Turn 47 - Third Man on the Y14

Wednesday mornings, 06:00, sun out and a loco to prepare: a great time of the week as Cleaner Oliver and I get to work on the Y14. I'm the senior man here and Fitter Rudy and Fireman Paul are happy to let us get on with it. We start with an inspection of the firebox - cap on backwards, torch in hand and lie on your back to look at the crown stays and the fusible plugs. I close up finding nothing amiss and Cleaner Oliver sets to work ashing out the smokebox:

The driver's side water gauge drain is blocked again and I don't have any boiler pressure left to blow it out, so Fireman Paul finds a bit of welding rod to have a poke about through the drain connection:

With that sorted, we can light up - but not before I have been in the firebox to clean it out. It's got a drop-down door, which opens near the cab floor and makes it quite easy to get in and out. Being small, it's easy to light up; Paul reminds me that opening the damper will result in the fire coming around too quickly and that we light this one with a small chunk of wood to hold the damper partially open.

The Quads have been stabled in our spot overnight, so the Y14 is already on the pit and Oliver & I wash down the pan and ash out. Here's Cleaner Ollie raking out:

Fireman Paul is training to drive, which means turns with him are always good for me. Not only is he a great mentor, but I get to fire frequently. This time, Paul fired the first two trips and I fired the second two, and fired to dispose. After the last turn on this loco, I made sure that I got the water on much sooner, and discovered that I could get the fireman's side injector to flow more water by turning the water up after I had started the injector.

It was better, but not all good. I had it blowing off in the station on the fourth trip. I had the water well up in the glass, the fire was ready to go and there were still passengers arriving as we were due to out - sometimes you just have to let it go.

In this view, you can just make out the scaffolding around the West box - the roof was being replaced. There was an engineering possession on the main line in front of the box and we were using the loop to get around it.

Here, Driver Dave is pulling some coal down for me as we wait for the green flag:

After some advice from Fireman Steve on a previous turn, I made sure that when I had the shovel I was doing all hooking on, calling all signals and handling the token - I need to be ready to handle all the fireman's duties for when I eventually fire on my own.

During disposal, Fireman Paul taught me something I'd forgotten - how to fill the boiler to the top nut -  you isolate bottom valve, drain gauge & fill boiler with only the top valve open. When water appears in the gauge, you know the boiler is full to the top nut.

More next week.