Kidnapping an Elf

Saturday was the first day of the Santa specials.  Yours truly was down for a fireman training turn.  I had noted the fact that my steed for the day was to be the 8F, I had checked that there was going to be a warming fire put in the day before.  I had even noted that we were to be making an empty coaching stock movement from Toddington at 09:00, an hour earlier than normal and had set my alarm accordingly.  I read the messages at the signing in point, noting where the Permanent Way activities were scheduled to be, I checked to make sure that it was still 8274 rostered to the turn on the notice board in the mess coach and then checked the defects log to make sure that she hadn't been red-carded and to note any outstanding issues.  All that was left to do now was to find her (needless to say this was long before dawn) and start the lighting up procedures.  The only problem was, that even though everything else was in order, I couldn't find my engine.  2807 was on the inspection pit on road 8, the other inspection pit was empty.  She definitely hadn't been parked on the ash pit or I'd have noticed her as I signed on.  Fearing that somebody might have broken in and stolen one of our locos, I sent out a search party... well as I was the only person present, it was a fairly small search party, but I sent it out anyway.  I eventually discovered 8274 hiding a little way down the yard on road 8 in the darkness.  Not being on the pit made no difference to me, however Paul, the driver, found himself having to crawl under the loco the hard way to do much of the inspections and oiling up.

Much later in the morning, it was easy to see 8274 hiding behind 2807

It's got a bit colder lately, the wood in the wood store was damp and cold, the lighting up rags seemed to be rather damp and of course the coal in the tender was a bit damp too.  Encouraging any sort of a conflagration in the fire box turned out to be a fairly protracted affair, requiring plenty of wood and no small amount of what would be described on Crimewatch as 'accelerant'.  

Being the first of the Santa specials, it fell to us to bedeck the 8F with tinsel and try to make her look festive.  I had underestimated quite how much tinsel would be needed, as had Ade.  We both thought we'd brought enough for the whole loco, yet our combined quantity of tinsel still fell slightly short of what was required.

Mike and Ade get cracking with the tinsel, Paul is still underneath oiling up

Once the tinsel had been eked out as far as it could, we set off with the empty carriages to Cheltenham to collect the first passengers.  The guard insisted on us putting the steam heat on for the ECS move, to make sure that the coaches were nice and warm for the passengers.  The fact that t would also keep him warm on the way to Cheltenham was just a happy coincidence.

I'm not convinced that much steam was getting along the train though

 We took on water at Cheltenham, and I noticed that a repair of sorts has been made on the delivery hose:

What had been a torrent was now reduced to a trickle

 As you can see, Ade didn't trust it in the least and decided to stay in the hut just in case it burst.  

Once we had collected our passengers, we set off to Winchcombe The North Pole to allow the children to visit Santa and collect their presents.  Not being on Santa's 'nice list', we didn't bother with that and stayed on the footplate heating up mince pies on the warming plate:

There's no better way to warm mince pies

Ade tucks in

Paul gets into the festive spirit before demolishing the mince pies

Meanwhile, apparently the brakes had been sticking on one of the carriages. The guard and a couple of people from Carriage and wagon fixed it whilst we were scoffing the mince pies:

The three wise men.

The next round trip was booked down for Ade to have his biennial firing assessment, so I stepped off the footplate for that trip and took a closer look at what Winchombe had to offer.  Needless to say, Ade passed with flying colours.

Just before they set off

So what is there at Winchcombe to tempt the travelers during the festive season?

Well there's Santa of course

Andy the guard seemed to be on Santa's 'nice list'

There was even a photographer from the Gloucestershire echo

There were plenty of Elves too

Not much snow though considering we were ostensibly at the North Pole

 Amusingly, it wasn't just Elves that were helping Santa, we even had a number of Dwarves as well.  Though this particular one didn't seem to be getting into the festive spirit.  Perhaps he doesn't like Elves too much:

Grumpy

Even more amusingly, as has already been reported on the Boardroom Blog, Santa suffered a malfunction in the wardrobe department and was to be seen walking along platform one with his red trousers down around his ankles.  He was just a bit too quick at pulling them back up, so neither myself nor the reporter from the Gloucestershire Echo managed to get a photo.  It seems that those 'One size fits all' Santa outfits should really be called 'One size fits nobody'.

The best bit of course was the cafe where the OTC team (OK, not so much of the OT in this instance, but plenty of the C) were dispensing tea and mince pies.  When Paul had set off to drive 8274 off to Cheltenham, his parting words were "Don't eat all the mince pies".  Well I didn't.... but I had a pretty good try.

Catering (On Train or otherwise) with a smile

 Soon enough 8274 was making her way back.  Ian was rostered as the relief driver and he persuaded me that I'd like to join him and John on the afternoon shift:

8274 returns with more passengers...

...and parks up on platform one

Ade unhooks 8274 from the stock

After a lengthy wait, and even more tea and mince pies, we were off again.  The skies may have been clear and blue, but it was still pretty nippy in the wind.  Fortunately the cab of the 8F is one of the better ones at fending off the worst of what the British weather has to offer.

Under clear blue skies

Ian driving 8274

As always, the passengers came up to admire the loco

...before we took them to off to see Santa

Ian and John

The skies are still blue, but it was fairly cold out there.

Once we got to Winchcombe, one of the Elves decided to join us up on the footplate for a bit of a look around.  We however were all ready to run around the stock and hook on again at the other end.  Without warning the Elf in question, Ian blew the whistle and we were off to run around, which came as quite a surprise to her.  I don't think that she had been kidnapped before.  It'll have given her something to tell the grand children about when she got home.

Kidnapped Elf

 Of course getting back off the loco at the other end is slightly tricky as we were off the platform, but she coped just fine.

Where's the platform gone?

It's always interesting to watch different firemen at work.  They all have subtly different approaches to doing things.  John usually volunteers for midweek turns, so as I'm usually around at weekends, our paths rarely cross.  I was interested to note that he runs with a much thinner fire than I would dare to.  Again. he's another one of the breed of firemen who manages to make it all look so easy.  That didn't stop him from joining my growing collection of photos of firemen by fire light in Greet tunnel:

John keeps an eye on his fire.  Note the festive tie

A bit later on, John was keeping an eye on a rather larger fire that had made an unusual appearance in the sky:

The sun sets on a perfect day

After that it was back to Toddington with the empty carriages to dispose the 8F and put her to bed on one of the pits in readiness for Sunday's crew.

On the ash pit

I was busy taking this slightly long exposure of Ian checking over 8274 when I heard him say how much longer do I need to stand still for?  Being very much in silhouette, I hadn't even realised that he was facing in my direction.

Ian playing musical statues

Not being one to waste a perfectly good photo opportunity, I told him to hang on for a few more seconds and sneakily grabbed another closer up shot:

He didn't do a bad job at staying still.

Finally, in the pub afterwards, Andy forwarded me this picture that he had taken sometime during the day at Toddington:

Seven kettles... I wonder if the Dwarves at Winchcombe have lost theirs

I'm not sure quite how he had managed to obtain so many kettles, but he suggested that I'd have better luck dealing with this kind than the rather larger ones on wheels that we pull trains up and down the line with.