All change

As you may recollect, there was a bold plan to swap the wheels of 3850 and 2874.  The reason being that 3850 (a Collett 2884 class loco) had the earlier Churchward 2800 type of wheels and 2874 (a Churchward 2800 class loco) had the later 2884 type.  Confused, you should be.  The tyres on 3850's wheels were life expired (new tyres waiting at the South Devon Railway for fitting), the tyres on 2874 simply need turning. The precursor to all this activity was that the recently refurbished lifting jacks would need to be installed on the specially strengthened area at the north end of road 7 of the David Page shed, which in turn required that the adjacent road 6 should be concreted.  Well road 6 has been concreted far enough, the jacks installed and the process of swapping wheels could begin.

I wasn't able to be around at the time the work took place, so many thanks to Roger Tipton who provided the following photos of the work.

Mark setting up the jacks... under the gaze of the three wise men.

3850 is slowly lifted off of its wheels

daylight at last

3850 lifted clear of her wheels

With the wheels rolled out of the way, 3850 was lowered onto accommodation bogies

3850's pony truck

3850's frames in the yard on accommodation bogies

The axle boxes that came off needed a substantial amount of cleaning before they could be placed into storage, Alex tackled the task with the jet wash, assisted by Tony.

Alex with the jet washer, Tony with a scraper

The following day, it was 2874's turn.  Ostensibly a similar job, however 2874 hadn't been off of its wheels in a very long time indeed, predictably it put up a fight.  The right hand trailing axle box didn't free up and pulled the wheel up with it as it went.  The solution was to use a small jack positioned between the top of the axle box and the frames to provide gravity with some extra assistance.

2874 on the jacks

Pony truck freed

2874, finally off its wheels...

Road 6 in the David Page shed is still not quite complete, however one of the remaining sections has been prepared for a concrete pour later this week.

The next section awaits the concrete mixer's arrival

 Another item of note is that 3850's smoke box door & chimney have been sent away from shot blasting and have returned in a coat of heat resistant primer.

3850's smoke box door & chimney

Congratulations to John who has passed out as the GWSR's newest driver.

John (r) with inspector Lacey (photo courtesy of Neil Carr).

And finally...  The bride & groom on the wedding special that ran on the evening of the 29th of October would like to convey their thanks to all the volunteers at the GWSR who helped make the day so special, footplate crew (Neil & Aaron), signalman, stationmaster, guard, TTI, OTC (all seven of them) and the staff at the Flag & Whistle who did the catering.

One for the Bog

Saturday saw a rules and signals mutual improvement class led by Steve, who was keen to show off the whizzy new PowerPoint presentation training material that he had created.  The graphics which were not infrequently interspersed with American style steam locos trundling along a track and crashing into each other with a rather satisfying boom, were nonetheless a very useful refresher session. 

The concreting of road 6 is now well under way, another pour in the 4' having taken place during the course of the week.  John sent me the following photos of a fair team of people (Ade, Clive, John, Martin, Alex, Jamie, 2 x Chris's and of course Tim & Neal) at work on Friday.  The next two photos courtesy of John Cruxon.

A deceptive perspective, really about two thirds done from the far end

Finishing off levelling the concrete

Tim & Neal were the only people in evidence working on it on Saturday though, removing the shuttering.

Tim(l) & Neal.

 It's hard to tell from this angle, however the extent of the concrete on road 6, now extends about two thirds of the way down the length of the shed.

The end is in sight.

A week or two ago,  I reported on the fact that the rather deformed ash pan on 35006 was being worked on. The bowed section has now been replaced with what is hoped to be a sturdier section of steel.

A fine looking job

 Perhaps a little less glamorous, but no less important, John and Dave were busying themselves on Saturday with draining water contaminated oil out of the axle boxes.

John, draining oil.

 The Dinmore Manor group had a fair presence on site on Saturday, needle gunning and priming 3850's boiler being a priority, as that needs to be completed before the full Non-Destructive Testing of the boiler can take place.

David (l) & Keith, busy with needle guns.

 Once the needle gunning and wire brushing had been done, they added a coat of heat resistant, rust inhibiting primer.  When they paused for a tea break, the side of the boiler looked rather like a slice of Battenburg cake, uncharacteristically, I resisted the temptation to try a piece.

