20 July 08 - The Torbay Express

After a longer than expected break, 6024 was finally back where she belongs, hauling trains along her old stamping grounds. It had been quite a week leading up to the return to mainline running. A new piston shaft had been made for the air pump and this was collected on Monday (14th) and the pump re-assembled on Tuesday. The loco was then lit up and on Wednesday the pump was fitted to the loco. Firstly running over on compressed air, everything worked well and so with steam pressure raised the pump was run up on steam, again with no problems, sounding & feeling a lot different than before. Time for a few more checks of various items and the loco was sent out on Thursday to complete 3 round trips of the Severn Valley Railway, again with no problems. Friday saw a sucessful FTR and at dawn on Saturday the loco moved out from Kidderminster to Bristol via Hereford, the light engine going off without any problem. Our many thanks to the folks at the SVR for their assistence.

So to Sunday and in glorious sunshine 6024 pulled its stock into Bristol Temple Meads ready for the 09:18 departure. A nice crisp departure and the train was worked up nicely on the rise to Flax Bourton before heading down the levels and into Weston Super Mare. Once away the loco settled into her stride along the Somerset levels crusing into Taunton for the water stop. All done and it was away again and into the climb to Whiteball, no heroics but still into the tunnel in the mid 30's and on down to Exeter. A quick departure was followed by some lightning acceleration as the loco tore into the miles towards the sea wall section. With an early arrival at Paignton, the charter was allowed to go before the normal P&DSR service resulting in a 23 minute early arrival in Kingswear.!

Servicing done and so to the journey home, away on time and again waking up the folks on Newton Abbot station 6024 again cruised around the sea wall section to arrive 15 mins early into Exeter for the water stop. Everything swiftly done and with late running services the Torbay Express pulled out 19 mins up and was soon roaring alongside the M5. Slowing for the restriction at Stonehill's and not being looped at Tiverton the noise level from the front rose again and the train breasted the summit just shy of 50mph before diving into Whiteball tunnel. Away from Taunton (now some 45mins up) and cruising again along the Somerset levels we pulled into Weston Super Mare, not only this time to drop passengers off, but to pick up.! The T4 on the Beach event at WSM saw large crowds in the town and a request had been received from First Great Western for us to take some travellers home. Whether the mode of traction was lost on the mostly teenage crowd is anyone's guess, but packed on they were and away we went for the final assault up the gradient to Flax Bourton. With the loco well into her stride adverse signals were sighted and our progess foiled by a stopping service in front of us. Still, after all that we pulled into Bristol Temple Meads 46 minutes early and the end to a cracking days fault free running.

05 & 06 July 08 - SVR, Bridgnorth

During the week the broken axlebox was changed on the loco so on Saturday all the re-assembly of the brake rigging took place along we re-joining the loco & tender.

On Sunday the loco was steamed to check over the air pump and braking systems which have had a lot of attention. Unfortunately it was discovered that the low pressure cylinder head had come away from the piston shaft, so the pump was removed from the loco for rectification.