Turn 100 - Fireman on the 9F: Lunch Train

A slightly unusual day - what started out as a third man turn on the four-trip yellow service turned into a firing turn on the two trip lunch train. There were two new cleaners, so despite the roster change I turned in at the usual 06:00 to help light up. 

The yellow service was to be hauled by the 7F, which I had expected but as the lunch train was originally scheduled for Cromer, I thought we might get the 4MT - but no, CME Keith had decided to roster the 9F to try out a blend of the new 'Wildfire' coal from CPL.

Since the lunch train wasn't due off-shed until 11:11, new Cleaner David and I prepared and lit up the 7F, raising steam until it was time to transfer my attentions to the 9F a couple of hours later.

The 9F had had a warming fire in it, which Duty Fitter Alan had fed when we signed on, and when I had done my safety checks I fed it some more. It was hot, but behaving strangely - it had no vigour about it at all and was very smoky in the cab. I fed it for a while.

When Driver Nick signed on at 09:00, he suggested I go and look in the smokebox - he'd spotted a lot of soot around the firebox door spy hole and realised that there was something preventing the draft going - of course I didn't have the pressure to used the blower. Opening the smokebox door revealed a spark screen almost completely clogged with ash - typical when there has been a warming fire in a loco and something I would have seen if I had lit it up myself. I swept the ash off with a broom and the effect was almost instant.

Before either loco went off-shed, CME Keith called the firemen together to give us a briefing on the coal we would be using - 50% fossil coal and 50% Wildfire ovoids. He's gathering data on loco performance when using this renewable fuel and instructed us to fire the bed thicker than normal, more frequently than normal keeping the dampers open and observe the result. The ovoids seem to be strong - they don't shatter and seem to retain their shape on the grate, giving good heat without so much smoke and ash - there certainly wasn't much ash in the smokebox of the 7F.

Part way through steam raising on the 9F I had a call from Driver Ed on the 7F, who was about to bring our breakfast up on the first train. They'd somehow gone off-shed without their lamps and discs - I went down to the lamp store and prepared a set for both locos, leaving theirs by the bridge where I knew they would stop.

We went on to the pit for the inspection and to have a look at the ash pan - I had a look and a poke around with a rake and decided that we had plenty of capacity for two trips. We took on coal, just one scoop onto a tender that I has previously raked flat. Driver Nick handled the blowdown while I went to get changed.

Down in Sheringham, we backed onto our set in platform 3.

The first up was very good, with plenty of water and steam. I had made up my mind to try to avoid running with too much water. For the second, were were late off as the signalman was struggling with the points - apparently the compensators in the points rodding struggle at certain times on a sunny day when the rodding is in the shade on one side of the compensator and in the sun on the other.

The second up was not so good - 180 all way. I fired several more times than I would expect to - struggling with a hole in the back corner and really should have filled it more before we left and then avoided firing the middle back until I'd fired the corners again. Trying to keep the pressure up, I was also running short of easily-reached coal, and didn't really have enough pressure to use the injectors...

The lesson here is be more prepared! With all the waiting time at Sheringham I could have pulled more coal down and double checked the back corners. I must always remember to fire the back corners before you fire the middle back - because you can't fire with the heat from the door raging at you. However, we did make it up OK, and Driver Nick was happy that I had realised there was a problem and got us there.

There had been a couple of fires during the day, one near Kelling which had been put out by the DMU driver and one at Holt station, in the four foot, which I put out with the slacker pipe. The problem is the 9F doesn't have any ash pan screens and we could see ash on the brake rigging when we made our inspection later - it drops out of the pan when the damper is open.

By the time I signed out, it was almost 18:00 and in a few minutes I would be out of hours - you have to be a bit wary of coming in early. If we had had a problem with our train I would have overrun...