A beautiful sunny morning saw Fitter Alan & I back at Weybourne MPD for an early shift, this time on the WD. The WD had been in reserve, and had gone into service the previous afternoon for reasons I'll tell you about in a bit.
The WD was pretty warm, and I chose to rake out the firebox after I had removed a barrow full of ash from the smokebox. Fitter Alan asked if I had lit this up before - which I had, though not very successfully. The WD has very small dampers and it is very easy to choke the fire, as I found out last time. Fitter Alan suggested I lay four small fires with plenty of space between them until it was hot enough to cause a decent draft, then I could build it up. This was easy - I removed the flame scoop and shovelled coal into four piles, followed by wood and rags. After maybe 20 minutes this was going well, and I added more rags and wood; another 20 minutes and it was roaring away, so I added some small coal I had pulled down from the tender. By the time Fireman James had arrived at 7:00 it was showing 10 psi on the clock and the blower was open. I was cleaning the paintwork:
Ashing out followed, and Fireman James took a tonne of coal from the loader. I removed myself to the ground frame to let them out of the yard - this caused a bit of a panic as I couldn't find the pouch for the staff.
When we operate the ground frame, we normally hang the pouch inside the hut, not on the speed limit sign so it took a while before I was able to take this picture of the WD coming into platform 2:
By the time I saw it on Wednesday, the thin plate in that area had been removed and replaced by the guys in the weld shop.
The B12 still needed disposing though, so I spent a happy hour in the firebox, cleaning it so that Fitter Alan could inspect the brick arch, and cleaning the smokebox so that some wasted bolts could be replaced. I finished the day with a bit of yard tidying & prepping wood for the disposal crew.
The WD was pretty warm, and I chose to rake out the firebox after I had removed a barrow full of ash from the smokebox. Fitter Alan asked if I had lit this up before - which I had, though not very successfully. The WD has very small dampers and it is very easy to choke the fire, as I found out last time. Fitter Alan suggested I lay four small fires with plenty of space between them until it was hot enough to cause a decent draft, then I could build it up. This was easy - I removed the flame scoop and shovelled coal into four piles, followed by wood and rags. After maybe 20 minutes this was going well, and I added more rags and wood; another 20 minutes and it was roaring away, so I added some small coal I had pulled down from the tender. By the time Fireman James had arrived at 7:00 it was showing 10 psi on the clock and the blower was open. I was cleaning the paintwork:
Ashing out followed, and Fireman James took a tonne of coal from the loader. I removed myself to the ground frame to let them out of the yard - this caused a bit of a panic as I couldn't find the pouch for the staff.
When we operate the ground frame, we normally hang the pouch inside the hut, not on the speed limit sign so it took a while before I was able to take this picture of the WD coming into platform 2:
And the reason the WD had been pressed into service? The B12 had sprung a water leak in the tender, creating this little fountain in the coal space:
By the time I saw it on Wednesday, the thin plate in that area had been removed and replaced by the guys in the weld shop.
The B12 still needed disposing though, so I spent a happy hour in the firebox, cleaning it so that Fitter Alan could inspect the brick arch, and cleaning the smokebox so that some wasted bolts could be replaced. I finished the day with a bit of yard tidying & prepping wood for the disposal crew.
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