Candles and steam

On Monday, around a dozen or so people and three concrete mixer lorries convened in the David Page shed, the project to concrete the floor.  John kindly forwarded me a selection of photos of the work taking place:

North end of road 7, ready for pouring

 Road 7 has the pit at the south end, the north end is using stronger steel reinforcement and thicker concrete to permit the use of lifting jacks.

Levelling the concrete

That pour finished

Working on the next section, between roads 8 & 9

More levelling

That section done.

  All the preceding photos courtesy of John Cruxon. I couldn't help but note how many of those photos that John sent included views of Foremarke Hall's tender.  You'd never have guessed that he is Foremarke Hall's locomotive manager would you!

Mark & John would like to say thank you to all the volunteers who turned up on Monday, especially to Chris who spent most of the day on his knees tamping and trowelling. 

As you may recollect from the last blog post, owing to the late change of dates of a car auction we were committed to running trains last Friday even though no event was happening to tie it in with.   A lot of siding space has been disconnected for a while at Toddington, whilst the permanent way team undertake some track repairs, so siding space which is always at a premium is now even scarcer.  Consequently, 5542, the Planet's Favourite Prairie (PFP) had been left overnight on the ash pit, as there was no space in the yard.

Chris was rostered as cleaner for the day, he appreciated the short distance from the smoke box to the ash dock that is a consequence of the PFP having been left on the ash pit.   Having further to go to get to the wood store was the draw back of course.

Chris, emptying the smoke box

At the end of Thursday's running, the stock had been left in the platforms at Toddington in the positions where htey would be required for a red timetable.  Unfortunately we were running a blue timetable, so we would need to shunt the stock in platform 2 into the north siding out of the way.

Stock in both platforms.

 I hadn't been expecting anybody other than the rostered crews to be present first thing, so I was pleasantly surprised when two recent starters appeared to help out with the cleaning.

Ian cleaning the motion

 One of the fireman's jobs is to sort out the lamps.  One of them was full of broken glass.

Inside the lamp

The lamp still seemed to work OK, so I carried on and used it anyway rather than swap it with one from another loco.  Mike, who looks after our lamps has been contacted and I'm sure that it will be repaired in the near future.

The new cleaners, Martin and Ian were instructed in the important aspects of cleaning steam locos, including the vitally important management of small kettles.

(L-R), Chris, Ian, Martin

Martin was a dab hand with the Brasso.

 As we had to shunt the stock out of platform 2 and top up the water tanks of 5542, there was plenty of things for them to help out with before we set off:

Ian, hooking onto the stock in platform 2

Martin & Ian topping up the PFP's tanks.

Martin hooking onto our stock in platform 1

The driver for the day was Ian.  One of our passengers rushed along the platform toting a camera saying that he was keen to get a photo of the driver.  Apparently humble fireman are not worth the trouble, only drivers.  I took their photo anyway.

Ian and the camera wielding passenger

Friday turns out to be the day that the Friends of Toddington Station group meet to spruce up the station.  This Friday, that included a lot of tending to the flower beds and flower baskets.  I tried to persuade them that they should redeploy themselves to Blogmaster Manor (which would have been 7831 if BR had continued making Manors) and wave their magic wand over the jungle in the grounds.  It currently looks like the 'before' photos of the Lost Gardens of Heligan.  It seems that the challenge would be too great even for them and they declined.

Chris was firing at Worcester and later Honeybourne for BR, before I was born.  He'd obviously not forgotten much in the intervening years either.  I felt something of a fraud being the "qualified" fireman on the footplate and him only a cleaner.

Chris building up the fire

Chris collecting the token

Last week, I had been concerned that there would be very few passengers.  We don't usually run timetabled trains on Fridays and I suspected that it would catch many of our customers out.  I needn't have worried, there was in fact a very healthy turn out of passengers in the end.  Ian claimed that it was all down to the alerts that he had put out on Twitter. 

Customers waiting for us at Cheltenham

Reportedly, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  Personally, I think that they're all extremely important.  I had arranged for the On Train Catering staff to deliver ours to us upon arrival at Cheltenham.  Jolly good it was too.

Bacon rolls and tea.

 The first round trip on the blue timetable includes running up to Laverton and back. 

The PFP running round at Laverton

I think that this was the line side drainage management team at work

Chris operating one of Laverton's ground frames

Only one other train runs on the blue timetable, we crossed the DMU at Winchcombe

Chris damping down the coal.

