Obscured by clouds

I've noticed that the days are shortening.  Arrival at Toddington on a Saturday morning is technically before dawn at the moment, though the sky is still blessed with a fair amount of pre dawn light.  It won't be long though before much of the loco preparation will be being done in the dark.  I must remember to stock up on batteries for my Bardic and various torches.  

I was down to clean 2807 on Saturday morning, but even though she had been working trains all through the week, she was pretty much sparkling clean.  Giving the outside of the smoke box a good going over with a 50/50 mix of diesel & motion oil always makes a loco look smarter, so I did that to start off with before breaking out the Brasso and giving the safety valve cover some therapy. It's always best to get the things that will get hot done before they become too hot.

Superbly cleaned smoke box

Shortly after the above photo was taken, Chris, the fireman for the day grabbed a generous handful of the blower to pep his fire up a bit.  This resulted in a spray of water being briefly emitted from the chimney and making a bit of a mess.  When I brought the matter to his attention, Chris said "It's your fault for having cleaned the smoke box prematurely".  Hitherto I hadn't realised that it was possible to be too quick to clean the smoke box.  I'm now older, but probably no wiser. 

The other engine out on Saturday was Foremarke Hall.  

Matt gets to work on Foremarke Hall's safety valve bonnet

Matt had no such issues with his fireman, though I guess Ade would have stopped his pocket money if he had had the temerity to bring such a transgression to his attention.

One or two drivers turn out to be occasionally rather too liberal with the oil and leave small puddles of the stuff over the running plate etc, so I leave cleaning the running plate until after the driver has finished oiling round.  Ian was more careful than most, but I still wound him up about the few drops he did spill.

"Hurry up and take the photo, it's nearly full"

2807 setting off from the shed

Arty farty shot of Foremarke Hall's reflection in a puddle

2807 on the way to the ash pit

Chris has recently passed out as a fireman and had been taught to fire by Ade, who is now my firing instructor.  The opportunity to watch Chris fire and see exactly how it should be done proved to be too alluring and I joined the crew of 2807 for the first round trip.

Ian at the regulator

Trench digging at Cheltenham

I noted that the construction of platform 2 at Cheltenham Race Course station is progressing

Platform 2 taking shape.

Chris managed to make the whole firing thing look easy.... well mostly:

That will teach him for saying I had cleaned the smoke box prematurely

He did assure me later that 2807 never blew off again all day.

Ian and Mark have spotted something interesting at Bishops Cleeve

Entering Greet tunnel....

... and emerging from the other end.

 We arrived at Winchcombe to find that Dave Clark and some of his band of volunteers in the carriage and wagon dept had stopped for a tea break which had been cunningly timed to coincide with the arrival of the trains:

Our trains are so punctual you can set your kettle by them

Foremarke Hall arrives

Chris bungs a few more shovels full of coal in the firebox before we carry on back to Toddington...

... and then takes a breather

Arriving back at Toddington, we find that the Permanent Way gang are out in force replacing a few life-expired sleepers:

Permanent way gang at work

For the rest of the day, my plan was to assist the gallant team of people who were ripping out some of the track in the David Page shed.  We have money set aside to put in a proper concrete floor, but we need to remove the old track before the concrete can be laid.  The plan was to do it a quarter of the shed at a time.  One of the tracks in the first quarter of the shed had been lifted out during the week, all that remained was to extract the other one:

Dan, Matt, Cliff & Ben trying to work out why the rail won't budge

 At one point Cliff mentioned that "the blog has improved no end lately".  This was praise from an unexpected quarter (to be fair, praise from any quarter is unexpected).  My mind raced trying to think of what I might have done differently recently.  Cliff went on to say, "Yes, it's been far better because I've not been in it".  Well you're back in it now Cliff.

It took a lot of work to shift it that far

Ben drags the rail away

The stack of sleepers on the left was from earlier in the week. Our pile has just started on the right

During a tea break a bit later, I noticed that the PW gang were still hard at work on the running line.  They seemed to make it all look so easy.

Andrew hits something, the other two supervise

Our poor attempts to shift just a single track panel out of the shed would have no doubt caused the PW gang no end of amusement had they seen us. Mercifully, although we were no more than 100 yards away from them, we were safely out of sight.

Shifting track was all rather too much like hard work, so when the opportunity to skive off and put a warming fire into 5542 presented itself, I jumped at the chance. 

5542 in need of warming up

Later on, mechanical assistance was brought to bear in shifting the sleepers

It was nice to see Ian back with us again after a recent injury

Ben stacking the last of the concrete sleepers

Speaking of Ben, he hit the ripe old age of 27 on Sunday.  Rather than celebrate in a flamboyant fashion, Ben settled for an understated 83N reporting code and a "The Birthday Express" headboard on 2807.  I had been hoping that they might have baked a birthday cake in the smoke box or something, but if they did, no photos have emerged.

Ben on the birthday express, photo courtesy of Dan Wigg

And finally, I have received the total raised by the sponsored coast to coast walk in aid of the Broadway extension.  Thank you very much indeed to all who sponsored me, you have raised a grand total of £676.41.  It turns out that the sleepers for Broadway appeal has already managed to generate enough funds to cover the cost of the track and we have now launched a share issue "Bridges to Broadway" to cover the half a million pounds required to sort the bridges out (described in the latest issue of the Cornishman, but not yet anywhere that I could spot on the main website).  What is still short of obvious fund raising activity is the quarter of a million pounds required for the station buildings at Broadway, so I have agreed for the sponsor money to be used to help with that.  After all, having a station to arrive at is as much a part of the overall Broadway extension project as fixing the bridges or laying the track.  In the event that any sponsors have a problem with this slight change in use of the money raised, then please contact me through this blog for a refund.  Once again, thank you to all that supported me one way or another.  I'll sign off with my favourite view from the walk, a 180 degree panorama from the top of Red Pike (Buttermere) at the start of the second day's walking.

L-R Irish Sea, Loweswater (small bit visible), Crummock Water & Buttermere with Bleaberry Tarn bottom right