An unusual turn today, and one I must practice. Most of my turns are service trains - light up, four round trips stopping at Weybourne and then dispose - all very routine. I came a bit unstuck on a trip last turn firing a non-stop up service at normal line speed, and running out of pressure part way. I'm quite used to non-stop services but they tend to be Norfolk Lights Express trains which are limited to 3 mph through stations which gives you plenty of time to fire, but I'm now thinking that I can improve my experience by rostering for different services.
Anyhow, today we are reliving Driver James and Fireman Owen who have had the WD Austerity 2-10-0 90775 out all day. Our job is to take the loco to Sheringham, pick up the Fish & Chip train and take it one single round trip to Holt and back before disposing the loco.
The current coal burns through very quickly and it was my job as fireman to build the fire up again and fill the boiler, which was showing half a glass. The fire was very dull over perhaps half the grate. Before we went off-shed, we had clear instructions from Chief Engineer Keith to make sure we thoroughly cleaned the clinker off the firebars and to fill the boiler as high as we could before stabling the loco.
I built a good fire, and started to fill the boiler; by the time we got to Sheringham I was ready to go, though we had half an hour to finalise our preparation. Half an hour came and went, and the guard came to tell us that a party booked on a table for two had turned up with fourteen people and the catering staff needed to find twelve more portions of fish and chips. I had to keep my almost ready fire under control, so I closed the dampers, closed the blower down and opened the firehole door. I suggested that it would be a good time to wash the floor as I knew the slacker pipe would use some steam and keep the pressure down a bit - so the cab got the scrubbing of its life.
We ended up being ten minutes late, but there was no blowing off. We did leave rather suddenly but I fired a little before the box and again over the crossing, and by now I had a full boiler. I fired again going down Dead Man's and used the injector on the way into Weybourne where we had a 5 minute layover to allow the signalman to switch the box out of service and go home - we would operate on the Long Section Staff for the rest of the evening.
Having got out of Sheringham in a bit of a hurry, I was pleased to see my water level at the top of the glass when we stopped at Weybourne. The fire was burning furiously, but as I have written before this coal burns through very quickly and I wasn't going to let Driver Christian and myself down by leaving a hole, or a thin fire for a run up the bank. I put another round on and held the pressure using the injectors as we got up to line speed.
The fireman's side injector is quite slow, and we were hovering around the red line as we went up; the injector was on full time as we entered the cutting, yet I still had only 3/4 of a glass as we went over the top. I left it on and fired the thin areas.
We arrived in Holt with over 200 psi and 3/4 of a glass - quite a good performance. I ignored the fire as we ran around, as we had two footplate passengers and it would have been dangerous to start throwing a shovel around, but I did top the water up a bit.
After we hooked on, another footplate visitor appeared who had visited the Bure Valley and the Wells and Walsingham Light Railway earlier in the day. He was 11 years old, and I encouraged him to look at our Youth Development Club on the web - and encouraged him to use my shovel to put a couple of loads in after I had fixed a leaking glass on the fireman's side water gauge.
We had a non stop journey on the way down and we started with the boiler full and the fire thin - we were at 185 psi as we started and I built the fire up, not wanting to be short of heat when we came to dispose, and we had plenty of heat and water as we finished our duty by shunting set B into platform 2.
That done, we made a gentle trip up to Weybourne Light Engine, with the boiler filling and the fire low, but steadily making steam - I was not going to let it go cold. It was full and sitting at 220 when we arrived.
On the pit, I was pleased to find the water bobbing around at the top of the glass. My next job was to fill it a bit more, and clean the fire. There was, as Chief Engineer Keith predicted, a lot of clinker clinging to the rear two sets of bars. This had to be broken up with the bent dart and the pricker before raking the fire over.
To round off the day, we spent a while with small rakes cleaning five trips of ash out of the pan. I've never seen so much:
At the de-brief, Driver Christian told me he was quite happy with the turn - his only criticism was that the fire had been a bit like the Himalayas at times - not very flat. He also said that he would fire when leaving Sheringham but be done by the time we got to the box - contrary to some folks views, that you should let the firebox do the work until you are over the crossing - however, when you are over the crossing there is very little time to fire before the driver wants to open up...
His last comment was to encourage me to sign up for more different turns, like gin trains, fish & chip trains and Santa's, to vary my experience. Next turn? a gin train on the 16th June. More than two weeks away!
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