Not one of the "Exceedingly Good" cakes.

 Tea break finished, David & Keith finished priming the sections that they had completed.

It's getting there.

 By the end of ten years of faithful service, a steam loco will have collected a fair accumulation of grime, as well as a bit of rust. That will of course all need to be removed one way or another before renovation can begin.

Nigel wire brushing a cylinder cover

 Cylinder covers are remarkably heavy items, requiring a few people people to manhandle them back into the container after they had been cleaned.

A little more work on 3850's motion has taken place, with the lifting links now removed, cleaned and placed into storage.

The cleaning bath had two right hand gloves, but no left one... Doh!

Lifting links in the container.

Meanwhile, an item that had yet to be done for Dinmore Manor's new tender was the guard irons, Kenneth was in the Dinmore Manor container treating them to some grey undercoat. 

Kenneth painting the guard irons.

As you may be aware, 2807 has been away for a spell at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, appearing in their recent gala.  Unfortunately during that time, one of her tubes started to leak.  The tube in question was sealed at both ends and she was able to continue in service.  Now that she has returned to Toddington, we needed to establish if the problem was just a single manufacturing defect in one tube, or if it was an issue that affected all of them.  The answer lay in removing the failing tube and examining it.

2807's smoke box.

Unfortunately, the leaking tube was at the top of the boiler and concealed behind the superheaters, giving very limited access.  Without removing the superheater elements & header, the tube was only going to come out in small pieces, which is what happened, Phil pushing the tube from the firebox end, Ian cutting it off in 6" sections as it appeared in the smoke box:

The first section to emerge...

...in fact it was the first of many.

Finally, the failing section of the tube was located, the hole the size of a pin prick was found in the indented area towards the left hand side.

It may not have been big, but with 225 PSI behind it...

This is excellent news, apart from the one small pin prick of a hole, the rest of the tube was in excellent fettle, with plenty of good solid metal left in it.  Had the problem been due to the tube having worn thin, then it would have indicated that the rest of the tubes were probably nearly life-expired, which in turn would have necessitated a full re-tube. As things stand, it looks like it will just require the replacement of the one tube.  

I received the final picture from Phil, of him and Ian having successfully removed the offending tube, an unfortunate typo on his part in the accompanying text said "One for the bog".  I hope that he meant "One for the blog".

Phil (l) & Ian

Welded to the Railway

The concreting of road 6 in the David Page shed has progressed significantly during the last week, prompting an influx of emails to your humble blogmeister containing photos of the work in hand:

Concrete mixer arrives (Photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

The concrete pour begins (Photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

By the end of Wednesday, a sizable section of the floor had been done.

Photo courtesy of John Cruxon

Moving forward to Saturday, yet more concreting was taking place in the David Page shed

A second section in progress

Even a section of the apron on road 7 had been done too

I didn't have the pleasure of meeting Luke, a new starter in the department, however that didn't prevent him from forwarding a few photos of more preparatory work for the next concrete pour on Saturday, with shuttering and steel reinforcing being put in place:

The next two photos both by kind permission of Luke Hudman:

Wednesday's pour on the left, steel reinforcing appearing

No explanatory notes came with this picture, however I have to hope that Aaron was about to weld some of the steel reinforcement into place rather than weld Sean's boots to the track.

Aaron about to weld something... but what?

More work has taken place on 2874 during the week, with a few more photos appearing from Roger.   With the boiler now out of the frames, the full extent of the corrosion of the rear drag box is becoming evident.  There will be a lot of work required here before she is ready to run under her own steam again.

2874's rear drag box as seen from between the frames (photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

 That the final years of the decline of steam on British Railways saw a sad neglect of maintenance is well known and documented however the following image of a pin that secured one of the brake equalising beams is still shocking. 

Used and abused (photo courtesy of Roger Tipton)

 The well known second hand car joke, "One careful owner, the rest were not so choosy" seems to be applicable here.  The Great Western Railway (as in the 1835 established original company to trade by that name) was the first careful owner, the 2874 Trust will now carry on in that tradition rather than the one shown subsequently by BR (at least in its latter years of ownership). 

