Turn 29 - Cleaning the 4MT, and a guided tour of the 37

Sunday is an unusual day for me to be on the railway, but my usual Wednesday was prevented by the Footplate Bubbles - no one in my bubble was rostered that day. 

So, it was a pretty normal day, spent lighting up the 4MT and cleaning down the paint with oil and paraffin; I filled the tank and fitted the screens, but the driver didn't want to ash out. Locos are ashed out as part of disposal, so in the morning the ash pan contains the ash from the fire remaining after disposal, and the new ash from the morning. This is highly variable according to the coal you are using...

Next job was to help the second crew with the 9F - just wiping over the boiler and smoke deflectors to shine them up a bit. 

I really ought to put the bucket away before taking pictures like this. 

I sat with it while they got changed and it was nice to tend the fire for a bit as the weather had turned a bit cold. 

Trouble was, steam was rising rapidly and there was no space left in the boiler. In the 45 minutes I sat there, I used both injectors twice - I'm not having it blowing off on my watch.

In these situations, you have to realise that although the water is past the top of the gauge glass, there is still a lot of space in the boiler. Secondly, when this picture was taken we had moved the loco to the coaling stage. Now, whilst the pit is level, the platform at Weybourne is at 1 in 264 and the coaling area is at the top of the 1 in 80 down to Bridge 303 so the water will always be high in the glass at this point. 

As I said, it was a Sunday and the workshop was quiet. Diesel Driver Alistair was there, who I had not met before and he offered to show me around his splendid Class 37

From the NNR website:

The British Rail Class 37 is a diesel-electric locomotive. Also known as the English Electric Type 3, the Class was ordered as part of the British Rail modernisation plan. They were numbered in two series, D6600-D6608 and D6700-D6999.

The Class 37 became a familiar sight on many parts of the British Rail network, in particular forming the main motive power for InterCity services in East Anglia and within Scotland. They also performed well on secondary and inter-regional services for many years. The Class 37s are known to some railway enthusiasts as “Tractors”, a nickname due to the agricultural sound of the diesel engine of the locomotive.

Despite all members of the build now being over 50 years old, over 60 locomotives are still mainline registered and remain active undertaking a variety of passenger, freight and departmental duties on the national rail network in 2018. Approximately 30 locomotives have been preserved.

Now, I'm not in the diesel department at the railway and do not intend joining it until I am certified as a competent Passed Cleaner. When I do, I can roster as a Second Man on diesel locos and I will start doing that regularly - these are fascinating machines.

Here are some drawings showing some of the technical details I saw as Alistair guided me through the locomotive:

This is a simple floorplan of the whole locomotive. You'll see the ends of the locomotive are numbered 1 and 2 - you can drive it from either end, which made turntables instantly redundant, and the locomotive sides are coded A and B. Alistair told me that conventionally diesel electrics have the radiators at the No. 1 end.

These are the floorplans of the two nose compartments, accessed through doors between the drivers seat and the second mans seat: 

This is the engine compartment - No.1 end is to the right. The 'ballast weight' (#22 in the previous drawing) is a lump of concrete in the position of the diesel fired train steam heat boiler, which is no longer fitted to this locomotive:

Many thanks to Alistair for his time and for giving me the opportunity to look around. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.