Turn 15 - Third Man on the 4MT again

Another day, another Norfolk Lights Express - but on a Wednesday this time. A pretty gentle day for me.

The loco was lit up when I arrived on shed at 10:30 thanks to Fitter Alan, and all I had to do was raise steam whilst cleaning the footplate and attending to the fireman's preparation duties. In the previous few turns I'd seen the water gauges on the 9F spring a leak while on the road - today, I made sure the glands were good and tight. It's easier to do that during prep when you have dry gloves and the gauges haven't had time to get too hot, since you have to do the nuts up with your gloved hand alone.

By the time Fireman Paul arrived, I had over 80 psi on the clock, the tank was full and the brass was clean. We went for tea.

Driver Dave arrived, and in no time we had 160 psi on the clock and it was time to test the injectors and push back. The tender was virtually empty, so we took on two buckets from the loader; Fitter Alan is a dab hand at getting the coal right where you want it with no spillage, and pretty soon I was up on the tender raking it level & pulling it forward. We ashed out; the 4MT had had a warming fire in it the previous day, which mean that the back of the ashpan was brim full - that soon fell prey to the pit hose.

We pulled forward again, and as I'd just done all the heavy jobs Fireman Paul cleaned out the pit while I looked after the fire; I had a few hurried sandwiches from my lunch box before getting changed and signing out the Long Section staff ready to let us out of the yard.

Then it was time to go - up the road with Fitter Mark to switch on the generators, then down to Sheringham to pick up the train, followed by two round trips to Holt. All pretty uneventful; the last Light Engine trip up the line is great on these turns - it's moonlight, the train lights are all gone, and you can run up non-stop at normal line speed to switch off the generators.

We arrived back at Weybourne and I jumped off to let us into the yard - this time, Driver Dave signed off the ground frame on my training schedule so I'm now certified competent for that. During disposal, we had a graphic lesson on why you need to be careful with fire irons - by the time we had finished cleaning out the fire, the picker was glowing red hot - Driver Dave quenched it in the injector overflow.

And that was it - I stayed by the pit to put the lamps away and shovel the ash onto the heap while Dave and Paul stabled the engine and loaded on some firewood for the morning.

Another Norfolk Lights Express turn next week, and then a two week rest for Christmas.