I always look forward to a railway day and this week promised to be a highlight. I was rostered with Driver Matt and Fireman Paul again, and as Paul is training to drive the day potentially had a lot of firing time in it for me. Matt drives for GNR for a living and has volunteered on the NNR for 27 years, so he is happy to use his turns to teach others as long as he gets to drive and fire one trip each turn.
As always, after the safety checks the first job is to have a look at the firebox, and there are a few weeping stays; Fitter Bob is happy with those and I go and clean the small smokebox, which is nice and dry. Next I'm into the firebox, where I pull up a couple of bars and shovel the debris remaining from yesterdays fire into the pan and marvel at what clinker can do - there are two bars which are effectively welded together with it.
At Paul's suggestion, I lay a very thin fire at the front and back, leaving it sparse in the middle to void blacking out, and light up. Paul says that the first notch on the damper is a bit too much when lighting up - we want to bring this on slowly - he puts a chunk of wood in the damper to hold it open a little.
Cleaner Nathan is here for his sixth turn and he sets up the yard hose in the tender tank, before we both get to polishing - me in the cab, Nathan on the rest of the loco.
Recently I've lit up this loco several times, and brought it into steam successfully if rather rapidly. This time, Fireman Paul encourages me to take it slowly as the little grate has a reputation for coming around very quickly, so on his instruction I fire to the front and let it spread to the back. I leave the fire and start on cleaning the cab. After a while, it's obvious that it is way too slow and while we have some fire at the front it is not spreading to the back, and for the first time we use the paddle to scoop some fire to the back of the grate to get it going.
This is not how I planned it at all.
Anyhow, we eventually raise steam and get the brake pump going, and I test the injectors before we roll back to the pit. Driver Matt goes under to perform his inspection while I look after the fire, which, true to it's reputation is coming around rather fast and eventually blows off - well, at least we know the safety valves work.
I ask about the blowdown and for the second time, forget that this loco has no blow down valve so that will not be happening.
Fireman Paul is in the driving seat today, so I fire down to Sheringham to pick up the train and retrospectively, I realise that I should have been building up heat at this point because the firebox was too cool on the first trip up. I'm coming to realise that the first up trip is more difficult, because the boiler is still relatively cool - I was firing too little on the Light Engine trip down to Sheringham.
My second, and much more serious mistake was to mis-read the second Dodd on the way into Sheringham, after the crossing - I announced it was clear and later realised it wasn't, which could easily result in a SPAD so if in doubt, say nothing!
Cleaner Nathan took a little video of us coming into Weybourne at 5 mph. Here's a still showing me delivering the breakfast baps.
In the end, I fired three round trips, watering at Holt on the second and fourth trips, with no more blowing off. The third trip was particularly good, charging up Kelling cutting in second valve. The boiler was over 150 with the water well up, all the way up, so I was very pleased with myself. I am learning that many people can make the engine go, but it's a lot more difficult to make it go well.
The secret, as the books tell you, is light consistent firing, fire to the bright spots, and on this loco keep it above 150 psi and the water in the top half of the glass. You should watch the door and the chimney, because you can see the state of the fire from the smoke - fresh coal on the side of the firebox produces black smoke on the same side of the chimney, and you can use the same principle for the front and back, but this is more difficult to see.
So, it turned into a pretty good day. I fired down to Sheringham, fired three round trips, and had the last trip to admire the scenery while Matt fired up and Paul fired back. In fact, the last down trip was made using virtually no steam - Matt coasted all the way down from Windpump to Sheringham!
We had a round of cake and tea on the way back.
Back on shed, Fireman Paul cleaned the fire while I ashed out; I cleared the pit.
And the WD's new blast pipe has arrived:
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