A Bad Day at the Office

One midweek evening, an email arrived with several attached photos and a tale of woe regarding one of the steam loco dept's members, a few hours later, a text from somebody else with another photo and the same tale of woe.  News travels fast, bad news travels even faster.  It appears that one of that day's crew (name withheld to protect the unfortunate) had a slight mishap whilst coaling up 4270. Some (exactly how much depends on whose version of events you're listening to) of the coal missing the bunker and ending up in the pit.  

Photo courtesy Dan Wigg

Photo courtesy Sean Nielsen

To make it worse, at least two members of the public were to be seen videoing the proceedings from the car park.  No videos have turned up on Youtube yet that I know about, but it's probably just a matter of time. 

The same trio were present on Saturday as well, the leg pulling was merciless.  You need to develop a very thick skin if you are to survive for long in the steam loco dept.

All of which brings us neatly on to Saturday morning.  A quick look around revealed that the north west quadrant of the David Page shed had been finished as far as the laying of the concrete was concerned, and it was looking extremely good for it. It will be painted and sealed to keep it looking good, sometime in the near future.

Concrete floor in the David Page shed

A little bit of the surplus concrete had been put to good use in starting a walkway past the front of the diesel shed too:

Surplus concrete put to good use

The lamp cupboard has moved once more.  Its relocation into the oil store turned out to be a temporary move, and it has now found its way into the tool store:

The lamp cupboard in its final (hopefully) resting place

You'll notice that the photo includes some of the tools to be found in the tool store, not all of which are present and correct in the places allotted to them.  As a general rule of thumb, any tool that you could conceivably want, won't be in its place, whereas any tool that fits absolutely nothing anywhere on the railway will be sitting smugly in its designated location. 

Rags are still appearing in the rag collecting point which is gratifying.  As far as I can make out, I'm the only person passed out to empty it and move the rags into the oil store.  I'll have to make sure that plenty of other people become qualified to do it as well:

A wheel barrow load of rags en-route to the oil store

Thank you to everybody who has continued to provide us with rags.

My task on Saturday morning was to get 2807 cleaned and ready for service, Cliff & Chris were down as driver and fireman respectively.  Once I'd washed over the boiler, it was time to give the smoke box a bit of a going over with a 50/50 mix of motion oil & diesel.  The trick is to make the mix in an empty baked bean tin and apply it liberally with an old paint brush.  The old baked bean tin that had been used until recently had gone AWOL, so I improvised with an old fizzy drink can that I found in a skip:

Before

After

  The edges were still a little bit sharp, so should anybody continue to use it, make sure you wear gloves or take great care.

Andy oils up 4270

Stuart is more normally associated with maintaining/driving the DMUs however he has seen the light and is converting back to steam.  I say converting back, as he has been qualified as a fireman on the GWSR in the past.  It seems that he can still remember how to get his hands mucky and operate a kettle, so he should have no trouble getting back into the swing of things.

Stuart, returning from the dark side.

Sean cleaning 4270's wheels & motion

Taking care not to damage 4270's paintwork whilst buffing up her brass cabside

2807 and 4270 looking good and ready for a day's work

2807 heads off with the 10:00 service to Cheltenham Race Course

 Once 2807 was safely off shed and off down the line with the first train of the day, it was time to head off with Tina for a practice walk in readiness for our upcoming sponsored walk for the Broadway Station appeal.  As I was already at Toddington, it seemed to make good sense to drive out to Chipping Campden, then walk back down the Cotswold Way as far as Stanway, then walk back along the B4077 to Toddington.  At a guess, somewhere around 12 or 13 miles and therefore towards the upper end of the distances that we are intending to cover each day.

Looking back at Chipping Campden

The idea of trig points is that they are visible from a long distance, to aid with surveying land.  This one on Dovers Hill was almost entirely hidden from view down in the valleys below by trees.

Trig point on Dovers Hill

 A short distance away was a toposcope, which afforded excellent views to the north and west.

Tina, surveying the view from Dovers Hill

 The local architecture was very much to my taste if not my finances, this house along the way had something of a finial on the left hand side of the roof, complete with a sundial set into it.

Who needs a watch with a house like this?

 Broadway tower and Broadway itself were both on the route.  Never having been up to the tower before, I was quite charmed by it, and judging by the crowds, many others were too.

Broadway Tower

  Down in Broadway village itself, there was some sort of event taking place which had drawn substantial crowds.  I'm not entirely sure what was going on, "Broadfest" apparently, whatever that is.  It involved lots of people, stalls and music.  It turns out the Broadway Action Group were in attendance too, but I'm afraid that we didn't spot them.  It would be nice to think that in the not too distant future, we will be running trains from Cheltenham Race Course (where there is plentiful parking) to Broadway, bringing visitors to this delightful village nestling in the heart of the Cotswolds.

Choir on the village green

I noticed in one of the shops in Broadway that we passed, several references to the golden age of steam.  This jigsaw puzzle of Lode Star was amongst several that caught my eye:

Lode Star

 The prospect of sampling the delights of Broadway had to be set aside though, as the trail beckoned, and soon we were back out in the sticks again:

Looking back on Broadway

Amongst the items of note on the route, was this rather fine fungus sprouting from the base of a tree, each section the size of a dinner plate.

But is it edible?

 Tina has worked out how to distract me so that she can take a sneaky rest break, just point me in the direction of something interesting to photograph. Thus it was that I didn't believe her at first when she said that she could see a badger in the next field as they are noted for being nocturnal animals. Tina was right though, there really was a badger in the next field.   The badger was reasonably young and was happy to let me get fairly close to it before backing off a short distance.  This was one of those occasions when I wished I'd packed my proper camera rather than the point and shoot.

I'd never seen a live wild badger so close before.

Tina doesn't get on well with hills, flat ground is ok, shallow down hill sections even better.  Anything that involves going up, or steeply down is not.  I learned some new words on the long & steep descent from Shenberrow Hill to Stanton.  Tina is not looking forward to going up this section when we do it for real.  I tried to explain that hills are easier on the legs, and particularly the feet & knees when you're going up them, but she wouldn't believe me.  Encouragingly, we occasionally heard the horn of the DMU as it was heading to/from Laverton whilst we were on this section, suggesting that the end of the day's walk wasn't too far off..

Occasional impediments to progress

Tina rests her legs in Stanton

 This last photo shows the 117 class DMU on Stanway viaduct in the middle distance.

DMU on Stanway viaduct

After that, all that was left was to cross several fields, one containing a herd of cows complete with a large bull, then take our lives in our hands as we walked along the footpath less B4077 from Stanway back to Toddington. 

It's fair to say that Tina is quite some way outside her comfort zone in doing this walk. Many miles and steep hills are not really her cup of tea, and I've yet to mention to her that it's likely to rain and how much fun blisters can be  I'm sure it would help to spur her on if you were to contribute generously towards the appeal for Broadway Station, demolished in 1963, to be rebuilt and put back into service sometime soon.  The more you donate, the sooner it will be.

On line donations can be made by clicking here.

Failing that, good old fashioned cheques will still do nicely:

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 ‘Tina Sutton and Ray O’Hara’ written on the back.