The Eight Freight: Round Two...

This morning I was rostered for another early 'third man' turn at Loughborough, this time with LMS 8F No48305 of 1943. I was pleased to see our names penned to the 8F as I thoroughly enjoyed our one trip with her on the Christmas diner last December. Having donned my prep coat, signed in and read the notices, I met up with fireman David and we headed out to the engine as she waited on No2 road. The first job, having checked the water level, was to check and clear out the smokebox. Here, David brushes the ash back towards the door whilst I await the next bucket for my wheelbarrow. This is never a pleasant job at 06:00 in the morning...

With the smokebox checked and clean, our efforts turned to the firebox. Last nights fire bed was clearly quite substantial and it took some heavy clearing with the irons to achieve a clean grate. However, after much sweating on this warm Sunday morning, we had a clean enough grate to light up. With the absence of the Welsh coal, the Loughborough engines are now lit up on two barrows of the manmade ovoids as these also don't produce much smoke. Having shovelled two barrows worth up onto the footplate, I spread the ovoids evenly around the grate, under the watchful eye of David. Then, with a liberal application of paraffin-soaked rags, I lit our new fire. A good helping of pallet wood was then added and the firehole doors closed. 48305 still had 40psi on the clock from the night before and so we would be in no rush this morning. With the fire now burning nicely, it was time to head underneath to empty the pan. Unlike my last charge: the Riddles Standard 5: the 8F has the more common fixed pan and so the hosepipe and the rake were soon flailing around between the frames...

I must admit, though I really like the 8F, the easy to prep and dispose Standard 5 certainly seemed a more attractive proposition as we left the pit half soaked in an oily mix of water and dust! The next job was to do some cleaning. Fellow cleaner Dave is spotted cleaning the boiler barrel whilst fireman David cleans the windows...

Whilst the three of us cleaned, driver Andy was making his way around the engine with a variety of oil jugs and feeders to lubricate the many points. As our off shed time neared, the 8F was coming around nicely. The cab is seen here...

Once we were off shed it turned into quite a busy morning. Having left Loughborough fifteen minutes behind time on our first train due to an operational issue, we ended up remaining late for the rest of the shift. We made up some minutes here and there but a lengthy 5mph slack in both directions through Quorn made it impossible to keep fully to time. We did our best though and had a great day. David fired the first trip whilst I did the second and the third. The third trip saw David driving under Andy's supervision. The 8F steamed beautifully on (I believe) a different Russian coal. It was noticeably different to fire with than the Columbian stuff we had on 73156 the other week. The new stuff was also very hot but needed a few minutes to get the heat there, unlike the seemingly rapid Columbian coal. Interesting. Anyway, after a great morning I managed to snap 48305 very quickly as we changed over crews at the water tower...

I must thank Andy and David for their hospitality on the footplate of 48305 and for letting me do the majority of the firing. I had a great time and it was a pleasure to spend another shift with the 8F. I must also thank David for the sausage rolls he brought along for us all: they were just the job! Talking about 8Fs always makes me think of Dave Goulder's 'Eight Freight Blues': the song about a fireman struggling with a worn out 8F in the days of steam. Luckily we had no such issues today!:

Smoke in my eyes

Soot in my hair

Cinders in my shoes

I'm watching a needle falling away

And singing the Eight Freight Blues

Lyrics by Dave Goulder

As usual, thank you all for reading this garbage. I appreciate it. Cheers, Sam...

Please note any views or opinions expressed in this blog are merely personal and do not in any way represent the views or opinions of any other person, group or organisation.