An early start for a change, with frozen sludge in the yard and the promise of slippery conditions everywhere, I arrived on shed to find Third Man Brad lighting up the 4MT for the Santa 'A' service, which is three round trips with relief at Weybourne on the third down by the NLE crew.
The day stared pretty smoothly, with Brad and I sharing the fireman's duties. The 4MT's regulator is passing a bit at the moment, and with the cylinder drain cocks open the position of the engine filled the shed with steam:
We were off shed in good time, and ran down to Sheringham with Brad firing - we planned to swap at Weybourne on the down, so he'd get two firing trips and I would get one; I was quietly hoping I would get to drive the last trip. Arrival in Sheringham was a bit surprising, with the home signal set clear and the road set for platform 2 - unbeknownst to me, Driver Chris had arranged for us to go on the water crane when we arrived.
We had the usual hour to warm up the train and have our breakfast, watching the fog ebb and flow: it would need to be a lamp departure - there was no chance of seeing flags - so the loco lamps were lit and the Bardic came out.
When the time came, we were going nowhere. The cold weather had frozen the points at the end of the loop and the signalman could not pull off the section starter; we waited so long to get it fixed we ran out of time to get to Holt and had to run directly to Weybourne - and even then we were flagged over the crossing (which won't initiate if the section starter is not clear) and through the signal at danger.
On the way down, while waiting at Weybourne we learned the tablet machines for the Weybourne-Sheringham section were having problems, so in accordance with the rules we resorted to Pilotman working - Third Man Brad spent the next couple of hours as Pilotman, while I fired the next trip.
Of course by the time we had got down it was time to come up again, so after filling with water I hastily built the fire for the up trip. By the time we left I hadn't recovered enough and I was adding a lot of coal on the way up, but by the time we reached Weybourne I had a blazing fire that for some reason wasn't creating steam pressure as fast as it should. Driver Christian had a look and immediately spotted I didn't have enough in the back corners. If you don't keep the back corners well covered, the cold air goes straight into the tubes and cools the boiler. It's really important on this loco.
Back down in Weybourne I had some time to spare and went through the back with the irons - we had a mixture of coal and ovoids, and there was a lot of ash. I moved the grate on the rocking lever to shake some more through and it really woke up.
Pilotman Brad appeared on the B loco, 92203 Black Prince, and he fired down to Weybourne and back up while I drove, a bit quickly but at least my braking is improving. Running around though it was clear the loco wasn't happy with a groaning coming from the drivers side. This proved to be a loose lubricator connection to the forward piston valve. Tightening the union followed by several manual turns on the lubricator had the groaning gone and the loco sounding well again.
Next one is another NLE in a few days time.
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