Here we are again, the beginning of April and the beginning of the main part of the 2023 running season. Today Driver James and I are on a red service, consisting of two steam hauled trains and a DMU. We are Loco B, which today is the BR Standard 4MT no. 76084, and ahead of us is the 9F. It's going to be a full twelve hour shift today as we have no cleaners and I am signing on a bit early to light up.
Santa brought us some new barrows:
The 4MT is an easy engine to prepare and fire. It took a little while to warm up, as she had only a steam test yesterday and wouldn't have got very hot but once she starts to go you can get her ready pretty quickly. We had plenty of time, and the sun came out!
For some reason we were booked on the Quads today, which made hooking on and off a breeze as there is so much room - not like poking about under the gangway of a Mk1. I fired three round trips very happily, and we entertained several visitors at Holt.
Still in the driving seat we went down to Sheringham for our last down trip, running into platform 2 - of course set A was already in platform 1 ready for the morning. Our next move was to shunt the Quads into the loop - a new experience for me. We set back to take water.
Expecting to head back light engine we set off up to the box only to realise the section starter was against us - there were a few surprised faces at the box: they were expecting us to shunt the set back into 2. We headed up to the crossing and set back onto the Quads again, to hook on and shunt them back into the platform and at last were were free to go light engine up to Weybourne, with James feeding the fire ready for disposal.
Another excellent turn. Same time next week, but I am on the 'A' service, which, judging by the fact that the 9F is on the naughty step again (injectors) will be on the 4MT again - or will it?
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