With 2807 still in service, there was little to do but boot scrapers (again). There was only Bruce, Gilbert and myself here, today. Gil spent some time searching through drawings. I think he was looking for pipe arrangements twixt loco & tender.
4270 had broken a spring. The new one didn’t quite fit at the ends. There’s a hanger that fits between two forks, and it didn’t quite go in its slot correctly. Bruce lent the guys our large angle-grinder, for them to widen the gap.
Apart from that, we all worked on boot scrapers. I did some painting and finishing; Bruce set about cleaning more rail chairs; and Gil had the privilege of painting bottoms black.
Gil then dashed off and cadged a ride on the footplate down to Cheltenham and back. Bruce & I wrapped up and went home.
Friday 15th
I was on light-up duty. I arrived at Todders just after 3pm, and 2807 still had 15 psi “on the clock” after the Fire & Drive on Thursday. The pre-light-up checks went OK. A couple of mud-hole door nuts were loose (which is commonplace). There’s a fizz from the top of the gauge frame, which we were aware of - the valve needs re-packing. There is also a fizz, gurgle and drip from the blower ring (in the smokebox). This implies that the blower valve is letting steam by, which is surprising because Bruce put a lot of effort into getting the seat near perfect.
It was a tad warm inside the firebox, as I raked out the clinker and ash. Indeed, there was still 10 psi as I lit the fire at 4pm. I tentatively banked up the fire at 6.30 pm, hoping to get a balance of keeping the boiler hot, but not raising steam in the middle of the night.
Saturday 16th
We had a snow storm during the morning, between 7am and 9 am.
And my fire was clearly OK, because 2807 was making her usual storming departure from Todders.
Gilbert spent the morning searching through drawings, particularly looking for anything showing the water connection between loco and tender. Together with Bruce, a butcher’s at other locos on shed simply showed that no two are the same! So, they are aiming to get as close as possible to a fit that would probably enable our loco or tender to connect to another tender/loco (as appropriate).
The snow soon melted, and left a few lakes around our TPO, so Bruce & I barrowed heaps of ash round and spread over the low spots.
It was great to have John T back with us, after a painful period of having a trapped nerve. He soon got back into the routine of painting rail chairs, though admitted having forgotten how heavy they are!
I had bought a bag of ¾” BSP connections for the AWS system pipework. They proved to be a tad tight on the old pipes, and though I did clean up the threads on the pipe ends with a die (bottom of photo), the new sleeves all need the tap running through them.
We all agreed that there was little we could do; it was not warm, today, and there is a reasonable stock of boot scrapers, so John & I toddled off; Bruce went to watch 2807 depart (again), and Gil cadged a lift to Winchcombe on her … again!
Roger
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