A Really Useful Engine

Just over a week ago, that well known and well loved, 'really useful engine', Thomas the Tank Engine paid us a visit.  The Thomas days are always good fun and this one was no exception.  Of course before the fun can start for the young visitors that are attracted to the Thomas events, the locos for the day need to be cleaned and prepared ready for action.  Ed has just become our 'new volunteers liasion manager' and was busy showing Mike, a new volunteer the ropes:

Ed (left) & Mike

Congratulations Ed on your new appointment, I'm sure you'll be perfect in the role.

Mike was soon hard at work sprucing up our visiting loco, whilst Paul set to work getting Thomas's fire lit:

Paul seems happy with his fire

 My steed for the day was Foremarke Hall Henry.  Or at least I think it was Henry.  I've just trawled the interweb looking for green locos in the Thomas family of engines and the 'big green engine' looks more like a product of Doncaster rather than Swindon, but I suppose that a bit of artistic licence can be got away with when you are entertaining guests from Sodor.

I just couldn't bring myself to upload a photo of her wearing a silly face

 Of course, the addition of a smiling face doesn't mean that locos suddenly acquire 'really useful' additions like self cleaning smoke boxes or self-emptying ashpans, if only they did.

Damping down the ash pan the old fashioned way with a hose pipe

 The timetable was a bit of an odd one, Thomas just shuttled between Toddington and Winchcombe, whilst we covered the line between Winchcome and Cheltenham Race Course.  Daisy did the same route as us. 

Daisy passes us at Gotherington

If Thomas had been such a 'really useful engine', he'd have come down to Cheltenham and fixed the leaky water feed pipe.

Just in case the barrier fails to keep the public at a safe distance, the leaking water feed will

Henry's gallant crew on this occasion were Steve (on a driver training turn), Mark who was the driving instructor and Neil, who although a driver was booked on as the fireman today.

L-R, Neil, Steve & Mark

Steve taking it easy at Winchcombe

 Neil was kind enough to let me fire for a couple of round trips, pleasingly there was no testing of the safety valves at any point during the day.  That was more than could be said for the crew of Thomas. On one of our return trips to Winchcombe, we found that Thomas wasn't sat waiting for us in platform 2 as usual, but he had disappeared off into the carriage sidings.  It seems that Ed had been a bit over enthusiastic when he had fired Thomas on the run into Winchcombe.

Thomas hiding in the carriage sidings

Thomas is looking pleased with himself, but his crew are hiding in the cab

The safety valves make quite a racket when they go, and rather than terrify the children on the platform, the decision had been taken to sneak off into the carriage sidings to blow off. Quite what the children made of this I don't know, but Henry's crew found it all very entertaining.

Reports after the event from the crew of Thomas turned out to be rather amusing.  There is a set piece script that the volumetrically challenged (we live in rather more enlightened times these days, you can't just call somebody 'fat') controller and Thomas's driver.  I can't quote it verbatim, but went something like this:

Salad Dodging Controller: "Hello driver, is Thomas not well?"
Driver: "No he isn't"
Clinically Obese Controller: "Did you do something different today?"
Driver: "Er... I don't know"

What the driver should have said was that they had stopped to pick up water in the stream and that would then lead to the discovery of fish swimming in his water tanks, followed by a spot of fishing to rescue the fish.  The driver shall remain anonymous, purely to protect the guilty, but if you're particularly interested, just think of English patron saints and the slaying of dragons.  Thankfully the overweight controller was on the ball and recovered the situation by asking the question "Did you stop for water at the stream?" and the fishing story was able to proceed  as planned.

The day was slightly marred by the fact that just before the Thomas event had started, some juvenile louts had decided that it would be a good idea to lurk in the track side undergrowth at Bishops Cleeve and throw stones at one of the passing trains.  The result was that one of the windows of one of the carriages was broken.  Mercifully no passengers or crew were injured.

The broken window

Being on the corridor side of the coach, meant that the whole coach had to be locked out of use rather than just one compartment and of course the volunteers in the railway's carriage and wagon department now had to step in and replace the window. The topic surfaced in conversation several times during the day and options for retribution when the culprits are apprehended were discussed in some detail. Most preferred the biblical and indeed rather poetic justice option of stoning the miscreants though a significant number favoured the rather more up to date (by which I mean medieval) use of fire irons heated to a nice cherry red colour in Foremarke Hall's firebox. 

Finally, as you'll have seen from my last post, I am daft enough to be intending to walk from coast to coast towards the end of this month in order to raise money for the railway's extension to Broadway.  I have to confess that throwing that little bombshell out last week and then promptly disappearing off for a week's holiday in the North Pennines and Yorkshire Dales to break in my new walking boots and test the efficacy of my water proofs was probably not my smartest move ever as it raised lots of questions which I wasn't in a position to answer.  Here are a few updates which should deal with most of the questions that I have received thus far.

1) Should you wish to sponsor per mile, here is my itinerary giving approximate locations and total distance from the start by the end of each day:

Sat 20th July:  Cleaning turn for train 1, drive to St Bees afterwards.
Sun 21st:  St Bees to Ennerdale Bridge, 14.5 miles
Mon 22nd: Ennerdale Bridge to Borrowdale, 31 miles
Tue 23rd: Borrowdale to Grasmere, 39.5 miles
Wed 24th: Grasmere to Patterdale, 47 miles
Thu 25th: Patterdale to Shap, 63 miles
Fri 26th: Shap to Kirkby Stephen, 83.5 miles
Sat 27th: Kirkby Stephen to Keld, 98 miles
Sun 28th: Keld to Reeth, 111.5 miles
Mon 29th: Reeth to Colburn, 128.5 miles
Tue 30th: Colburn to Ingleby Cross, 148.5 miles
Wed 31st: Ingleby Cross to Blakey Ridge, 169 miles
Thu 1st: Blakey ridge to Grosmont, 183 miles
Fri 2nd:  Grosmont to Robin Hood's Bay, 198.5 miles
Sat 3rd:  Public transport to St Bees, then drive to Toddington
Sun 4th:  Normal cleaning turn, plus walk from Laverton to Broadway (Maybe another 2.5 miles)

Mileages taken from the 5th edition of "Coast to Coast Path" by Henry Stedman.

2) Some people will want to see photos from everyday along with a detailed description, rather more I suspect will be satisfied with a handful at the start/finish and a few selected high spots in between.  The much abridged version will appear on this blog. To satisfy the curiosity of others, a fuller version of events will appear online somewhere at a location yet to be decided.

3)  Please send cheques to:

Steve Sperring (Fund Raising Director) 
Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Railway
Toddington Railway Station
Toddington
Gloucestershire
GL54 5DT

Please make cheques payable to GWRT with ‘Ray O’Hara’ written on the back.