As a surprise for someone, the loco quietly moved from Bristol Barton Hill to Bewdley on the Severn Valley Railway today. The loco will be in operation tomorrow (Tuesday) for this person and will also run on normal services this coming weekend. Many thanks to Network Rail and EWS for facilitating the move at such short notice.
A day frought with difficulties as an over running engineering possession at Bristol, coupled with signal failures on the Vale of Glamorgan line compounded to make an extremely late arrival into Carmarthen. Once again, attrocious weather conditions testing the loco and crew abilities on the tricky climb of Cockett Bank, the 15mph restriction going West meaning there is no run at the hill and the 12 coach train came to a halt just shy of the tunnel. As with the situation 12 months previously though, 6024 was up the job and restarted the train on the 1 in 52 gradient to progress on her way. Owing to the substantial lateness the run to Pembroke Dock had to be scrapped and the loco was turned and serviced for the return to Bristol.
BBC's Coast is back on BBC2, Sunday June 3rd. The second episode on June 10th will feature 6024 on the Torbay Express from August 2006.
This weekend saw the replacement of all 32 superheater elements in the loco. The old elements had started to show signs of wear and the society took the decision to order a new set just before Christmas. These we delivered by Andy Bennett, who fabricated the set and were fitted over the weekend.
Click here for a bigger picture... Picture 1
A long day out for engine & support crew, a 3am start owing to the light engine move from Didcot to Acton (instead of Willesden) in order to pick up our train. Acton became the joining point owing to problems at Willesden Junction and so a swift bit of reorganising had to be completed. Once away though our progress was good as we tried to make up lost time heading out through the suburbs towards Reading. The swift water stop at Newbury racecourse brought the time deficit down to 9 minutes by the time we pulled away and so into was into the climb of Savernake. With some excellent enginemanship from the footplate, driver Bill Andrews had us rattling along in the high 50's with hardly any noise from the front end at all.! A minimum of 46mph saw us over the top and heading onto Westbury, the skill on that climb showed in the exceptionally low water consumption, this mean't we could skip a "splash & dash" stop at Westbury to put us back on right time as we swung around Bathampton Junction and into Bath Spa. The weather had now turned patchy with some heavy rain along the Avon Valley and there were showers in the Bristol area as the loco was turned and serviced.
The return journey saw a change of footplate crew and it was Ray Churchill who took the handle as we headed out of Bristol and the pickup at Bath Spa. The weather turned nasty by this time and the extremely wet conditions made it tricky when getting going again and even at speed there was the occasional slip. I don't have any details on the return run as I was on the footplate getting soaked through to the skin. Chippenham certainly felt our presence and Dauntsy bank wasn't even noticed as we carried on through Swindon and thankfully better conditions. Pausing slighty for pathing at Wantage Road we were soon back at Didcot where we had to bid farewell to our passengers, who were unfortunately delayed due to the train diesel having to rescue a failed class 50 tour earlier in the day. 6024 loco moved over to the Great Western Society for turning and watering as our day was not yet done and after about 2 hours we were back on our way to Bristol ready for a tour later in the month.
An excellent weekend was had by all at the 40-75 Gala at the Great Western Society's Didcot home. Good weather on the whole meant big crowds on all three days, to be entertained by a variety of Western motive power on the main demonstration line, the branch line and also shunting around the site. 6024 saw two turns each day on the running line and also spent some time on the site's turntable. Many thanks to the GWS for having the loco & crew along for the weekend.
