Turn 88 - Third Man on the 9F

 This is an important turn - the last one before my Firing Test. We've got the 9F, I have my extended Carter shovel, and we are out with Fireman Richard and Driver Foz, so we are in for a good day.

I light up the big engine with a big heap of wood to get it good and hot, and it goes easily though I haven't got enough in the corners.

Fireman Richard raises steam, while I wipe over the paint and clean the tender. It's a red timetable day, so there is another loco being lit up alongside us - the GER Y14.

Last week, Chief Engineer Keith warned us that the coal we have currently was prone to falling through the grate whilst still burning, and continuing to burn in the ash pan, leading to damaged ash pans and lineside fires. I take this picture while checking the axleboxes with Driver Foz - you can see the ash pan is red hot and there is a fire burning in there:

We keep the ashpan sprinkler (which runs from injector #1) cracked open the whole day, and try to use mainly injector #1, or both injectors to keep the ash pan cool and the ash dead.

We took on two shovelfuls of coal at my suggestion, but since the 9F had only had a water change a few days ago, we didn't have to blow down. This wasn't very clever - it was spewing coal all over the footplate for the first two trips and I spent too much time clearing up.

Walking back through the shed to get changed, I took a couple of pictures of Wissington in her first new layers of green topcoat:

Wissy's safety valve covers:

Chatting at Sheringham over breakfast, Fitter Alan mentioned that I had my firing test coming up soon - on finding that it was in fact only a week away, Fireman Richard decided that I should fire all day, so I took over the shovel at Sheringham for the first up. It was to prove more challenging than I had imagined.

I was very light on first trip, on a big cold engine. This mass takes a lot of heat and I just wasn't giving it enough fuel to chew on. We had to stop and wait for the pressure to recover before we got away at Weybourne, and we were so long the guard came down to see what was going on...

The second trip was better, but Driver Foz said he would have liked a bit more pressure at the top - at least the water level was OK. The third trip was better - fireman Richard drove, and while it burned through on the hill we arrived in reasonable shape.

The fourth trip was fine, and after the difficulty the previous week on the WD I made sure I had enough heat for disposal.

Next week - firing test!