Gorgeous day. I met Fred at Winchcombe. He said that he was here on Friday doing some painting on the siphon. The whole of the south side is now in one colour! Today he had hoped to get Gilbert to join in and paint the north side.
There was a meeting of the HGO subgroup today, at which the design of the ashpan was talked through. The hope is to begin construction of it later this year. Young Rob was at that meeting, too, having been rostered for cleaner on the first train of the day … arriving at Toddington at 05:00. So, by the end of his meeting, he was whacked, and went home.
John T and I pressed on with the usual! Bruce is into his bowls season, so misses some Saturdays. He reported back on his footplate ride last Wednesday: “I had a good trip on the footplate on Wed although it was a tad wet and cold at times, particularly when running tender first.”
I found an interesting LNER chair from July 1945. At first glance it says “Stanton”, which was a major iron & steel works up Ilkeston way. However, close examination will show that the final “N” is actually an “H”.
So, it says “STANTOH.H”. Maybe the dot-H means the Hallam Plant?
Wednesday 9th
This is the one day that 2807 is resting! So, Bruce and Gilbert tackled some of the trivia that have been reported.
The first was a (tiny) drip from a union on the condenser coil. The nut needed tightening. The reporter of this issue has a reputation for taking longer to write down and describe the issue than the time it takes to fix it.
Allegedly, when a driver went to fill up the hydrostatic lubricator, there was a ‘gurgling’ sound.
Bruce checked it over, and tightened a couple of nuts. Gil fiddled with one of the glasses that kept getting oiled up.
John finally gained access to the one tender spring that had avoided being painted.
Water was seen running down a pipe underneath the cab side. This is a known problem - there is a break in the ashpan sprinkler pipe. Water runs down a noticeably rusty pipe if the injector is on and pressure is leaking past the on/off valve. We don’t aim to fix it, so it is turned off. Bruce (or maybe it was JP?) gave the valve wheel an extra twist.
Meanwhile, John G was painting bottoms while Steve was cutting bolts, angle-grinding and wire-brushing. I played with the needle gun, and by end of play there were 11 rail chairs with black bottoms in the production line.
I had started the day with a spot of gardening, having dug up numerous bulbs from what is now my strawberry patch at home. I figured that they should make a good display in the 2807 wild flower garden next spring.
Then, while I was pulling the trolley to restock the cafes with boot scrapers, some of the department chaps stopped for a chat, and one of them noticed that a tyre was splitting! It survived the trip to the Flag & Whistle, but then I had to replace the tyre. Fortunately, I had a spare, because when the previous tyre exploded, I bought two new ones. I suppose I better buy two more, pronto!
Alex & Chris [Dept] were cleaning 2807 during the afternoon. Chatting with Chris, he said that he had cleaned her the other week, gone for lunch, and she was covered in dust again when he returned! Something has to be done about the restoration work in the shed affecting the running locos!
Saturday’s work day is cancelled, as there is a Lego exhibition in the yard. Call us lazy, but we elect not to park in the field and walk all the way through the station and up into the yard! It’s worse at the end of the day, of course, walking back. So, we either don’t come at all, or go to Winchcombe.
2807 is rostered to be in service on 12th, 13th, then 15th to 20th inclusive. She will then have a boiler wash-out and a rest.
As there is not a lot of excitement with 2807 (fortunately), here are a couple of photos from today showing some other motive power that has arrived recently.
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| D2280 and 11230 |
Roger
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