Guts for Garters

Being a humble wage slave, I am only too well aware of the fact that much takes place in the steam loco dept on Wednesdays which I am usually unable to report on.  Last Wednesday, I booked a day off from the day job to try and establish exactly what they do, along with spending the afternoon firing 35006.

The first thing to strike me was that the sink in the mess coach, which was usually to be found stuffed full of mugs that wanted washing up, was spotlessly clean.  I think I can honestly say that I have never seen it looking this clean before.

So clean that I didn't recognise it

Another thing which instantly drew my attention, was that the bin in the mess coach was empty.  This was definitely a first.

Room for rubbish!

It turns out that Roger performs these domestic duties, and more, before he sets off to the wood store to chop up pallets into firebox sized chunks for lighting up the locos with.

Roger (r) with Phil, chopping up wooden pallets.

They've got their work cut out with that little lot

Rumour has it that the Wednesday gang are fuelled by doughnuts, the resulting high blood sugar levels presumably cause this flurry of activity that the Saturday gang don't seem to be able to attain.  

Wednesday morning was a wet, drizzly affair, and cleaning locos was a bit of a fools errand.  Tom wisely offered to oil up 2807 for the driver, Chris, and consequently spent most of the time under the loco in the dry.

Tom oiling up 2807... the white shirt is tempting providence though

 In the car park, there is a demonstration signal box, that operates some signals near the narrow gauge line.  Chris spotted a pigeon that had cheekily perched itself on one of the signals.

Pigeon, making itself at home

Yes, that really was the best joke that I could come up with... sorry!
 
Chris wasn't pleased with the pigeon taking such liberties and pulled off the peg

He guessed correctly which lever to pull first time...

...and behold, the peg is off, and so is the pigeon

Before anybody gets on to the RSPB hot line, no pigeons were hurt in the taking of the previous three photos.  I suspect though that we'll now get a flurry of calls to the GWSR hot line asking what on earth we're doing harbouring upper quadrant signals?

I'd be impressed if you could hit 80 MPH along there!

The principal activity taking place on Wednesday was cleaning Foremarke Hall for her starring role at the Old Oak Common Open Day on Saturday.

Cleaning inside the smoke box was probably taking things too far though

Cleaning a steam locomotive is a bit of a "Forth Bridge" job, you never really get to the end of it.  Some smaller items are tucked away and hard to access and they receive relatively little TLC during normal operations.  The opportunity was taken on Wednesday to tackle cleaning some of those rather more obscure items...

...the steam lance cock for cleaning out blocked tubes for example

81A... AKA, Old Oak Common

John touches up the paintwork

Alex cleaning up the cylinder cases

It's worth highlighting Alex here, as much of her work goes unseen by most.  She is usually to be found at Toddington cleaning our locos from Thursday through to Saturday, especially in those hard to get at yet particularly grimy places below the running plate.  If you're noticed that our locos are being turned out in even better condition than ever in recent months, a large part of that can be attributed to Alex.  She's probably best described as our secret weapon.

Hiding at the back of the shed, but not forgotten, is John, our Peckett.  A small team of people were working on it when I wandered past, who all got camera shy and disappeared for a brew as soon as I got my camera out. 

John

For the afternoon, I took on firing 35006 (Chris who was driver training had had his firing biennial exam in the morning).  The first thing I was presented with when I got in the cab was three bags full of confidential waste that needed to be disposed of... personally I think it's all a ruse by the railway to save on the coal bill.

Confidential conflagration

We were slowed down by P Way on the approach to Winchcombe who were busy spot-sleepering (details can found on their blog)

I think one of them was trying to thumb a lift by flashing a bit of leg... it didn't work!

By the time that we got back at the end of the day, Foremarke Hall was busy being loaded onto a low-loader in readiness to go to Old Oak Common:

Off to her erstwhile home

I had been given strict instructions by Eleanor (who had a fireman training turn the following day) as to how she expected to find 35006 in the morning.  Around half a glass of water (check), about 20-30 PSI on the pressure gauge (check), a clinker free grate (check) and a tender full of nice fresh coal, with no slack in it...

...Oops!

By the time that we had finished the day, the tender was all but empty, and I had been firing little but slack for most of the last round trip.  Eleanor wouldn't even have been able to light up on this.  Mercifully a digger driver was found and the tender refilled before we put 35006 to bed for the night.

Alex & Chris, kindly emptying the pit after I'd emptied the ash pan

On Saturday, with Foremarke Hall off at Old Oak Common, Dinmore Manor still on the West Somerset Railway (back with us early November) and 2807 plus 35006 out on the service trains, there was only 4270 left to be attended to by way of our running fleet.  There were still plenty of other jobs to be getting on with though.  For instance, work continued in the sunshine on 3845's boiler:

Angela was one of many wire brushing & priming the boiler barrel

Mike tackled disposing of the remaining superheater elements.

Cutting up the life-expired superheater elements for recycling

With the elements all dealt with, attention was turned to extracting the superheater header.

Burning out the mounting bolts

Tony finishes them off with a punch & hammer

I keenly recollect removing the superheater header from Foremarke Hall a few years ago, it's not exactly a light weight item.  With the smoke box largely cut off, we had no difficulty in getting mechanical aid to remove it.

FLT to the rescue

Superheater header safely removed

A number of people spent the day blitzing the underneath of tender T1761 as well:

Not sure who this is, it might be Nigel, hard to tell from this photo.

The concreting of the remainder of road 6 is progressing well, Graham was digging out the bits of ballast that the 360 degree digger couldn't reach.

Graham digging for victory

Mark had cut a length of drainage pipe to size to bury under the track, but somehow mistook it for a lance and charged at me with it. 

Sir Lancelot Mark, ready for the joust

He finally remembered what he was really supposed to be doing with it and took it off to be buried.

Drainage being installed under road 6

We have a new starter, Paul, who found gainful employment giving 4270 a spruce up.  She needs to look her best, because by the time that you read this, she will be off to the Pontypool & Blaenavon Railway to star in their Autumn Gala.

Welcome to the Steam Loco Dept Paul..

Hopefully I will be able to obtain photos and a report of the Pontypool gala next week.

For most of our locos, the smokebox gets treated to a wash over with an oil/paraffin mixture by the cleaners each running day which improves the appearance if the finish on the smoke box has faded a bit with time.  Foremarke Hall is only recently back in traffic, and the oil/paraffin mix does nothing to improve its appearance at all.  An anonymous scribe was keen to ensure that the cleaners knew not to inadvertently apply the mix (again) before Foremarke Hall went off to Old Oak Common and left a message to that effect on the notice board.

I have a pretty good idea who wrote it.

Unfortunately a report and photos of the event at Old Oak Common have failed to materialise thus far, hopefully I'll be able to bring that to you next week.