Ian in the office

Upon arrival at Cheltenham, I noticed that we had received a few unwelcome unexpected visitors.  A gate had seemingly been left open over night a few days before.

The visitors, with their own mobile accommodation.

 It may have been entirely unconnected with the visitors, it may not, however as we were starting to run around the stock, we noticed a couple of children playing down by Hunting Butts tunnel.

Kids in the distance.

We decided to head on down there and encourage them to depart.

They're down there between the two lines

 The plan fell a bit flat as rather than scarper off to one side or the other, they headed further on down towards the tunnel.   I reported the issue to the Station Master when we got back up to the platform.

Chris shovelling coal

The weekend was to be a Real Ale event, with a selection of fine beers available at both Winchcombe and Toddington.  The brewers were on hand on Friday, setting out their wares ready for the weekend.  As far as I could make out that mostly seemed to involve sampling all of the many barrels of beer to make sure that the contents were still OK. 

Sampling their wares

 Running round our stock at Toddington, we encountered a small team from Carriage and Wagon who had noticed that one of the belts that drives the dynamos on the coaches had become detached and needed refitting.

How many C&W volunteers does it take to change a light bulb dynamo belt?

Job done, one of them hitched a ride back to Winchcombe

A functional time piece is a necessity on the footplate if the trains are to run on time.  Now that I have given up carrying my mobile phone to use as a timepiece, for fear of breaking it, I have tried a series of watches.  Several cheap and cheerful budget items have been discarded into the firebox in the last couple of months after they had failed on me.  I have now progressed onto something a little more robust (and consequently a little more expensive) in the hope that it will last correspondingly longer.  My hopes aren't too high.

Will it follow the others into the firebox?  Time will tell.

In the highly unlikely event that I ever acquire a Rolex (other wrist watches do exist), you can rest assured that it won't find its way onto the footplate.

At the close of play, whilst we were heading back onto the ash pit for disposal, a car kept pace with us through the car park, with two attractive young ladies in the back taking photos of us and waving.  Once again, Ian claimed that he was responsible as they were obviously some of his Twitter followers.  As far fetched as that theory was, it was no less implausible than my contention that they were fans of this blog.  The sad and ego-deflating truth is that they were probably both just fans of the PFP.

Ian's fan club?

Soon after, Chris raking out the ash pan

The last job of the day of course was to empty the pit.  It was at this point that Chris chose to announce that it was his 67th birthday.  When asked by his wife what he wanted to do on the big day, he couldn't think of any better way of celebrating than spending a day out on the footplate.

Emptying the pit before heading off for a cake with candles on it.

For my sins, I was back again on Saturday.  I had somehow volunteered to put id tags on numerous small electrical devices that were due to be PAT tested. Not perhaps the most riveting of jobs, but necessary nonetheless.  I managed not to take any photos of any electrical devices with or without labels, so you have at least been spared that.  Elsewhere at Toddington,  a sizable gang of volunteers got on with a variety of tasks.  Sean carried on with Foremarke Hall,

That's the tender water gauge that Sean is working on.

2807 has a bit of a problem retaining oil in one side of it's pony truck at the moment.  Roger and Gil spent a while on Saturday investigating the issue.

Roger (L) and Gil peering under 2807

Preparations for the next pour of concrete in the David Page shed continued, with a fair few people working hard at securing the reinforcing steel in place.

Cliff on the left, possibly Stuart on the right, I can't tell from this shot

Neil, levelling the framework for the concrete

Work still carried on with Dinmore Manor's tender too.

Mark works on the stays under Dinmore Manor's tender

Having watched several people erect the display boards for 2807 and Dinmore Manor recently, it was nice to note that a few people were taking the trouble to read them.

Admiring the notice boards

And finally, hot news arrived in my email just in th enick of time for including in this blog post, 35006 made the first moves in preservation under her own steam today.  Something of a landmark.  She still only has two of her three connecting rods in place, the middle piston being secured so that it couldn't move, but nonetheless several dozen runs up and down siding one took place with Jeff driving and Dan firing.  The following photos of the event are all provided courtesy of Steve Parker.

35006 in steam

 Occasionally a shove from behind with a shunter was required to get her moving when she hit a dead spot caused by only having two cylinders connected.

Underway at last

Steaming down siding 1.

