearance on the service train while we were at it.

Some of our visitors turned up too, at one point we had all three tenders and Raveningham Hall on site.  Some wags suggested that we run a tender gala, adding corridors to all three tenders and running them behind Raveningham Hall.

Wadebridge's tender appears

Shortly followed by Raveningham Hall and her tender

At least with all the tenders present and correct, we could go about the business of getting them coaled and watered.

Filling Raveningham Halls' tender with water

Raveningham Hall even turned up with some coal on board.

Thursday was shunt day.  All of the stock needed to be assembled and placed into its start positions.  Neil, Ben and myself headed off in the 73 to do exactly that. 

Neil in a hi-viz t-ashirt in the 73.

 The constituent wagons of the freight train were in a few large chunks which wanted joining together and then the brake vans placing on each end.

Marshalling the freight train at Winchcombe

 We also needed to make up three rakes of coaches.  This involved fetching a rake of five chocolate and cream coaches from Winchcombe and sticking a maroon one on the end, leaving us with 2 rakes of six and one of seven.  The buckeye training had been a little while ago, so I was pleasantly surprised that I remembered how to prep a carriage for having another one coupled up to it, never mind being able to rotate the buck eye into position and lock it in place without the benefit of the special tool

Carriage prepped.

High on the list of things that I learned yesterday was that diesels have lots more gubbins attached to the front of them, which means that when it comes to coupling and uncoupling, you have far less space to do it in.  Even Houdini would have had trouble getting in and out of there in a hurry.

Thursday also saw the arrival of Bulleid light pacific, 34007, Wadebridge.  It always seems like it's getting close when the visiting locos are on site.  Well, I say that, we were still awaiting the delivery of Wells, which was by now a week over due.

Wadebridge arrives

Dan with the Red Dragon headboard that he made

Warming fires were required in all of the locos. 

Steve gets 2807 ready for action

 What will hopefully be the star of next year's gala, 35006 was buffed up and shunted down to Winchcombe.  I had hoped to get a photo line up of all three Bulleids together on Friday, but events conspired against me, 35006 was off down the line to Winchcombe before Wells had arrived.

Ian stands in for Wells in a two Bulleid line up.

  Then the 04 shunted 35006 down to Winchcombe

Passing Hailes

Stopping for a quick check to make sure nothing is getting too hot

Almost looks like a light engine move from this angle

A spot of loco cleaning was called for, no harm in prepping as much as possible the day before.  Wadebridge received plenty of attention.

Getting Wadebridge spick-and-spam span

Wadebridge's wheels in reflection on one of the many puddles in the yard

Dan had the honour of putting the warming fire into Wadebridge

Dan, practicing his left handed firing technique

One of my tasks for the gala had been to organise the trade stands in the car park.  Marquees need heavy weights on each leg to prevent them from blowing away in high winds.  Ade used the FLT to get the weights off of the lorry.

Ade shifting some weights

Putting up the marquee

It's not all a life of glamour in the SLD you know, the sludge interceptor tank in the drain from the ash pit was full and needed emptying.  Not the sort of thing that you want to be faffing about with just before a gala.

Ben risks getting very wet

Still no sign of Wells, all we had was the tender.   But what's this?  Has Wells turned up after all?

What's that where the draw bar should be?

Aha!

Not exactly what I had been hoping for.  The can of spam seemed to get about a fair bit, photos were sent to me by Steve of it apparently arriving on one of the low loaders.

It's on there somewhere?

Aha, found it.

 The last two photos courtesy of Steve Oddy.

As an antidote to the stress of wondering where on earth Wells was, Ben and Andy went for a spin around the car park on one of the visiting traction engines.

Life in the fast lane.

My antidote to the stress of wondering where on earth Wells was (before some bright park says it, yes I know it's in Somerset, I was interested in the whereabouts of the locomotive) was to make my annual pilgrimage to Broadway with Paul and Judith to check on the progress at Broadway station.

The signal box is really coming on, you can't help but be impressed with it. 

Broadway signal box

 The ex-Henley-In-Arden footbridge was the other main attraction, now lurking in a polythene enclosure ready for grit blasting.  The Broadway group have missed a trick though, if they'd fetched it on down to Toddington for the gala, they could have had it steam blasted clean for free, the same as all our other bridges by a certain few firemen who hadn't quite mastered the art of keeping Bulleids under control. 

Ready for grit blasting

 Entertainment was laid on too.

My old physics teacher and friends serenaded us.

 Given that there had been little publicity, it was very well attended, I understand that emergency supplies of beer and burgers had to be sought.

Early arrivals

 I sampled a few of the excellent burgers, but I washed them down with tea rather than beer, as there was still work to be done.  At 22:30, Wells had finally arrived and landed on our unloading road.  Now came the task of hooking her up to her tender, filling the boiler, giving her a mechanical inspection, bringing her into steam for a steam test at 06:00.  Those involved have been thanked in the previous blog post, but it's impossible to thank them enough, we'd have been completely up the creek without their superhuman efforts.

Better late than never