Turn 31 - Cleaning the B12, and a lot of yard work

Wednesday comes around again with a two-train green service. I'm Cleaner 1, and the B12 is Loco A. I'm on-shed at 05:45 and Driver Ray arrives shortly after me. We've never met, but he's happy for me to carry on and do my job preparing the engine. I have a look in the firebox and find the usual weeping stays in the middle right of the box above the grate, but other than that all is well and I close the firehole and go and clean the smokebox. Moving back again I climb into the firebox which is rather warm - there is 20 psi remaining in the boiler - and brush a lot of clinker and ash into the pan below.

Next, some light accurate shovelling, followed by wood and rags. I've really not got enough wood today, and I need to fetch some more as I light up with holes on both sides. Fireman Gary has arrived, and leaves me to raise steam in between cleaning the boiler barrel after I get the yard hose in the tender tank, which is well down. His advice is to watch the smoke and then add coal when the black smoke clears to grey, which brings the fire on and the pressure up quite quickly. When it is well established and the pressure has risen to almost 50 psi we throttle the blower back to slow the rising pressure. I revert to polishing for a bit.

Getting up to 100 psi is high enough for Driver Ray to test the brake pump, and for us to test the injectors. We are going to blow down a full glass today, so we need water and steam to replace the water after we blow down. We go down to the pit to ash out, but while preparing to wash down the pan the safety valves lift - we have over fired and made too much steam. I leave the pit hastily and put #1 injector on to bring the temperature and pressure down.

Once it's under control, I rejoin Gary and we clean the front half of the pan. Next, it's discs, lamp, and bucket and the loco is ready to go, so I walk back to the Signing On Point to collect the token and let the loco out of the yard - but it's gone, signed out by the signalman. I take another long walk to the signal box to ask him to let us out of the yard and to order four breakfasts from Sheringham buffet.

I have various jobs waiting for me - mainly catching up with yard work but I also need to check out the 4MT and Y14, so when I have had my breakfast I climb aboard the Y14. This is the spare engine at the moment, and has an old fire in it. This will be cleaned by the prep cleaner next time it is rostered, or by one of many rostered cleaners over the coming days, so I leave it alone.

The 4MT has a missing firebar. Locomotive grates are made from many replaceable firebars mounted on rails, and they can be replaced as they burn away. This is a new one:

The mounting bars are T shaped, and the cross bar of the T is relived at one end so you can slide the bars on. 

I shuffle the bars around to get the new one in, and rock the great to and fro to make sure it is secure.

In this picture, you can see that several of the bars are coming to the end of their life.

Next, it's time to prepare the barrows of wood for the returning crews so that they can put the lighting up wood for the next day on the footplate before they go home. I make two barrows full, and leave them near where the locos will be stabled.

Then, it's off to the cleaners store to chop up some rags. Nothing is ever simple, and I need to adjust the guillotine to get it to cut effectively.

I finish the day by cleaning out the lighting-up rag bin with Fitter Alan. This is where we put dirty rags and waste oil-paraffin mix, to leave us with a bin of soaked rags for lighting up. It's almost empty and the bottom is full of sludge - oil, water, and other mess. We empty it on the bonfire and steam clean it, before making a stainless steel mesh platform to raise the rags out of the sludge.