Bruce & Gilbert were able to attend, and made a good start on stripping off things in readiness to go to Tyseley (the loco, that is, not themselves).
Gil spent much of his time removing the internal motion parts, assisted by Bruce at times.
Bruce preferred to be sat on top of the boiler removing the safety valves. Apparently it was quite warm up there, and even once the the valves were off, steam was drifting out of the holes that was left behind. There was no steam pressure (please note) just quite warm water in an otherwise cold atmosphere.
Gil also removed the gauges from the cab, because these have to be re-calibrated every year.
Bruce somehow managed to paint 9 rail chairs as a first step towards re-stocking boot scrapers (Winchcombe station and the F&W at Toddington having sold all that we had prepared in anticipation of building up stock - some 24 were sold during December).
Thursday.
Geof found himself with free time, and toddled down to Todders to start upon steam-cleaning the underside of the loco. Before getting himself well and truly wet, he removed the innards of the two injectors and also the Mason's (steam heating) valve - to avoid frost damage.
Friday.
After couriering my Mary's daughter and granddaughter off to the bus station in Cheltenham, I made time to pop down to Todders to see what the situation was. I happen to have perloined a bucket, many moons ago, which we had previously used to cover the bearing of the pony truck - normally secured from weather by a bell-housing, or "policeman's helmet". I intended removing the latter and replacing it with the bucket. Gil (I believe) loosened its nuts, so it made my task simple. However, it was quite oily, so before stashing it away in our TPO, I decided to clean it up a bit. Some diesel and some Gunk got the grot off, and then the rain washed off the Gunk.
The loco cab's "tarpaulin" was wafting about in the breeze [typical English understatement] so I removed that and put it in the TPO to dry off.
Saturday 4th
We were working in the pit beneath the loco to remove various bits of rod and pipe.
Before I had arrived, Gilbert, Geof and Bruce had removed all of the vacuum pipes.
Geof, Gilbert and Mike [Loco Dept] then removed all of the links between the loco brakes. Gil went on to remove the links that operate the damper doors.
Bruce, John, myself and Ray [Loco Dept] removed the steam heating pipe sections. The last section proved a tad problematic, because the nuts on the flange that connects it to the pipe that runs between the ash pan and the frames are extremely difficult to get at. And, of course, they refused to turn! In the end, Ray & I had to angle-grind two off, and drill out the third, before the fourth one surrendered!
While all of this was going on, the weather tried its best to rain. The rain water hitting the boiler barrel was running round underneath and dripping down ... mainly down necks!
Then, Carpo [and someone else from the loco dept] chose to wash out the boiler! With all of the plugs and mud-hole-doors out, all of the water being flushed into the boiler was flushing out of the boiler ... especially out of the mud-hole doors by the last section of steam heating pipe! At one point, there was such as cascade of water, that we had to abandon what we were doing, and surface for air!
Roger
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