3803 outside the shed at Shackerstone.
3803 looked very business-like in her new unlined black livery (thanks to Jason's hard work) with the original British Railways insignia on the tender, which we used to call the 'Lion astride a Mangle-wheel'.
There were spare vehicles attached to the passenger stock in platform 2 and an '04' shunter. I'd worked out how we could shunt them out of the way with '3803' but Adrian arrived and carried out the shunt, allowing us to move across to our train in platform 2 in plenty of time for the first departure at 11:15. The locomotive carried a special headboard 'EASTER EGGS-PRESS'.
Leaving Market Bosworth on the first service, there was a bit of a 'thump'. Since the locomotive had suffered a run of broken springs, any loud noise from 'underneath' triggered an inspection of springs at the earliest opportunity but at Shenton Dave's examination found no problem and I thought the noise was probably from the intermediate buffers between engine and tender which were known to produce the occasional 'bang'. However, on the second trip as we left Market Bosworth, I caught a glimpse of an odd-looking 'lump of metal' in the cess and spent the rest of the journey to Shenton trying to decide what it might have been. I'd more or less worked it out by the time we stopped at Shenton, so I climbed down and found one spring hanger on the middle tender axle missing. After a telephone discussion with Adrian, we ran round and gently worked the train back to Market Bosworth, where Adrian met us and we made an unsuccessful search for the missing spring hanger. It was agreed that we would cautiously work the train back to Shackerstone where Adrian would attempt a temporary repair.
To prevent a long interruption to the service whilst the repair was carried out, it was decided that I'd 'fire-up' the Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU), running as a single-unit railcar attached to a motor car from the 2-car set). Leaving Market Bosworth on the way out, we kept a sharp look-out and, this time, located the broken spring hanger which Dave lifted on board. Dave drove the DMU back to Shackerstone since he was training to pass-out as a DMU Driver.
The DMU pauses at Market Bosworth on the way back to Shackerstone.
We disposed of the DMU on the railcar siding and returned to '3803', where Adrian had carried out a splendid repair. I've never heard of a spring hanger fracturing on a Great Western pattern tender before.
The temporary repair to the spring hanger on the middle tender axle, driver's side.
The final trip of the day was carried out with '3803'. Dave drove out to Shenton (he's also training to pass-out as a steam driver) and I drove back. A tiring, but very interesting, day.
'3803' ready for action on the last round-trip.
My pictures
Easter 2015 at the Battlefield Line