 The good news is that 35006 behaved perfectly, no steam leaks from unwanted places and no hot bearings were discovered.  

Dan (L) and Jeff looking extremely pleased at the end of the day.

Hopefully it won't be too much longer before she is ready to enter traffic.  I can't wait.

No lions at Toddington

A complaint has been received by your blogger.  As you may have heard, the mark 1 blog photo capturing device came to an untimely end a few weeks ago and has recently been replaced by what will hopefully prove to be a rather more robust item.  Heritage railways are a camera hostile environment, so the mark 2 device was selected as much for its rugged construction as for its optical quality.  Anyway, the complaint hasd been made saying that it made a certain fireman "Look fat".  I have sent the camera back to the manufacturers who have given it a thorough examination, and double checked the calibration.   They returned it to me with a note saying "No fault found".  They went on to suggest that the diet of the fireman concerned which primarily consists of pizza and Doom Bar was the more likely cause.


Nobody informed in me in advance, but it turns out thet there was a  "Mr Universe" style challenge taking place at Toddington on Saturday.  The challenge was for one person to single handedly push Foremarke Hall's tender in and out of the David Page shed.  Steve had a go at it first:

Steve, putting his back into it

 I have little doubt that some wag was stood on the other end of the tender rubbing in the hand brake to make it harder for him.

John had a go at pushing it back in a little later on

Joihn, pushing it back

 Nobody reported back to me the best times for the challenge, so I'm afraid that I can't say who the winner was.  I can say however that while the tender was out basking in the sunshine, more coats of paint were applied.

Steve(l) & Sean, busy painting

 Cliff meanwhile got on with removing the old paint from Foremarke Hall's eccentrics with a view to starting to paint them later.

Cliff at work

I'm not at all sure how he managed it, but Cliff was to be seen wandering abound with a very blackened end to his nose for much of the day.

Cliff, sporting a black nose.

The restoration of Dinmore Manor's own tender, whilst progressing well has always had a small thorn in its side.  The intermediate buffer springs are of an obscure design with a square cross section.  The problem being that the tender didn't have any springs in it when bought and the springs themselves were hand hewn out of solid billets of pure unobtainium which were then rolled like the finest Cuban cigars on the thighs of dusky maidens in Havana.  Getting replacements manufactured in the UK had proved to be impossible.  When spring manufacturers had been approached, the standard reponse had been a sharp intake of breath followed by some implausible reason why, if they could be made at all, it would cost at least an order of magnitude more than had been budgeted for.  The good news is that Mark has finally managed to track down not one, but four original springs and was apparently to be seen on a train on Thursday carrying two of them back in a ruck sack.  They're remarkably heavy things, I can only imagine that Mark is in training for the next GWSR tender pushing competition.  The other pair of springs have been earmarked for 2874.

A pair of springs, ready for shot blasting

Mark, eats 3 Shredded Wheat for breakfast (other cereals do exist)

 The cups that locate the tender springs in place have recently been machined and painted.  The brackets that they fit into had also been painted.  The thicknesses of several coats of paint and a few odd spots of rust in the deeper and more inaccessible regions of the brakets meant that the cups no longer fitted in the brackets quite as they should have done.  Eleanor had the task of making them fit again.  It didn't help that although nominally the same size, the aperture in the brackets seemed to vary.  Some fitted after just a little work with emery paper or files, others required rather more persuasion to fit.  

Eleanor gets persuasive with an angle grinder with wire brush attachment

Most members of the SLD have long since tumbled to the fact that no good at all will come of telling family/friends/colleagues about the existence of this blog, even less good will come of them letting me know about family/friends etc knowing about this blog.  Eleanor made the school boy girl error of telling me that her parents read this blog to find out what she has been up to.  I'm now working on Photoshopping a picture of a couple of our locos running side by side along our line with Eleanor tight rope walking between them.  

For the benefit of those who can't quite imagine how the suspension arrangement works, here is a photo of a similar arrangement on the Foremarke Hall's tender.  The spring centre is on top of the axle box, on either side, links hang down which are secured in the previously mentioned cups located into brackets on the tender frames.

How it will look when finished.

It turned out that only half of the cups were at Toddington, the other half were squirreled away at DMLL's own workshop, not too many miles away.  Never having been there before, finding it turned out to be something of a challenge.  The postcode plugged when punched into a sat nav takes you to a location two or three miles away, after that it's all guess work. The only benefit to driving around in circles for some considerable time on a hot day was that I got to see DMLL's fourth and largely forgotten loco, ex-GWR 2884 class, 2-8-0, 3845.  Last in the queue behind 3850 and 2874 for restoration.

