Sunday 27 November 2016

Alfred gets a run...

It's been a few weeks since I took Alfred to Urmston, but today he got to stretch his wheels.

Pictures by Jason Lau. Please click on any one for a larger image.

Prep bays this morning. Keith with 'The Beast', Dave with his Black Five, the Chairman's Rebuilt Scot, and me fettling Alfred. Jim and his 9F haven't arrived yet.

Before lighting up, I 'oil round' all the moving parts. The fine pipe on this oilcan reaches to the valve gear under the boiler, between the frames.

The compressed air blower is inserted in Alfred's chimney to draw the fire after 'lighting up', while I turn on his steam blower to see if there's enough boiler pressure yet to dispose of the external blower

Billy checks out Jim's lovely 9F

Out on the track

Alfred blows off as I fine-tune one of his injectors to feed more water into the boiler and calm things down. The pipe on a stick by the line side is the water supply for topping up his tender water tank.

Dave's Black Five, also blowing off. Steam from the RH injector indicates Dave is attempting to get it to 'pick up, for the same reasons as I did on Alfred, above.

Billy anxious to depart on Jim's 9F, which is also blowing off! Judging by the full load of passengers departure has been delayed while everyone gets on board, resulting in excess steam being generated during the delay, hence the safety valves lifting.

Trevor on the Rebuilt Scot. This one's blowing off as well! Trevor has ordered a Jubilee model from the same source as I have. Both will be LMS Crimson Lake, but his will be named 'Trafalgar' while mine will be 'Warspite'.

Jim tries his hand on Alfred, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Like me, Jim has a soft spot for narrow gauge locomotives.

Ex-BR loco driver Eddie with 'The Beast'

Barry on Dave's Black Five while a young enthusiast looks fascinated by the loco







.

No comments:

Post a Comment