Saturday was the date of the AGM of Dinmore Manor Locomotive LTD (DMLL), the owners of Dinmore Manor (well the clue was in the name) as well as 3850, 3845 and until the 2874 Trust formally takes ownership, the owners of 2874 as well.   The group's supporters gathered for a round trip of the line behind their flagship loco with a fish and chip lunch, before heading off to the Toddington village hall for the actual AGM.

Dinmore Manor setting off on the first round trip of the day

 For the lunchtime run, with the DMLL members on board, the "Dinmore Manor Shareholders Special" headboard was rummaged up and put in place on the top lamp bracket.

DMLL Shareholders Special, about to depart

 The lure of fish and chips was too strong, but at least I had enough time before hand to get in a little light needle gunning of 3850's boiler before joining the train.  Roger had been around for much of the week and had managed to make a great deal of progress, including finishing off the backhead and the whole of the top of the firebox.

Needle gunned & primed firebox crown...

...and the now finished backhead.

Roger's extraordinary input of time and effort into working on 3850 & 2874 was  recognised by DMLL at the AGM, by awarding him the "Volunteers Cup".

One of the diesel shunters that is used from time to time to shunt the yard has been jacked up to allow its springs to be removed so that they can be sent away as a batch for refurbishing.

Des, all 6 springs removed

The drain funnel for the parachute tank in the yard that was manufactured last week has been painted

Tim painting the new drain for the parachute tank on Wednesday (photo courtesy of John Cruxon)

 On Saturday, somebody (I'm afraid that I don't know who) had treated it to a top coat.

Soon be ready for installing.

Later on in the day, after the DMLL AGM, I needed to put a warming into 4270, as I would be its fireman on Sunday.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that a keen new starter in the Steam Loco Dept called Mike had decided to hang around until the end of the day to see if he could help.  Of course he could:

Mike getting the warming fire going in 4270.

Sunday morning arrived, and as if on cue, the heavens opened as soon as we had started prepping 4270 for the day's work to come.

Steve watches as trainee driver Clive oils up 4270

Cleaner Andrew tries to shelter under the running plate whilst cleaning the wheels & motion

 As luck would have it, the skies cleared up as soon as we set off shed and stayed clear for the rest of the day.  Operationally, we had a slight issue, the water crane on the end of platform 2 at Toddington is currently out of use.  This meant that we had to take water each time at Cheltenham where we had little time to do it. 

It helped that we could fill up before we left the yard.

Ready to leave on time from Toddington...

...and off we went...

...and into Greet tunnel, which has yet to be relocated

 It was perfect conditions for lineside photography, and the usual suspects were to be seen at various points along the line with their cameras.  One enterprising chap at Gotherington was even using one of those new-fangled drones. 

Smile, you're on candid camera!

 As noted earlier, the water crane on platform 2 at Toddington where we would usually replenish our tanks was out of action.  That forced us to take water each trip at Cheltenham.  The timetable allows little more than time for a "splash & dash", rather than fully filling the tanks.  The fact that the water tanks on 4270 take a fair while to balance across (the one you're filling can be full and the one on the other side still half empty) meant that we were taking rather longer on the runarounds than the timetable allowed.  My apologies to anybody who was inconvenienced by our slightly late departures from Cheltenham Race Course on one or two of the trips.

Some of the water dispensed even reached the tanks.

Breakfast was kindly provided by Steve

 One thing that I have noticed with trainee drivers, is that they all seem to miss using the shovel.  Clive was no exception, and whilst I was busy pulling down coal in the bunker, he took the opportunity to swipe the shovel and build up the fire for me.

Clive building up the fire...

... and eventually back on his side of the cab.

 I don't think that I've seen it reported anywhere else yet, but platform 2 at Cheltenham Race Course has now been given a layer of tarmac.  The team that built platform 2 must be congratulated on a first rate job.

CRC platform 2

 A hot tip for any cleaners/trainee firepersons, presenting the hard working crews with a cup of tea when they arrive back at Toddington will always be extremely welcome

Eleanor has got the idea... she'll go far!

And finally, Dan has read all the way to here in this blog post and must have thought by now that he had got away with it... no such luck!  He'd been keeping it quiet, but on Sunday he reached the grand old age of 21, which as a number of people pointed out makes him the same age as me.

Dan, 2 years ago on his first solo firing turn (photo courtesy of Jamie Christie)

Happy birthday Dan.