DMLL's Cinderella loco, 3845, waiting for her fairy godmother to turn up

 Dinmore Manor's tender tank is also out there, sat ready and waiting for the tender to be re-wheeled, after which it can be taken to Toddington and fitted.

Not long now.

 The tender tank has all the internal baffles etc fitted, it needs the float installing (it's quite cramped in there, not the easiest job in the world), along with the tool boxes, other than that, it's pretty much ready for action.  Well, ok, it needs painting black to match Dinmore Manor too.  Shouldn't take too long, Mick and the boys seem keen to crack on with it.

A recent starter, Roger, turned up on Saturday as well and was found useful jobs to do on Dinmore Manor's tender.

Roger.... a blur of activity

 Welcome aboard Roger.

There is still a fair amount of painting to be done on the bits of the tender that are at Toddington:

Tim applies grey undercoat to the safety links

David applies black undercoat to the tender frames

I don't think that we're a million miles away from putting the tender back on its wheels now, Mark and Graham were working on the stays that steady the bottoms of the horn guides.

Graham measuring the dimensions of the stays

Mark, measuring the dimensions of the horn guides

 Getting the stays machined accurately to fit is an important factor in making sure that the frames don't crack.

35006 disappeared off out into the sunshine early on in the day and has been the subject of much activity.

Steve preparing to fit part of 35006's motion

 Plastic drip trays to catch oil have been sourced and located at strategic points in the David Page shed in an attempt to keep the parts of the floor that have been concreted so far clean. 

This drip tray had been under 35006 until it was wheeled out of the shed

Re-fitting 35006's driver's side smoke deflector

Driver's side con rod, temporarily fitted

Fireman's side con rod, on for good.

So to recap, the driver's side con rod has been trial fitted, the fireman's side con rod is now on for the forseeable future, the centre one is waiting its turn for installation.

If you take a look at the timatable for 2015, you'll notice that there are precious few Fridays that we run a regular timetable service, Friday's normally being set aside for footplate experience trains.  This coming Friday is an exception however.  There was supposed to be a car auction taking place on Friday 7th August and to coincide with that, the decision was taken to make the most of the event and add the date to the timetable. As luck would have it, the auction organisers decided to change the date to last Friday, but they made the change after our timetable had been published.  The upshot is that we're committed to running on the 7th, when most people won't be expecting it and when there won't be an event to tie in with.  I mention this as the steam loco on the blue timetable service (including a trip to Laverton on the first round trip) will be crewed by Ian, Chris & myself.  I have visions of there being more people on the footplate than in the carriages so if you're free on Friday, give yourself a treat and come along too, we'll be delighted to see you.

Speaking of Ian, he had been seen applying some sort of coating to the area above one of the cabs on the bubble car, 55003.  It involved mixing varying proportions of ingredients together, which apparently cured very quickly.

Newly recoated bubble car cab roof

This neatly ties in with the fact that the station shop on platform one of Toddington station now has a stock of the Dapol N gauge 122 class bubble cars, number 55003.  If you have a N gauge model railway, or know somebody who has and would appreciate one for their birthday or Christmas, then do pop along and obtain one. They cost £124 and come complete with Broadway and Cheltenham destination blinds.  Stocks of the OO gauge Hornby models of 2807 are running low, so if you're thinking of getting one of those, you'd best be quick. The 2807 models are excellent value at £105 instead of the £143 list price.  I am advised that there are also now supplies of embossed logo GWSR pocket diaries available at £6.50.

And finally, one of the Steam Loco Dept's volunteers is a retired dentist.  He turned up on Wednesday and again on Saturday fully expecting some fallout after the recent "Cecil the lion" incident in Zimbabwe, he wasn't disappointed.  He would like to make it known that he is not the dentist concerned and that he doesn't even own a gun, never mind used one to shoot any lions.  All I can say to that is that I didn't see a single lion all day at Toddington on Saturday, make of that what you will.  The retired dentist concerned was also keen to point out that dentistry is not the career path of choice for traffic wardens who have found that their job doesn't quite fulfill their desires for inflicting pain on other people.  Well we all know that's true, traffic wardens progress on to become politicians.