Friday brings a beautiful dawn at Weybourne as I arrive for another cleaning turn. It also brings a bit of a surprise, as we are to prepare the Y14 for the days green service (plus a fish and chip train), in place of the expected 9F which has failed with two broken springs on the loco driving axles. During the day it is moved on the pit, and I take a look - there is a crack in one leaf on two springs, very hard to spot.
Fireman Phil and I get to work on the Y14, and I take the lead lighting up.
As I've written before, the Y14 is a pretty small engine and it doesn't take long to get the smokebox cleaned and to climb in the firebox, lift a couple of bars and brush it all out. The coal we have at the moment is making a lot of clinker and not much ash. I shovel in a thin layer of coal, overloading the shovel as usual - this is a bad idea, because it makes it difficult to control where the coal goes and because my back is sore for days afterwards. With the damper a notch open, steam is raised relatively quickly and with a lot of polishing, raking out and coaling we are done - I sit with the engine for a while while Fireman Phil and Driver Stuart change out of their dirty prep clothes and clean the cab, pausing to add some water when I see the needle approaching the red line and to add some coal when holes appear.
The Y14 has a displacement lubricator, fed by steam from the boiler, which is cooled using a coiled tube on the cab roof such that the water displaces the oil. Here it is:
The valve at the top, just out of shot is the steam/water supply; the big nut in the top of the picture is the filler; the smaller nut below it is the drain. The drain is fed through a thin copper tube into a funnel. To fill it, you crack open the filler and open the drain - you will see the water draining out into the funnel. When it stops, the filler can be fully opened and the reservoir filled with the oil you put on the warming plate.
In operation, steam condenses to water and is introduced to the top of the lubricator under pressure and of course it falls to the bottom, pushing the oil upwards. The displaced oil passes through two jets, which are under those sight glasses, and whose flow rate is controlled by the two small wheels. Here's one of the jets:
As the oil flows out, you can see a drop of oil form at the tip, and then float upwards:
It's piped off to the cylinders.
My next job is to dispose the 4MT - it is due for washout but has been displaced to the pit by the 9F, which is having two springs changed today before returning to service tomorrow. I've spent quite a while in this smokebox.
After breakfast, fitter Bob gives me a new job - pull out all the plugs on the 4MT. Some while back, we did the B12 together, so I am pleased that I am trusted to do this on my own now.
Washouts are a monthly activity which involves 'unboxing' a loco boiler and removing all the sludge that has built up on the tubes, firebox crown and foundation ring. Blowdowns and water treatment help prolong this activity by holding the impurities in the water and removing sludge daily, but washouts still have to happen and when they do the loco is out of service for a few days. The first job is to drain the boiler using the blowdown valve, which is normally locked shut:
The mudhole doors have mostly been removed (there are four on the top of the firebox wrapper) but all the washout plugs are still in place and there are about thirty of them. I choose to start in the cab:
I pulled this plug out - only to realise the boiler had not been drained, so I put it back in and went to find the keys for the blowdown valve!
Some of these plugs are tighter than others - I had a 3 ft extension on the end of this 2 ft wrench. You need to be careful you don't put it through a window...
The ones on the firebox wrapper and boiler barrel represent a different hazard - you need to be able to pull or hang off the wrench and maintain your safe grip on the handrails. These are less tight than the ones in the cab:
I finish up in the smokebox, where there are eight plugs on the tubeplate:
I know what caving feels like as I sit in a cramped space trying to undo these plugs, covered in soot while water swirls around my feet:
All in all, a grand day out.
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