A Quiet Day

December has arrived and the Santa Specials are in full swing, we had two steam locos out on Saturday.  Dinmore Manor was first to disappear off down the line to collect the first group of passengers.

7820 sets off, 5542 awaits her turn.

They're mostly sold out now, but if you're quick, you can still book a place on some some of the Santa specials by clicking here.
 
 I have been mildly admonished in certain quarters for only taking photos of the steam locos (well this is the steam loco dept blog) and never any of the carriages.  I was quite taken by the low sunlight filtering through the carriage windows and the steam and decided to break with tradition.

Crepuscular rays

Chocolate, cream and steam

 I was also rather relieved that the paint on the smoke box of Dinmore Manor appeared to have cured to a healthy shade of black rather than the very grubby grey when it had been first applied last week.

5542 had a bit of manoeuvering to do before she could get on her stock and go

Nicely backlit

Finally, she was off

 You'll note that the service steam locos have been suitably decorated with tinsel etc.  Not to be outdone, the 04 shunter has had a makeover too.

Tinsel on the radiator.

 Yours truly has somehow acquired yet another blog to maintain, I've been sweet talked into updating the 2874 restoration blog.  Updates will be on a far less regular basis than this blog and will depend on having anything worthy of reporting having happened. Progress on 2874 will have to take a back seat to maintaining Dinmore Manor and the heavy overhaul of 3850 which will commence when her boiler ticket expires in May. 

As there were no other work parties in evidence when we arrived, Cliff and I decided that it would be a good idea to try and progress 2874 a bit.  The tasks that wanted doing were removing a few of the bolts holding the cab in place and possibly jacking up the boiler to make sure that it will move when the time comes to lift it off.  The roof and spectacle plate should just lift off after a few rows of bolts had been removed.  Mark said "Just get an angle grinder onto the heads and the bots will just pop out".  He made it all sound so easy.   The task was hampered by the fact that although the plate on the cab sides has rusted through so much as to be scrap, several bits of angle bracket were salvageable and we were to take care not to damage them.

Cliff grinding off the heads of the bolts

Punching the headless bolts through.

 I'd like to be able to report that we had successfully managed to remove the cab roof as intended however, the headless bolts hadn't read the script.  They had absolutely no intention of just popping out.  Plenty of good old brute force and ignorance was applied, as well as hefty hammers and punches and still the wretched things wouldn't budge.  We tried drilling some out, but only succeeded in blunting a few drill bits.  When failing light caused us to give up, we had only managed to remove one bolt.

Elsewhere, more success was being had.  Neil and Tim were preparing the concrete base for the installation of the water crane:

Concrete being prepared

Base installed.

 As you may recollect from last week, 2807 has broken a valve piston ring.  No damage was caused by this and a new ring is being manufactured.  Whilst the valve piston is out, they are going to take the opportunity to change the valve spindle which is worn as well as the bush that it fits into.  Meanwhile, fund raising continues with  the manufacture of rail chair boot scrapers:

Boot scrapers being made

 Boot scrapers and other items can be ordered by following this link.

My spy in the 35006 camp informed me that the second of the steam pipes has been fitted in the smoke box.  I had imagined that that the one for the centre cylinder went down through the middle of the smoke box, but as you can see here, it exits at the back on the fireman's side.

35006 smoke box

8F, 8274 is the latest of our locos to pack her bucket and spade and set off on holiday.  Not that a bucket and spade will do her much good as she is currently providing motive power for the Santa Specials at Ruddington on the Great Central Railway (North), far from the seaside and not to be confused with the Great Central Railway.

Unusually, there was no obvious signs of a working party on Foremarke Hall on Saturday.  

The priming of the buffer beams has been completed

Priming of the tender is progressing well

And her wheels have been painted black

 Her heavy overhaul is coming on very well indeed.  If you need any reminders of just how good she looks when she is all in one piece and running, then just pop along to the GWSR website and order yourself a set or two of these Christmas cards which feature Foremarke Hall arriving at Toddington with a light covering of snow on the ground.

Foremarke Hall at Toddington, painted by Frederick Lea.